/lit/ - Literature

>>6412056
Why should laziness be considered an illness or a bad thing?

By doing what you are supposed to do without making up any excuses or looking for some 'cure'. There isn't one. Force yourself to do it or find yourself in conditions wherein you can't afford to be lazy.

That's it anon.

Now, having had finished reading my post, get to what you are supposed to do. Don't do everything at once, start by little. Start doing more as the time goes on. Being industrious is a habit and you can develop one as well, despite what you might think about yourself. If you don't have severe depression or whatever medical condition which makes you lazy as shit, you have no excuses.

why bother

>>6412063
Detrimental effects to mind, body, and civilization.

>>6412066
What if your laziness is not laziness in its traditional sense, but laziness in the sense that you keep yourself busy with brain-dead media (i.e. video games, movies) and your job and you keep putting off "enlightenment" or advancing your understanding for later?
What if you know what you ought to do, yet you still sit around like a fucking animal and waste your life away on empty pleasures like a fucking normie

>>6412056
1. Sleep at night, and for longer than five hours
2. Eat nutritious meals at consistent intervals during the day
3. Spend more time outdoors
4. Feel strongly about something

>>6412086
>implying you're life would suddenly be amazing, IF I COULD JUST DO THIS
Grass is always greener.

>>6412086
I know this feel all too well. Most of the distractions of mine include 4chan, listening to various pieces of chamber music, even after I'm pretty much being numb to it and so forth. In back of my head, I'd tell myself I'd read this novel, look up that information that was mentioned in X book, in other words, I was telling myself I'd do all the things that I truly wanted to, but for some reason weren't doing. I balanced that out by attributing a certain ammount of time to the activities that matter to me, spending less and less time at 4chan. Let's say that I spend four hours at my computer or doing fuck at all. Instead of wasting all of my four hours, I'd waste only three and a half. Then three. Then even less. Up to the point where I can't even be bothered to make myself to do what I want. Well, waste a couple of dollars, you will earn them back. Waste a couple of hours, you won't ever get them back.

Here is something that I aspire to and I think that you would really like as well.

Credo by Jack London.

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

I'd also read this fairly interesting novel, Martin Eden. It's by Jack London as well.

I wish I could have written this better than I did, but I really feel tired anon. I just wanna let you know I know your feels and your concerns as they all sound all to familiar to me. You are not the only one.

>>6412086
If you mean from scratch,
read 10 page one day, 20 pages the next and so on and so on.

>>6412133
>Up to the point where I can't even be bothered to make myself to do what I want.
...NOT to do what I want.

Self fix.

>>6412133
Thanks anon. I'll read it.
Also, maybe it's because I went cold turkey (as in I gave up all distractions instantly and "permanently"), but then I got a lot of itches that I wanted to scratch (and to continue this weak metaphor, I'm on the verge of bursting in a scratching-mania of some sort and making myself even more ill than I was).

My main problem is that, from my point of view, all my efforts could be futile, and I don't really like reading or like philosophy or math, but I try my hardest to stay on track and study them because, let's be honest, one thing certain is that a man that read 100 books and knows at least the greeks will be a lot closer to the ideal than a code monkey that plays wow and watches shitty tv shows all his free time. The latter is just more desirable (until you do it, then a feeling of ennui/satiation comes over and you regret it).

>>6412106
I'm doing those first three more often, in fact, I'm doing quite well.
However, number four eludes me.
How can I just "feel strongly about something"?

>>6412056
Shame is pretty good motivator. Having family members struggling while you lounge around doing nothing. Also shame when people ask what you did on the weekend, or what you do in your free time, or what you do for a living, and you have no satisfactory answer.

Laziness is not laziness at all, but aversion to life, fear, exhaustion... Could be a number of things.

Laziness is what keeps you in the womb of your mother, beneath the sheets on your bed, unwilling to move, dead, not living. Maybe it's fear of doing it wrong in some way or another, of doing the wrong thing, of failure, of putting energy into something that isn't worth it, as if there even was that difference.

Laziness is almost always a symptom and not a cause of a problem. To battle with laziness in order to cure it, might even make things worse. You'd have to find in yourself what is that you are avoiding when you cease to move.

>>6413766
This is why you don't ask /lit/ for advice.

try masturbating.

nike

>>6412056
develop a mantra that you recite before falling back on detrimental habits.

