/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11603406]

For those who are legitimately well read, what would you say you've gotten out of all your reading?

[Anonymous No.11603417]

>>11603406
The understanding that nothing ever really changes except technology. Human nature is a real and verifiable thing, and once you understand it nothing that happens ever surprises you again. This removes the feeling of urgency at trying to change things which cannot be changed and generally makes your levels of anger and anxiety reduce very dramatically.

I think it also lets you be more productive, whether in practical areas or in art or whatever else, because you have a clearer understanding of what you are and how to go about directing yourself into the tasks you would like to accomplish or just enjoy.

[Anonymous No.11603426]

>>11603417
>Human nature is a real and verifiable thing
Are you able to describe how you see human nature? I really liked your post.

[Anonymous No.11603431]

>>11603417
Read Don Quixote

[Anonymous No.11603437]

>>11603426
It isn't like a central theory, it is a bunch of answers to specific questions about how people act, and why they act that way. Much of it I freely admit is nothing but pattern recognition that could be influenced by my personal biases and life experience.

Human nature is not an immutable essence, but rather a set of traits and dispositions which exist in averages among populations, evolved for a variety of reasons and mediated by the particular culture and situations you find yourself in.

On some specific topic I couldreply with what i believe but in general it is a massive web of learned association, gleaned from my experience, from literary fiction, and from the small amount of biology I have read that deals with evolution.

[Anonymous No.11603446]

>>11603437
tell me things that you think are worth saying about love, please.

[Anonymous No.11603448]

>>11603431
what's the relation to what i said? it's about an insane man having adventures right?

[Anonymous No.11603463]

>>11603406
stop browsing 4chan

[Anonymous No.11603481]

>>11603446
On the one hand, love is something that we evolved for a number of reasons. Intense romantic infatuation, for women, serves to make them hyper attracted to men with good genetics or the signals thereof. The calmer attachment kind of love for women makes them attracted to men who can provide for them. Often these feelings can be confused in one man for them. For men romantic infatuation serves the purpose of making them pair bond with a woman to help raise the children, providing for them such that they have a better chance of reproducing. Men do not get pregnant so they don't have the dual approach women have. Love parents have for their children has much more obvious evolutionary causes and I don't think I need to explain them. Platonic love serves to promote social cohesion and reciprocity. These are not hard and fast categories and are often confused with each other, also different people exhbit different amounts of each, different strategies as it were, but they are all present in neurotypical people.

On the other hand love is a transcendent experience that reaches into the heights of conscious intensity. It overwhelms the mind to a degree that the world is quite literally transformed into something resembling a living work of art. Depending on your philosophy this can mean a number of things. For me it is the expression of the deep creation embedded in all love, the merging of two separate conscious entities into a single thing, which is infused with a transcendental meaning.

War and Peace by Tolstoy exhibits both these conceptions of love in a way, though Tolstoy's idea were not the same as mine in a lot of cases. The relationships Natasha has with everyone around her throughout her life run the gamut almost of love, her parents and family, Andrei, Anatol, Pierre, her children. Andrei's experience of falling in love with Natasha touches on the transformative nature of ethereal love, as his view of reality dramatically alters as he falls in love, tied to a transcendent notion which is represented by those two moments he looks up at the sky- one on the battefield, one after the conversation with Pierre. What i see here is that Pierre's concern for him reminds him of the transcendent and pure realm of meaning, and reawakens the sense of merging in him. The battefield is a similar moment but abstracted to world historical events of unfolding. Finally Andrei forgiving Anatol and loving him sincerely when he sees him in pain is a direct example of this ultimate root of love that is not held by cause and effect, or evolutionary logic, but rather encapsulates them within a deeper understanding of how reality unfolds, associating them with a transcendent meaning that explains them both.

