/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11835480]

will this cure my existential crisis, /lit/?

if not, what book will

[Anonymous No.11835548]

bump

[Anonymous No.11835557]

It can orient you but you still need to find the meaning for yourself.

[Anonymous No.11835581]

>>11835480
Only if you're part of the 6 gorillion, in which case being a renewable energy ressource is a god way to give your existance meaning.

[Anonymous No.11835622]

>>11835581
hahaha wow epic win my aryan brother, lets go back to /pol/ shall we

[Anonymous No.11835633]

>>11835480
It was helpful for me when I was like 17 and going through my angsty phase.

Like the other anon said, if you're hip to the JQ you're not gonna like it. You basically have to take the holocaust at face value or it's going to annoy you the whole way through. It's kind of ironic that he chooses logotherapy to name his theory as a jew.

It basically just boils down to the fact that if you have a meaning in life you can suffer anything and remain happy. He says that happiness if a byproduct of meaning and that by reaching just for happiness you are missing an entire step and shortcutting it. He uses examples from the concentration camp he was in to prove this as he states the people were still kind and somewhat "happy" even though they faced death because they had meaning.

[Anonymous No.11835887]

>>11835480
You won't find it anywhere. Much like the ponderings you'll have wondering when that girl will text you back. Is she still interested? Why did she ghost me? It agonizes you and makes you yearn for her even more. You'll realize that no message is a message in itself and you'll slowly learn to accept things as they are. You'll work on yourself and live independently with your own means and understand you never truly needed her to begin with.
That you are marvelous all by yourself.

[Anonymous No.11837069]

>>11835480
The Foundation for Exploration will induce an even more intense existential crisis in you. If you can get out of it using the book's teachings you will become an ubermensch.

[Anonymous No.11837171]

>>11835480
If you're an empathetic or sympathetic person, it might make you cry a bit. It'll certainly give you a lot to think about. Then, at the end, you'll put it down and have a new, pretty effective tool to overcome day-to-day avoidable lamentations. It's good, and I think about it fairly often several years after I've read it, but it's not going to give your life direction. Nothing will, to tell you the truth; not religion, not external identity, certainly not community. Now that we're too clever the only recourse you have for existential needs is yourself. Rainer Maria Rilke had an interesting take on this in his Letters to a Young Poet. He conceived of those benign human projects and expressions, such as creativity and compassion, as part of an underlying communal-spiritual mission to 'build God'. That every time we act in concert with our human brothers and sisters we add another piece to some world-soul. Something to that effect, anyways. I'd recommend it if you're looking for hope and light, he's a very passionate and sensitive thinker.

[Anonymous No.11838500]

>>11837171
>Nothing will, to tell you the truth; not religion, not external identity, certainly not community.
But all three will give you a meaning to life. Be it religion which are the destilled out life rules by millenia of people, your identity with your work or interests which can make you break new gound or most mportantly community anf family.

Existantial angst is nothing more than the realisation of ones mortality and the subconscious understanding that you need to do somthing to prevent eternal death. It easiest and most fun solution are kids, which is your DNA living on in people which you help nurture. There is a reason people with offspring don't have those kinds of existancial angst. They can die in peace knowing that they will never fully die as long as their children reproduce. It's really no rocket science. You are a biological creature which has been culturally inotrinated that its main reason for existance is hedonism if any at all and than people like OP wonder while their deep brain makes them go insane out of angst when they start to pass their most fertile window.

Once you have children the only angst you will have is that for their survival and wellbeing, a useful ansgt, one which you can easily overcome through your own deeds, which also will make you a better human. Everything will be put into perspective and you will no longer think about the silly things which makes you angsty today, because they lost their power over you.

This is eternal life in the son of god for an agnostic. Don't throw it out because of some politically motivated anti-natalists.

[Anonymous No.11838540]

>>11835480
that book is solid, the sequel, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning is much, much worse, so stick with the one pictured there

[Anonymous No.11838571]

>>11838500
>There is a reason people with offspring don't have those kinds of existancial angst.
Anon, I hate to burst your bubble...

[Anonymous No.11839165]

>>11835581
Haven't even read the book: the post

[Anonymous No.11839188]

>>11839165
I have, I would even make a pic if I haven't had thrown it into a public bookcase years ago. But it's really only whinning about all the ills of the lolocaustTM and how he dealed with it. Only really helpful if you're a brainlet which had such an easy life as to never encounter any difficulties on yourself and nees to fee bad for a meme event.

[Anonymous No.11839191]

>>11835633
So "He who has a why, can endure any how"? Nietzsche already told us.

[Anonymous No.11839945]

>>11839191
Yea it’s nothing new. It’s existentialism with a Jewish bend to it. It glosses over the harder truths Nietzsche talks about.

[Anonymous No.11840250]

>>11838500
>But all three will give you a meaning to life

That may be the case for you, but for many they're insufficient. A year ago I had a faith (Buddhism), a strong family background, a knowledge and connection with my heritage, friends who loved me, and a beautiful, loving girlfriend whom I adored. But without a firm internal locus of self-evaluation and understanding, without embracing my radical freedom to let my inner voice out, I felt small, repressed, and unseen. I feared my nature, thought that I could be harmful to the people who loved me, and thought that I was undeserving of the faith traditions I identified with as well as my partner's affection and support. As a result of only being able to understand my existence through my anxieties about how I could negatively affect others, I was incapable of experiencing the joys that those other parts of my life could afford, and as a result harmed them. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I mean to say is that without a well-ordered solitude there is no meaning to be gotten from the external, as any external interaction is the contact of solitudes brushing against one another and sharing their inner-lives.

[Anonymous No.11841205]

>>11835480
This >>11835557
It certainly helped me a lot, but it won't solve your problems FOR you.

[Anonymous No.11841221]

>>11835480
The Bible

[Anonymous No.11841252]

>>11835480
Beyond Good and Evil.

[Anonymous No.11841265]

just find meaning bro

[Anonymous No.11841336]

>>11841265
I find a lot of meaning by just being myself -- it's pretty lit.

[Anonymous No.11841438]

>>11835480
>literally just a psychologist who made up his own theories
Read the Greeks, then read the saints, then read 19th and 20th century philosophers. Come to your own conclusions.

[Anonymous No.11841509]

Take the final black pill.

[Anonymous No.11841772]

>>11835480
Viktor Frankl and Primo Levi are the only two holocaust survivor worth reading. Everybody should read them.

[Anonymous No.11842699]

>>11841772

[Anonymous No.11842737]

>>11841772
>Paul Celan, Tadeusz Borowski, Imre Kertész, Jean Amery, Jerzy Kosinski

[Anonymous No.11842761]

>>11841509
>>11841509
i just browsed this guy's wiki and he appears basically correct about everything, especially about how this world is god killing himself, and nothingness will redeem us

[Anonymous No.11842776]

The Gathas

[Anonymous No.11842789]

Epictetus, Ecclesiastes, and The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind helped with mine op

The tl;dr of it all is trying to make progress toward being a better person and fulfilling your place in the world is helpful. Money/lust/vanity/your "legacy" is worthless.

Your children could be drug addicts who scam their grandparents for money, no matter how well you raise them. You still need to raise them well, because that's what a good person does.

[Anonymous No.11842923]

>>11842789
>Your children could be drug addicts who scam their grandparents for money, no matter how well you raise them.
Eh. Not really.

[Anonymous No.11842949]

Being No One by Metzinger.

[Anonymous No.11842965]

>>11842923
>Commodus
>implying he was even Marcus' son