/lit/ - Literature

>not reading on a consistent schedule in a productive environment
>not taking good care of your physical health through diet and exercise to stay mentally sharp
>not skimming books, including table of contents, references, prefaces, etc., prior to reading them in order to evaluate their value and get invested
>not taking good annotations, tagging important pages, and recalling arguments/scenes in your own words
>not reacting to and thinking about what you've read after you've finished reading
>not enthusiastically discussing the book with your fellow /lit/erati after reading it
>not periodically revisiting classics to remember old insights and discover new insights
>not having your intellectual abilities expand as the result of tackling challenging ideas

No wonder you newfags aren't able to remember the details of the books you've read. You're all fucking lazy retarded poseurs. If you want the ability to the cite the greats on command like Noam Chomsky or Harold Bloom, then you need to put in some effort for crying out loud. Even the most mediocre of people can fill their heads with culture if they put their mind to it.

>>9478194


I just realized that I forgot to mention that it is important to explore the "states of consciousness" that you may have in your understanding of ideas. When do you think best? What does thinking feel like to you? What do ideas "look like" to you, i.e., in what ways do you think about ideas (verbally, visually, sequentially, chaotically, etc.) How do you keep yourself thinking at your best? How do you push yourself to states of higher capacity for thought? etc.

Anyway, here's the booklist:

>AUTODIDACT CORE:
How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler
The Trivium - Sister Miriam Joseph
The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing - Thomas S. Kane

Basics of studying, the basics of thinking, and basics of the structures of ideas which you may think about. A strong studying method and a grasp of the basics of thinking/ideas will show you how to charitably tackle new ideas, help you develop an appreciation for the complexity of ideas, and teach you to reformulate ideas to express them in the clearest ways possible.

>AUTODIDACT CRITICAL THINKING:
Creative and Critical Thinking: W. Edgar Moore
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Basics of the "cognitive" aspects of thinking. What are you doing when you think? How do you take your thinking beyond the limits of your biology?

>AUTODIDACT SELF-IMPROVEMENT:
The Discourses - Epictetus
A Primer in Positive Psychology - Christopher Peterson

Basics of the "psychological" aspects to thinking, i.e., the habits that will help you become a better thinker. You can't think when emotions are impeding your ability to see things as they are.

>>9352081

In case you want more books for the rhetoric and self-improvement side, try:

How to Speak, How to Listen -- Mortimer J. Adler
Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler
The Discourses - Epictetus
A Primer in Positive Psychology - Christopher Peterson

>>9249521

I used to be more social until I got redpilled in politics. This year was perhaps the worst year to get redpilled, since my university is extremely liberal and extremely political. While I never went as far as to become a white nationalist or anything, it instilled a sense of cynical awareness of the corporate-influenced news, I can never return to any popular ideologies floating around. When people are literally crying after the election turns out, I'm simply the odd one out, and I get ostracized for it.

So right now, I'm stuck in a rut with just my girlfriend and our mutual friends that I get along with at a less tryhard university. But I'm disappointed that I can't find make friends at my university or at least network effectively. My childhood was pretty atypical, and I'm surprised I can even get laid, desu. If I had to be extremely honest with myself, though, I would say that I've had okay relationships with people in the past, but my lack of "emotional intelligence", as I understand it, has handicapped them.

So there you have it. Kinda autopiloted alright until my first crisis of schema. And I don't see how I can dig myself out of it. I just want a basic foundation so I can immerse myself in it until I no longer need it.

>>9249535

I always felt that equanimity was the ultimate form of emotional intelligence, since you end up transcending your conditioned reactions to internal and external stimuli. Could you elaborate on why you think emotional intelligence is related to "hedonism"?

>>9216943

I don't see how detailed biographies would help somebody understand the gist of all world history and all of the actors that have shaped it. I'm not even joking with how much I enjoyed Patrick O'Brien's Atlas of World History. Reading it cover-to-cover multiple times as a kid paved the way for me getting 5s on every AP History exam, 800s on the SAT II Subject exams, etc., without breaking a sweat. It was a fucking damn great overview of everything that ever happened, and I'm hoping that there's other books out there that can match or surpass its depth and quality.