/lit/ - Literature

>>9185136
>do I just need to work on general self-improvement, starting with the little things?

>not starting with the greeks

Anon, you are experiencing a religious crisis. You say you were raised Catholic but that faded. Same here, I quit going to church at 12. Family was very upset, but I didn't believe and that was that.

For anons like us who were born into it and became disillusioned, belief can remain a necessary part of our psyche. In my case, I sought to deflect and replace that Catholic certitude with new knowledge by investigating occult practices, alien religions, and eventually nothing. I learned a bit about the world, but didn't find a new home -- I never settled for a spiritual awakening because nothing felt genuine. There was no cultural heritage in me for these traditions.

As an adult some of the following help me recognize a need to find my own way of understanding the world that was compatible with a lack of religious faith. Not moral instruction, just books that may help you understand how human beings have always needed myths, and how faith is a feature of our species:

CG Jung, Man and His Symbols
Easwaran, The Dhammapada & Upanishads
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God (lots of anthroplogical work here)
Joseph Campbell, Hero With A Thousand Faces
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
William James, The Will To Believe
Wikipedia, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy