/lit/ - Literature

I feel stoicism works best for introverted people who are generally apathetic. If that is you, get into stoicism. It will change you.

What do you consider good?

what do you mean by good?
morally righteous?
enjoyable?
abstractly agreeable?
be more specific

>>4718074
>>4718071
sorry, it is a bit of a loaded question.

Morally righteous I suppose. At the moment I'm simply looking for balance. Most of my thoughts and actions seem devoid of all humanity and I'm living a dead life.

What do you want to do?

history and philosophy section of zeno.org
>b... but i cant into german
well tough titties

>>4718204
Aka Jesus before he was born

>>4718113
Sorry, OP, moral realism has betrayed you. Just do whatever you want as long as you don't prevent others from doing the same.

>>4718048

Siddartha

>>4718222
Arguably the first monotheistic religion.
The most torturous afterlife for those who don't cross the bridge.

>>4718302
No fuck that, if they can't defend their right they don't deserve it.

Read the Analects and the Dao De Jing, get modern versions of both

The Chinese believed a good person was a Confucian at work and a Daoist at home, which meant while working a man was exerting all his energy for the betterment of his lord and ensuring the well being of others while at home he was more relaxed and allowed events to occur more or less as they will

>>4718048
Thoreau and Emerson

>>4718072
what texts do you recommend for stoicism?

>>4719688
Meditations. Also Senaca's letter to a stoic

>>4719688
Epictetus

>>4718048
>read Adorno's Minima Moralia
>tend your garden

>>4719688
http://www.constitution.org/rom/epicdisc1.htm#1:01

>>4719716
epictetus was a bad-tempered fuck. aurelius is much more gentle and empathetic, i'd recommend him instead

>>4719812
By all accounts, Aurelius was just as bad-tempered. People who knew Aurelius called him "irascible". I get what you mean though, his book is very genial--just don't confuse the book with the writer.

Epictetus is caustic, but means well. A tough-love kind of teacher.

>>4719812
>epictetus was a bad-tempered fuck.
What makes you say that?

>>4719843
Not that guy, but have you ever read him?

He calls his students "idiots" and other such things.

>>4719832
you're probably right... the way they write is what i had in mind

>>4719856
"Slaves" (too?) All part of the "tough-love" methodology, apparently.

So for stoicism it's usually Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus. There's lots of hues to it.

The Bible, by Jesus Christ

>>4719872
Walk the walk and talk the talk kind of tough love. No room for correct social etiquette, call a spade a spade (based on people's actual actions, not the racist generalizing shitlord way).

>>4718048


>>/lit/thread/S4540014#p4540469

>>4718439
Do you even Aten?

>>4722095

>shitlord

see, you missed reddit by not taking the left at albuquerque

>>4722095
>using shitlord seriously

>>4722113
>>4722103

Who let the shitlords in? OP, don't take advice from shitlords, this is the best advice on living a good life you will ever receive.

>>4719516
That's rich coming from someone who's browsing 4chan. If civilization fell apart the second you're done reading this post, you think you could keep hold of your rights? Or is this some sort of inferiority complex - "I'm shit and I don't deserve anything ergo no one who is like me deserves anything."

>>4722138


please use a trigger warning before using 'shitlord', my brother has had chronic colitis due to his experience in the service, he'll never have a normal life again, and such a term belittles his struggle.

Not OP but in a similar boat.

I'm 26, but due to medical problems that postponed my college education, I'm a senior in college now. I've read the Stoics and really like them, especially Epictetus, but as hard as I try, I don't really feel like I'm improving. Maybe because I don't have a real teacher to both reprimand and encourage me. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm looking for a book that will break me out of "yeah, that would be ideal" and help me to actually feel confident that it's possible for me to improve, because I have a horrible habit of getting discouraged and giving up.

There are no rites of passage in our modern world. I'm in my mid-twenties and I feel like a child. I've never had any reason to see myself as someone with any power or ability to accomplish anything.

Anything at all that I can read to help with this?

If you want to start reading ethics and pick your own school of thought for living a "good life" I highly recommend "Conduct and Character." It's a collection of essays on the pros and cons of 9 distinct schools of ethical thought with their origin in classic/older philosophy and then modern takes and rebuttals to all of them.

I feel like steppenwolf might be a good thing to read for you.

>>4724019
Not OP. But, is that book related to stoicism that book, but haven't read it because I want to get more into stoicism but the people I know who like the book don't give me the impresion

>>4724052
Sorry, I messed up so wrong in that post.

But, is the book related to stoicism? I have it, but haven't read it because I want to get more into stoicism, and the people I know who like the book don't give me the impresion it is.

Being privy to the transcendentalists i would say that either Emerson or Whitman would be ideal.

The way Whitman speaks to you as an individual and apart of the whole is inspiring to the last drop.

>>4718113
Whitman 'leaves of grass' is my bible

>>4724057
I would say that the book deals with overcoming stoicism, and the human soul and human condition, the amoral times we life in and coping with them as a righteous person.

Steppenwolf deals with Hesse trying to find what is really right, using the created character in this book called Harry Haller, or H.H. (Hermann Hesse). In a world filled with conflicting morals, Harry finds himself lost. The book explores his adventures when he comes to meet a young woman (who also appears as a man in the end, making her more of an alter ego of Hesse, another aspect of his personality) who tries to make him see that there is more to life outside his narrow stoic ideals.

>>4724171
>overcoming stoicism
But stoicism is entirely about living a virtuous life.

This book is great, especially if you're interested in Stoicism.

>>4724177
Well it just means that there's more to life than just that, but it doesn't mean becoming an evil person.