"if i can, and i should, then i will"

>>6413766
A nice thought, but some people actually feel lethargic. The trick to curing your laziness, OP, is to exercise. You don't need to go crazy but go for walks or go cycling. If you eat well and stay in good shape, you'll have energy and won't be lazy.

>>6413878
The "I should" part is seems rather difficult for me these days.

>>6413896
your moral compass is swivelin'

but i know you know you know right from wrong.

>>6413892
I'm not saying they don't feel lethargic, only that this lethargy comes from somewhere and one should pay attention to it.

Movement is of great aid to laziness, mostly because it can show that movement can bring something good or that movement not always brings something bad. This is a belief that the lazy person has ingrained in his or hers unconscious. The fear of life, aversion to movement or change, because of traumatic experiences, repression and so on, all of that emerges as a feeling of laziness and lethargy.

>>6413779
Terrible advice.

My friends and I subscribe to a philosophy called "quit bitching."

You would be surprised at how effective it is.

>>6412056


If you smoke then give it up. You realise you have so much energy when you give up the damn things.

>>6413960
Weed or tobacco?

>>6413948
You sound like my old man.

>>6413896
>>6413878
It's a horrible mantra to have shoulds and coulds.

Always say "I want". Remind yourself that you want movement, otherwise you wouldn't be struggling with laziness (you'd simply live it). When you say "I should", you bring in other people and outside pressure, you make it so a matter of response and once again you deny yourself the power and responsibility to act. Everytime you're developping a mantra for yourself, put it in terms of what you want. Discover what you want and remember it, don't forget it.

So, for instance, if you want to get a project done, but you're procrastinating and being lazy, remember what is it that you want about that project (and this also includes questioning yourself whether you really do!). Of course you also want the comfortable bed, or the procrastinating hours, or you're addicted to the buzz of the tv, but if that's the case you must remember that this proves you can act in favour of what you want to do and that there might be bigger "wants" for you to work at a given moment. So you'll naturally move towards your project and understand that you want it more than you want the comfortable laziness. You'll love the process of working on your project, because you'll remember you want to be there, instead of forcing yourself into doing it and feeling miserable while at it, almost doing it for a reward that will come long after.

Always work on understanding and remembering and developping what you want.

>>6414000
i'm not op. i'm the guy who suggested the other mantra.

dude, thanks. this is true.

Fuck it.

there's nothing to cure

>>6412066
My problem is that I just have spike on productivity and become lazy for months.

Hey these spikes got me an engineering degree but they are short I started a novel and wrote 20 pages in a few days but now Im lazy again, fuck

test

>>6412056
Are you lazier than me, OP? For one of my final exams last semester, the professor gave us an extensive study guide with page numbers and everything. I had two weeks to study for it but I kept pushing it back until the night before the exam. I dusted off my notebook and pulled out the study guide and saw how much stuff was on it and was like, "Fuck, this is too much to study. I'll just go in unprepared and hope for the best." Half an hour before the exam I decided to stay home because I was most likely going to fail both the exam and the class.

I ended up with a D in the class.

>>6414283
the problem is that you're tapping yourself out by working too much in short bursts. you have to develop a work ethic slowly over time. maybe you won't learn to write longer over time, but that's okay, just do what you can each day

>>6414318
you remind me of myself while i was in the throes of a major depressive episode. however, recently ive been feeling optimistic. The key is to start making small changes in your habits. Once you realize these changes are ultimately beneficial and painless, you are more likely to make more. This can be by exercising, reading a prescribed amount of pages each day, or whatever else you'd like to stick your mind to. the point is to commit to something and carry it out

>>6412056
I don't masturbate for a day.

>>6412172
It's best to do what's natural. If you read 100 books by forcing yourself to, you will likely be left with mediocre knowledge in exchange for a lot of hours and pain. Might as well be a hedonistic animal and pwn some niggas on Wow.

>>6412106
>Feel strongly about something
How does one do this?

>>6412056
the very notion of "curing" laziness is in itself lazy.
the only "cure" to laziness is to simply stop not doing what you want/need to do.

You do shit

>>6414283
I found that seeing the word count on the first draft helped me a lot.
I wrote about 3000 words a day for a month. Seeing the numbers climb was fun and working on it consistently made me feel like a champion.

The challenge is leaving behind the words you've written for the new words that will complete the story.
Fuck the rewrite until you have a solid foundation.

