/lit/ - Literature

it's Gondolism. be a silent and graceful observer and don't take things too seriously, rejoyce in the beauty of this world.

>>14083203
>Optimism Anonymous 10/30/19(Wed)07:20:50 No.14
I do not know about non-fiction books, but you might want to read Rilke's poetry.

>>14083203
I see no value in being optimistic when you're doing nothing useful. Its good to reward your body with mental optimism once you finish a hard work, or even if you finish a book and contemplate on it, but casual optimism is for fools.

>>14083229
Is it any more foolish than casual pessimism?

>>14083203
hello friend im really quite happy for you, this sort of aesthetic ejoyment is something i relate to very much as well and is generally what keeps me going in life

i will say first of all that this is not just a matter of reading + discursive knowledge; try to keep a healthy lifestyle in general to maintain this feeling, i can't tell you how many times this feeling has denigrated into anxiety for me because of slip-ups in lifestyle e.g. not sleeping properly at all

as far as book recommendations go, here are a few

kierkegaard - works of love
schopenhauer - world as will and representation vol 1 (particularly part 3, this is normally represented as a particularly pessimistic book but part 3 has helped me a lot in life, especially with regards to this feeling you talk about. read the whole book!)
spinoza - ethics
holderlin - hyperion
plotinus - enneads
nietzsche - the gay science, the birth of tragedy
montaigne - essays
general mystic stuff - read the other neoplatonists, meister eckhart, maybe henry corbin for works on islamic mysticism too

good luck friend, go on walks often, and maybe even download that dérive app to force you into new routes

>>14083264
>try to keep a healthy lifestyle in general to maintain this feeling
This. Diet too. Diet was the best thing I've done for my mental health. If I don't eat my whole oats in the morning I feel like shit, even if I replace it with a different form of fiber or grain I still feel like shit. Link related funnily enough mentions Optimism, Aristotle and eudaimonia.
https://youtu.be/hBbTuKlN10Y
>as far as book recommendations go, here are a few
I'm not OP, but thanks anon. I was already interested in many of the authors you mentioned but have yet to read them. I screencapped for later use.

>>14083264
>>14083300
I've actually started dieting fairly recently, it might be related to that, it barely crossed my mind. Regarding these books though, are they difficult? Or, to phrase myself somewhat less sloppily, are any prerequisites required or expected?

>>14083300
>>14083423
yeah diet is super important. i think this is one of the big things I got from spinoza's ethics, the parallelism of mind and body means that you can't neglect either one, and they each have parallel effects. i would recommend to think quite generally about the movements of your body; taking walks; hiking; exploring new places; engaging in a sport (or even something like dancing)/working out; stretching - these are all things that will not only keep you healthy but will, in parallel fashion, have residual and explicit effects on your mind too. simple meditation is also something that will help to retain this feeling, this is something which neoplatonists, mysticists, buddhists etc. would infinitely recommend

also to >>14083300, you're welcome, they're all fantastic books imo

>>14083423
the kierkegaard work I think is something you can engage with pretty directly without any pre-requisites. the only thing you should know is that kierekgaard is writing from a christian perspective though I definitely think you can apply his teachings even if you are not a christian

as for schopenhauer, i would say an elementary knowledge of kant would be helpful, you don't really need to read kant in full but knowing the basic gist of transcendental idealism will help. knowing about plato's theory of forms/ideas will also help as this is what schopenhauer discusses in part 3

for spinoza, the only philosopher you need to read beforehand is descartes but if you already know the gist of what cartesian dualism is about then you can dive straight in

the holderlin book is a novel so there's no pre-requisites there; i know you preferred non-fiction but I think this is the one novel that perfectly fits much of what you talk about

plotinus I would recommend having some knowledge of plato beforehand, particularly the dialogue parmenides

you can dive into the gay science straight away, but for the birth of tragedy I think it would be immensely helpful to have some knowledge of the greeks, mainly those on the fiction side e.g. homer, sophocles, aeschylus etc., though it has these pre-requisites I think the birth of tragedy would be a good read for you, here we have early nietzschean ideas of life being justified only as an 'aesthetic phenomenon'..

montaigne you can read straight away

for general mystic stuff I think having read plotinus will help but I feel you can dive into a lot of other mystic works straight away anyways, so feel free to jump around and read any of these

i hope this helps :)

>>14083558
oh yeah, as for difficulty more generally, I think the plotinus work is probably the hardest to read/understand. many of the others are quite lyrical and poetic in nature (kierkegaard, schopenhauer, nietzsche, holderlin) and so make for much easier reading. kierkegaard and schopenhauer especially, for me at least. style is the physiognomy of the mind... you can see how kierkegaard and schopenhauer really felt inside through the lyrical way they write. on the other hand, the mystic stuff can be hit and miss imo, it really depends on how you can relate to what they say from within, but seen as though you are talking about these feelings in the OP, I think you would be able to absorb them nicely. mysticism and neo-platonism is all about non-discursivity! the language is merely pragmatic, it is all about how it makes you feel inside

>>14083558
last time i tried to read plotinus was when i was 3rd y on high school after finishing plato like you said and my head wasnt able to comprehend it
should i give it a try once again?

>>14083593
how long has it been since then? yeah I would say give it one more go, though perhaps this time you should supplement it with intros or secondary readings before diving into the enneads proper.

try -

nature, contemplation, and the one by john n. deck

reading neoplatonism by sara rappe

If you really want to grow a pair, start taking cold showers. Gives you a big energy rush, is healthy, and makes hot showers on the weekends feel more rewarding

>>14083629
4 years
i finished only the first ennead
i wouldnt really care but it still haunts me after all these years that i both were sleepy while reading on beauty and that i didnt get it all or rather that it was all in so tight package i couldnt absorb it at the time at once yeah it sucks
will look whether they are avaliable here
>>14083643
i do and i it doesnt do shit with me, i got used to it

>>14083657
i wouldn't worry about it, especially if you read it early in your philosophical career. the enneads is a supremely difficult text, i normally tell people to skip the neoplatonists after reading the greeks and to come back to them later because they're so hard. the only reason I came to the neo-platonists myself is that I found that they act as pre-cursors for many modern philosophers whether that be the non-discursivity of philosophers like heidegger and deleuze, or the philosophers of immanence like michel henry, laruelle, badiou. in any case, it should be easier to read for you now, good luck!

>>14083264
This is good stuff from what I’ve read of it.

If you want a more literary perspective on this, I’d recommend Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”.

>>14083558
>i hope this helps :)
It did, thank you very much.

bump

Always forgetting Epicurus
Seemingly on purpose

>>14086498
what'd he say

>>14083203
take the utopian pill

Heliopolis and Eumeswil by Ernst Jünger