I'd say the book is also about finding humor, not taking things to serious, except what is rightfully taken to be serious, the holy, the eternal, but all the other rest, especially all the shit that's going on at the moment, the zeitgeist and it's time bound definition of strict morals, is not.

For me, reading this book was a mirror of my own soul, a tremendously good read, and reminded me to just have a good laugh now and then, to not fall into despair and suicidal tendencies.

>>4724205
I'm >>4724057
>For me, reading this book was a mirror of my own soul, a tremendously good read, and reminded me to just have a good laugh now and then, to not fall into despair and suicidal tendencies.
>to not fall into despair and suicidal tendencies.
Thanks anon, just convinced me to read this book. This guy >>4724171 almost made me throw the book out of the window, haha.

The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle

Is there such thing as a book that solves innate laziness?

>>4725204
In my case, best one for that was Marcus Aurelius. There's a few quotes I repeat myself whenever I feel lazy that always do the trick, but I don't know if it's for everybody.

IN THE morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be
present- I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I
dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for
which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to
lie in the bed-clothes and keep myself warm?- But this is more
pleasant.- Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all
for action or exertion? Dost thou not see the little plants, the
little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put
in order their several parts of the universe? And art thou unwilling
to do the work of a human being, and dost thou not make haste to do
that which is according to thy nature?- But it is necessary to take
rest also.- It is necessary: however nature has fixed bounds to this
too: she has fixed bounds both to eating and drinking, and yet thou
goest beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient; yet in thy acts
it is not so, but thou stoppest short of what thou canst do. So thou
lovest not thyself, for if thou didst, thou wouldst love thy nature
and her will. But those who love their several arts exhaust themselves
in working at them unwashed and without food; but thou valuest thy own
own nature less than the turner values the turning art, or the dancer
the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or the
vainglorious man his little glory. And such men, when they have a
violent affection to a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep
rather than to perfect the things which they care for. But are the
acts which concern society more vile in thy eyes and less worthy of
thy labour?

>>4718048
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10741

>>4725204
Laziness is a virtue that protects you from the superfluous.

>>4724331
seconded

if youre not already familiar with this philosophy it should give you some profound insight

>>4719632
>Ferbotene Stadt bei Nacht.jpg
>F

>>4723958
>no rites of passage

yeah I here you. Dont think a book can change that though

>>4723958
I've always felt dynamite cunts like Stirner and Nietzsche to be most empowering.

>>4725602
Any tips on where to start with Nietzsche, then? I don't think Stirner will help me because I'm not a total nihilist.

>>4725611
Stirner is only a total nihilist in the sense that he says the rules are made up and it's okay to be who you want to be, do what you want to do and that you are incapable of anything else anyway so you might as well enjoy it. Stirner is really quite a cheerful guy and the best philosophical remedy to misplaced notions of guilt and shame.

As for Nietzsche, I would start with the ones where he is the 'Nietzsche as we know him', so the works from The Gay Science onwards read chronologically except for Thus Spoke Zarathrustra which is kept for last and possibly skipping the ones on Wagner.

So:

The Gay Science
Beyond Good and Evil
On the Genealogy of Morals
Twilight of the Idols
The Antichrist
Ecce Homo
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

But there are also good cases to be made for other orders, since Nietzsche himself saw Twilight of the Idols as an introduction for example. I never feel quite content recommending any particular order as the definitive way to go regarding Nietzsche.

The Conquest of Happiness - Bertrand Russell

You can't get life experience out of books. Something awful has to happen to you to truly experience life, like one of your parents dying

>>4725817
>implying there is such a thing as untruly experiencing life
>implying an event's veracity increases to the degree it has emotional impact

>>4726203
An event's veracity and its emotional impact are the same.

>>4726236
prove it

>>4726207
Then why does saying '1+1=2' leave people apathetic while '1+1=3' gets them flustered?

Checkmate, nationalists.

Read some Ralph Waldo Emerson essays. In particular, check out Nature, The Over-Soul, and Self-Reliance.

Another good essay is The Will to Believe by William James.

>>4718048
Complete Works of Plato

Walt Whitman.

There's only one book to read.

>>4726236
The same reason saying God exists gets an atheist flustered and saying God doesn't exist gets a Christian flustered.

Any books that will help me believe in myself?

>>4725649
This. Stirner and Nietzsche pretty much provide the only reasonable rationale for living 'good' lives, if by good you mean enjoyable or in doing justice to oneself.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

Good luck OP.

>>4731532
>tfw I read Stirner for uni and now my life has changed drastically for the better.

Dont read, meditate. Its that simple

>>4732125
>reading Stirner for uni

Must be a great university. He guy is usually given a complete silence treatment.

>>4732496
College is already a big exercise in Stirnerism in the first place.

>>4732166
>>>/x/

>>4732500
How so?

>>4732496
Ehh the uni is not that great but the teacher sure was. It was an optional assignment where you could choose from certain ideological primary sources and I chose Stirner because he was so little touched upon.

If you follow my five stage plan of ultimate morality, for only $39.95 per stage, you will soon be an exemplary human being. All you have to do is sign up on my website, www.superethics.com. You will surely find the path to moral enlightenment if you join :DDDD

>>4733135
>www.superethics.com

Holy shit, that site actually exists.

>>4733079
Now you'll forever have a weapon against ideology. On the other hand, you'll have a hard time getting spooked even if you want to.

>>4731477
OP's pic

>>4719856
didnt idiot mean non-citizen (or citizen not interested in political life of the polis) for greeks?