Planning on splitting it into smaller books now. The momentum truly helps when you see the pages stack and the story come together as a whole. Then it's polish, polish, polish.

>>6414676
Yes I did that for a few days, well at least to day I wrote some shit I had on paper on the PC (I just found writing on paper much easier, not some hipster bullshit).

I'm aiming for 80-150 pages and I plan to do the editing later when/if ever is all done

>>6412077

Nah, because striving is what causes most/all of the bad shit.

>>6413720
>>6414524
Hate is a nice one, for beginners.

>>6412056
stop smoking so much opium

You can't "cure" laziness (source: I'm a lazy fuck who's just submitted his PhD in a STEMfield and I've got 1 first-author, one co-author in Science, and a few smaller co-author publications. Now I dick around on the interwebs until my visa comes in.)

What you can do is work around it, this is what I do:

1) Make a timeline for everything I try to accomplish. Don't overdo it, don't make it too hard (this you have to learn by yourself)

2) Define specific, small, and relatively easy to reach goals ("Edit thesis chapter 2", "write that one script" etc) and divide the timeline into these goals.

3) Have weekly "deliveries" for each goal so that you don't lose track of time

4) Have someone else to kick your ass when you're feeling sloppy, and someone to go over your "deliveries" with (you don't have a gf, but get a friend, a mentor or even better, a supervisor. Or some weirdo on the Internet)

Motivational speeches and self-help are bullshit, for me the only thing that counts is making a good plan and sticking to it.

>>6412056
Some people just have shitty willpower OP. Like me.

I don't worry though, I get the things that need to be done, done, and that's all I need.

I embrace the Age of The Last Man.

Laziness is just a derogatory word for efficiency. The first guy to let a donkey carry his shit was lazy.

>>6415681
> lazy
>believe in good plans and sticking to it.

Stop masturbating all the time

>>6415681
>4) Have someone else to kick your ass when you're feeling sloppy, and someone to go over your "deliveries" with

tfw no delivery person

>>6413760
>being affected by others

Let's be honest, anon. You know exactly how to cure your laziness, but you want someone to comfort you with snowflake covered linguistics. Get out there and be the man you want to be, not want to dream about.

>>6415633
Take your mediocre understanding of Daoism and blow it out your ass. "Striving" is "bad," yes, but only insofar as it turns people into contrived kiss-asses. Wu wei isn't about doing nothing, it's about doing what is to be done at the right time so as to minimize pointless effort and strife.

>>6415665
I've heard about this a couple times on here.
Does it mean I have to start hating whenever possible and using that hate to better myself?

>>6416136
"It is much more difficult to resist pleasure than to resist anger." (or something like that) - Heraclitus
Yeah yeah, anger != hate, still...

Do what you want to do. You know what it is but you're afraid. Stop irrationally fearing shit and live the way you want to.

>>6416000
>people can magically alter their personalities

>>6416473
Not magically but if you put effort into acting differently and stick to it then you will start behaving that way naturally.

You are what you repeatedly do.

I thought of an idea for a piece of software where you could input text that you wanted to read and it would layout the text to look like a 4chan page with replies etc

Could be a good way to read stuff.

cocaine

>>6416534
Too bad we don't get to decide what we repeatedly do.

>>6416766
Yeah, we do. You've decided to be a victim. I've decided to follow my will.

>>6412056
there is no cure, you're fucked

>>6412056
Exercise

>>6413720
>>6414524

read more

>>6416771
We can't help following our will, anon. Yours work may out better for you than some of others, but just makes you lucky.

>>6414524
If only I knew how.

Force yourself into a situation where you have to actually do things to survive.

>>6414318
I know this feel too well, I've done this in 3 or 4 classes.
I'm not even dumb. And I don't think I'm depressed.
But it pisses me off that I've done it. Fuck.

>>6416136
I find disgust a great motivator.

>>6412068
This. You can cure laziness with apathy

>>6415633
No, weak feelings toward the external is what causes bad things to be bad.

>>6415665
I've already had well over a decade of hate, ~7+ years of well-focused hate and, as of late, I've become a lot more peaceful.

Got any other ideas?

I remind myself that my existence is as ephemeral as the leaves on a cherry blossom tree and that I will never get a do-over if I piss away all my time doing stuff like shitposting on 4chan

Bye bye!

>>6416766
You decide to repeatedly shitpost on 4chan.