/lit/ - Literature

I have absolutely zero confidence in my capacity to ever write something good. If I had any talent, that would’ve been clear by now.

Hi lit, I am looking for some books that could give me a good grasp of philosophy, I am not interested in overviews (I've read plenty of those), just want a short list with actual phil, preferably a list of works that require little to none previous knowledge and covering most of Western philosophy (I am highly interested in analytic philosophy btw). I need to decide between studying physics or philosophy in uni and I already dropped out from another major, I don't want to fuck it up again frens.
I know we have /adv/ for these kind of things, but I want to know your opinion.

>>13904403
I was diagnosed Schizoid but never suspected a thing; even when knowing full well what SPD entails beforehand. But after some white coat told me I had this "disorder" it just clicked. Like oh right maybe it's not really normal to never yearn for connection. It just never occurred to me that that was what I had. I knew 'something' was off but I thought it was autism or something like AVPD. So I really doubt anyone could suspect they have a personality disorder and get their diagnosis right. Or maybe they do suspect correctly and I was just in denial. Who knows? Not me.

>tfw fell for the "you only live once, just get a degree in what you're passionate about" meme

what the fuck can I do with my degree in English literature, /lit/? am I completely fucked?

What the fuck, /lit/, I thought you all are (self-)diagnosed as (personality disorder) schizos?
You are supposed to do everything you can to avoid contact with others and revel in solitude.
I feel sorry for you healthy personality morons who feel oofy when you don’t have the ‘essential’ attention and literal human contact.

Redpill me on the literary benefits of sleeping few hours a day (or not sleeping at all).

Most great authors seemed to have weird sleeping schedules.

Is it more worth it to study literature or philosophy in uni? Not in terms of job prospects, but “intellectual fulfillment” or whatever. Are literature classes more helpful, or philosophy classes? Which of them give you more information that you can’t find outside of the university? I know that you would have to break this down on a class by class basis to be totally accurate, but in your guy’s experience, what generally have you found? Have literature or phil classes been a waste of your time/have you found that you could have just read on your own and come out learning the same thing?

Which of the two paths would lead to writing a better novel?
1) Living a life of experience, and writing and reading on the side
2) Living a more boring, sedentary life, and spending more time writing and reading than you would in the first scenario

>>10966927
I can speak from personal experience to the effects of this kind of thinking. Any time you try to get funding for a writing project, for example, you basically have to make an argument for how the work is doing """important work""" connected to some (implicitly hyper-progressive) social cause.

The idea of art for art's sake or art as a primarily aesthetic enterprise--rather than a utilitarian empathy-training tool--is under pressure. Amusingly, it's the people always harping about institutional power who now wield it to see that there are material forces pushing their agenda.

I just enjoy handwriting with my pen. What can I write? I have no imagination and I'd like to write anything while I'm reading some novels. Any ideas?

All the good ideas come when I'm outside or about to sleep. And as soon as I get to my computer or a notebook to try to type something I become numb and my brain turns off.

Can I Play With Madness

Is anyone else sad the way that art and literature seems to be progressing? I'm not going to be the guy who says that "art is dying" or whatever. But, there seems to be a sort of purity, sanctity to previous works of art, like the works of Shakespeare or Chaucer, or even the KJV that is impossible to recapture in the modern age. Literature has become so self-conscious and ironic over time, and it seems impossible to navigate the literary waters of the time and to still come out with a work of art of the same kind as the ones I just mentioned. I'm not saying that art is worse, though some might argue it might be. I'm just saying that there's this tone of almost divine sincerity that seems to be missing nowadays, and I really find it to be a shame. Because, of course, to try to write like Shakespeare right now would also be to make a work of art that is antiquated and out of date. It's almost like I wish I could travel back in time to when literature was first starting in order to avoid the restrictions/requirements/standards of the modern literary environment.
Anyone else have this feeling occasionally?

What is the best literature about embarrassment and extreme shame?

Honest question: How are you guys so comfortable with sharing your work here, where anybody can just come along and plagiarize it?

My whole philosophy on life, is that I don't think people should have a problem with people; they should take issue with the way behavior effects the order of the world around them. People aren't like computers, people are delicate and not based on hierarchies of intelligence and information; we're prone to mistakes and totally lack of judgment. A lot of times there's really no clear right or wrong for anything. That's why I find it so difficult to get along in a world where people basically base their judgments off of the primitive parts of their brain, like fear hatred and disgust; those aren't connected to higher thinking parts of the brain, responsible for things like rational thinking. So when I live in a world where people have problems with other people, just instinctively, not as though there's any reason attached to it; not based on any sort of hierarchy, or really any intelligence at all, but instead based on base emotions; I start to feel paranoid that I'm living in an orwellian sort of society. In a way I am.
Because generally accepted points of view in general aren't based off of reason, they're based off of group think. And people hold judgments based on superficial levels, not based off of any sort of complex means of intelligence. It's like, everyone is goldstein, and everyone is big brother, combined.
Because we can't know what other people are thinking, we can never judge people fairly. If everyone knew exactly what someone else was thinking, all the time, no one would ever hate or judge anyone. That's this core problem that I struggle with every single day, and it's like cataclysmic war inside my head every day, trying to deal with all these issues.

>tfw I bought so many books but I'm a slow reader

What are your thoughts on Franz Kafka's work?

I personally find his literature stranger and creepier than, let's say Guillaume Apollinaire's works, which is why i'll also make a thread about him on /x/

"One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die."

>dad beats him
>dad wonders why son is still scared of him
>son writers letter
>mom is a pussy

Should I read The Castle even if I don't know German? What is the best translation? Is the quality of the prose lost in translation? I don't mean to meme, but I've had bad experiences with translations in the past and don't want a repeat.

Is anyone else sad the way that art and literature seems to be progressing? I'm not going to be the guy who says that "art is dying" or whatever. But, there seems to be a sort of purity, sanctity to previous works of art, like the works of Shakespeare or Chaucer, or even the KJV that is impossible to recapture in the modern age. Literature has become so self-conscious and ironic over time, and it seems impossible to navigate the literary waters of the time and to still come out with a work of art of the same kind as the ones I just mentioned. I'm not saying that art is worse, though some might argue it might be. I'm just saying that there's this tone of almost divine sincerity that seems to be missing nowadays, and I really find it to be a shame. Because, of course, to try to write like Shakespeare right now would also be to make a work of art that is antiquated and out of date. It's almost like I wish I could travel back in time to when literature was first starting in order to avoid the restrictions/requirements/standards of the modern literary environment.
Anyone else have this feeling occasionally?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9WvQ3eBlIE

Wie ein hund!

>haven't talked to a woman who wasn't family beyond business transactions in more than a month
>spend hours on /lit/
>no friends now that I graduated from uni and moved back home temporarily
>constantly ruminate on the huge whole in me that is my ex and our relationship
>only respite I have is in a couple good memories of short fling I had and proceeded to fuck up
>reading is the only thing that's giving my life any sort of cohesion
>if it wasn't for literature I think I'd just about fall apart

So why do you all read?