/lit/ - Literature

Tell me about it. I'm reading the bible right now, halfway through leviticus and it hasn't helped in the least.

what gives you guys the impression that books can cure depression anyways?
the self-help industry really has done a great job marketing-wise...

>>11432884
Well did you read him?

read tolstoy

>"recommend me books for whatever mental anguish is bothering me"
>a semi-illiterate teenager who has only ever read "art of the deal" tells you to read something stupid


haha

12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson is the best shot against depression you can think of.
It's a meta-analysis of depression. He does not bullshit you like self-help books. He analyzes the entire thing from an outsider perspective. How can I put this with words... It's like the perspective of people from 4chan discussing it, except for he is a clinical psychiatrist and knows what he is talking about. He's not trying to sell a product, you know what I mean?

>>11432987

think you can out-meme me?

think again

>>11433019
This book should be banned it's so atrocious.

>>11433019
not an argument

What books will cure my phone addiction?

Books aren’t magical potions you cunts they can’t cure your ills you’re better off getting actual treatment

>>11433030
12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson once again
One of the chapters is about feedback loops. He explains to you how bad habits are born.
For example: your phone addiction began when you started innocently checking your phone at situations when you should not have done that. You did it because you knew you had control and it just seemed so harmless. But that creates a loop in your brain. You checked your phone at the same time in the next day, when you still had control. And at the next day too. Fast forward several hundred days, maybe thousands doing this, and here you are. Now you no longer have control. It might be impossible to point when exactly you lost control, but what matters is that the loop begins while you still had control.
In order to break the loop, you need to simply not check your phone. Loops work both ways, it can be a good thing, so the longer you stop checking it, the easier it becomes.
If you are interested, pick up the book and read more.

Reading Dosto made me re-question whether there was a god or not. I was settled on “no” but after I read his stuff it it made me view belief in god differently. Granted I settled on “no” again but I certainly understand the arguments for the existence of god much better now and don’t disdainfully write them off as just “stupid Christians” like I used to

>>11432884
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and all the golden age Russians are real life. No gimmicks, no clever witticisms, no edgy dramatics, no charm or anything but pure hard and brave look at real life as it really is.

This DFW essay on Dostoevsky lines up a lot with what Hemingway had to say about the golden age Russians, and both ring true to me

Moby Dick is one of the only other books I've read that feel like such real life when reading them

>>11432884
>cure depression
Dostoyevsky is too good for you

>>11433085
link to excerpts of said essay

http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2013/04/david-foster-wallace-dostoevsky-wasnt-just-a-genius-he-was-finally-brave/

>>11433095

Thanks desu. Was just about to ask for a link.

>>11433067
More specifically, what was it that resonated with you?

>>11432884
As fedora edgelord should I read Dosteovsky?

im like super depressed i bet its chemical i just dozed off and woke up mad depressed, weird

>>11433165
it already passed, that was weird, good thing i didnt kill myself in the last two minutes

>>11433150
yes

t. fedora edgelord

>>11433064
This just seems like common sense.

>>11432884
Just kill yourself

go to a doc and get a prescription for a SSRI to help with legitimate depression, side effects are minimal and they generally really help after 2-6 weeks of taking them.

Not worth all the waste hours of lying around, not concentrating and so on due to a chemical inbalance in the brain

>>11432987
You can't logic yourself out of depression and no amount of advice will help you.
>>11432884
Just go to therapy and shop around until you find one you click with fuckwit.

>>11433237
Not him, but while there isn't a purely mental line of reasoning that one can use to escape depression, the establishment of a daily ritual and productive habits can go a long way toward alleviating the daily drudgery.

Am I wrong or have the number of posts looking for the cure to depression increased a lot?

>>11432884
>he didn't read The Brothers Karamazov, cured his depression and converted to Christianity

>>11433714
Lot of /r9k/ people have been migrating here.

He only worsened things desu because his answer is always in religion but since he can't convince me to become a Christian I'm just left thinking that the cure simply doesn't exist
I haven't read BK yet though, only CP, NftU, The Idiot and Dream of a ridiculous man.

What's hist best book if I want dem Holy Ghost feels?

>>11433714

depression rates will soar in a post-Christian society

>>11432884
how about this: stop being a little bitch

>>11432884
why in the fuck were you listening to /lit/?

>>11433064
This seems like bullshit. Theres obviously some thought or fear behind the addiction that needs to be changed.

>>11432884
>>11432970

I recently read The House of the Dead and though the setting is somewhat bleak, I found some sense of gratitude and pleasure from seeing in the characters so many familiar traits and attitudes. Recognizing that there are some fundamental similarities between all humans from vastly different eras, countries, and cultures could, indeed, alleviate depression.

>>11432954
You need to read the new testament, the old testament is depressing for the most part, it's all about how people can never live up to perfection, they are swayed by their own temptations.
Then you reach the new testament and it's how God became man so that man may become like God.

>>11432954
>he didn't start with NT

>>11434735
Has less to do with Christianity and more to do with why we're in a post-christian society to begin with.

>>11433714
>>11433750
>>11434735
That's cause it's summer, fags. Depression and suicide posting also increases during Christmas/new years though

>>11433085
>Dostoevsky
>no edgy dramatics
the absolute state of burgers, falling for muh deep russian soul meme yet again

>>11433150
You might as well, since the typical Dostoevsky reader on 4chan is an inverse fedora edgelord, like >>11433738

Watch jordan Peterson and tedx motivational talks. Unironically.
Literature is art and art isn't a very practical remedy to depression according to my experience

>>11433085
Are Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy the only “golden age Russians” which you have read? “No clever witticisms” definitely doesn’t apply to Pushkin or Lermontov, and “no gimmicks” doesn’t apply to Gogol. Also, this: >>11434971

>>11433064
>how do I cure an addiction?
>stop doing the thing you are addicted to (because reasons)

Not even disagreeing, I just find it funny that it's really that simple

>>11433067
There's nothing to settle for, as you're not living in 19th century and we have the answer.

Does anyone actually enjoy literature here?
>>11435067
>>11434976
This is no better than /b/ discussing it.

>>11435101
So sorry, I will adjust myself to your discussion standards:
those russian, man...*stares meaningfully into the distance*...their prose is just... *makes a gesture signalling thoughtfulness*... something else you know... so sincere, so straightforward, it... *smacks lips*... has this aura about it, you know...*vapes*... after reading Brothers Karamazov I went to a mass once, and it was wild, dude...

>>11435101
They’re not even saying it’s bad. It seems that they just want to clarify someone’s harsh oversimplification

>>11432884
You fell for the meme. Read Camus and Kafka instead.

>>11435130
Congratulations, you’ve managed to perfectly capture 99% of non-Russian fans of Dostoyevsky.

>>11435130
>and he called me an edgelord

>>11432884
>>11432884
Read while also doing other activities to fight depression like therapy, maybe temporary medication, exercise, and dieting.

Read anything that makes you both think and feel. Depression makes it harder to both think and feel and great literature helps you think and feel. Proust, Dostoevsky, Hesse and William Blake do this for me. Or have a stack of literature above, and some poetry, and some philosophy, and you read a little poetry, then a little philosophy, then a little literature, and so on. As long as you both think and feel, you will be supplementing the mental and emotional toll that depression takes on you.

>>11432884


IF YOU ARE DEPRESSED THEN READ A BOOK CALLED GET UP AND DO SOME EXERCISE YA BLOB.

if you are too fat to run, then walk.

Listen to an audio book while you walk.

The Culture of Critique.