[Anonymous No.11603547]

>>11603481
>On the other hand love is a transcendent experience that reaches into the heights of conscious intensity. It overwhelms the mind to a degree that the world is quite literally transformed into something resembling a living work of art.


you may have people criticize you since this /lit/ and everyone think they're a genius. regardless of all that, i really think what you're saying here is beautiful. thanks anon

[Anonymous No.11603607]

>>11603406
A deeper level of understanding as it pertains to human complexity and people in general.

[Anonymous No.11603610]

>>11603547
I'm happy you found something in it, those are my honest opinions about the subject.

And criticism is always a good thing, or you would never learn at all. You should always be ready to abandon your beliefs imo. They should never be attached to you.

[Anonymous No.11603643]

>>11603481
/lit/ is going shit all over this because they are virgins who refuse to go outside and actually try with anyone, but I found this a very well thought out, beautiful post anon

[Anonymous No.11603680]

>>11603643
people might have problems with a lot of what I said and that is normal, my opinions are not to be held as eternally valid, it is good when other voices are put into the idea.

and thank you for finding it good, you aren't the same anon who responded before are you? you both have frogposts is the only reason i ask

[Anonymous No.11603723]

>>11603406
Cancer.

Oregon

[Anonymous No.11603736]

>>11603417
I think this is a good and healthy ethos to be governed by. My only amendment would be that human nature is not static and our waking life as humans is a bat of an eye in evolutionary terms. So we're change-blind to how our pre-wired nature is modulated by our interaction with our social and natural environment, ultimately cementing a different type of being into our consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11603751]

>>11603406
I learned to read when I was like 3 years old, and never stopped. It is a central part of me now, just as much as eating or breathing - and being so, it's pretty much impossible for me to say what it has brought to my life: I can neither separate any single parts of the whole, nor understate the impact it's had on me in general.

Simply put, it MADE me.

[Anonymous No.11603755]

>>11603736
>ur waking life as humans is a bat of an eye in evolutionary terms. So we're change-blind to how our pre-wired nature is modulated by our interaction with our social and natural environment, ultimately cementing a different type of being into our consciousness.
i agree with all this anon, i thought i had incorporated it in my posts, but i often express myself badly

[Anonymous No.11603789]

>>11603481
>On the other hand love is a transcendent experience that reaches into the heights of conscious intensity. It overwhelms the mind to a degree that the world is quite literally transformed into something resembling a living work of art.

This felt like something Proust would write. Nice post anon kun.

[Anonymous No.11603794]

>>11603406
A reason to live, which is way more than I can say about pretty much everything else.

[Anonymous No.11603813]

>>11603794
What's that reason?

[Anonymous No.11603819]

>>11603813
Reading great books.

[Anonymous No.11604012]

>>11603610
>And criticism is always a good thing
if it's not post-ironic shit posting i agree

>You should always be ready to abandon your beliefs imo. They should never be attached to you

constantly tell people i know that attaching beliefs to your identity is degrading to the everglowing infinites of the soul. so i agree anon i just wanted to let you know

[Anonymous No.11604047]

>>11603417
>>11603437
>>11603481
Screencapped, good show.

[Anonymous No.11604055]

>>11603680
No, I'm a new anon

[Anonymous No.11604059]

>>11603481
Good post anon, made me think.

[Anonymous No.11604080]

>>11603481
>the merging of two separate conscious entities into a single thing, which is infused with a transcendental meaning.

What you're saying reminds me of a few beautiful lines in Donne's Ecstasy.

When love with one another so
Interinanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are compos'd and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.

[Anonymous No.11605066]

>>11603448
It's about not giving up. What you're saying indicate that you've given up
>>11603481
I'm kinda disappointed by your answer, anon. Cook me up a better one please

[Anonymous No.11605086]

>>11603406
I can now stroke my fragile ego by posting on /lit/

[Anonymous No.11605134]

Principally pleasure derived from reading.

It has helped me to be more introspective and to reflect on myself, my experiences, and to understand my emotions and those of the people around me. As a result I've become a more compassionate person. It's also exposed me to a lot of rich concepts and worldviews I otherwise would have remained ignorant of. Improved vocabulary.

That's about it.