/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12561986]

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations is some overrated shit bros.

[Anonymous No.12561991]

One of the only "classics" I ever binned

[Anonymous No.12561996]

>>12561991
He is basically the Jordan Peterson of that time

[Anonymous No.12562046]

>>12561991
>>12561996
>>12561986
Imagine ruling the world and then getting blasted by a bunch of teenagers on an anime forum two thousand years after you die for something you wrote in your diary

[Anonymous No.12562048]

>>12562046
:DDDDDD

[Anonymous No.12562049]

>>12561996
Bravo

[Anonymous No.12562051]

>>12562046
I am 28. I'm not talking shit about him either faggot. It was boring. OP is right.

[Anonymous No.12562055]

>>12561986
Marcus Aurelius was a boomer. Him and his ilk ruined the post war world that the Greatest Generation worked so hard to build. Fucking 60s

[Anonymous No.12562062]

>>12561996
A failed parent?

[Anonymous No.12562064]

I do enjoy reading Seneca though.

[Anonymous No.12562071]

>>12561996
pretty much

[Anonymous No.12562075]

The problem isn't that it's bad, the problem is directionless youth believing that it's a one stop shop to fix their lives and transform them into stoic ubermensch

[Anonymous No.12562081]

>>12562062
It's not that he's a failed parent, it's that he ironically lacked enough stoic detachment to not give the emperorship to his son, like the previous emperors did. Instead, they identified a suitable successor and adopted him to have him inherit the post and all their resources. Marcus Aurelius broke with this important tradition by appointing his biological son instead of someone actually well suited for the post.

[Anonymous No.12562083]

It's true

[Anonymous No.12562088]

>>12562075
does anyone actually do that though. that sounds more like a "Win friends and Influence people" thing.

[Anonymous No.12562106]

>>12562088
Sure, the first wave of Petersonites to come to this board would rabidly recommend that each other read Meditations.

[Anonymous No.12562127]

>Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love—something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.

>Perceptions like that—latching onto things and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the time—all through our lives when things lay claim to our trust—to lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them.

so deep bro

[Anonymous No.12562134]

>>12562127
Who are you quoting? (unironically asking)

[Anonymous No.12562137]

>>12562075
It is bad. Avoiding your emotions is a one-stop shop for suicide, even if only existential.

[Anonymous No.12562152]

>>12562134
I was going to reply with something as insulting as I could possibly make it, but I guess I won't

the quote is by my boy marcus

[Anonymous No.12562160]

>>12562134
It's Marcus Aurelius. But that nigger is completely missing the point.

[Anonymous No.12562178]

>>12562160
>dude no you just -don't get it-
wew really bro?

[Anonymous No.12562208]

The Meditations are useful for people who already understand Stoicism. Those that don't understand it are likely to misunderstand his points.

>>12562137
Hippie.

[Anonymous No.12562218]

>>12562051
Maybe a bad translation? I loved it, but it is repetitive... I view it as Western Philosophy's Tao Te Ching because he talks about death so much... I reread The Art of War with a new translation and it was much more rewarding

[Anonymous No.12562221]

>>12562137
Completely misses the point, Jesus fucking Christ.

[Anonymous No.12562232]

>>12562178
Yes really. How about you go read a book and stop being retarded.

[Anonymous No.12562244]

>>12562232
>if you don't like this diary that a lot of people like you need to read more (far superior) literature
>he said
>on the board for discussing literature
What books should I read that will convince me I have to like everything I have ever read? Hit me with some recommendations.

[Anonymous No.12562255]

You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

[Anonymous No.12562298]

You guys are idiots

[Anonymous No.12562392]

>>12562298
no, we are intellectuals - it is you who are a midwit

[Anonymous No.12562401]

>>12562244
Just go fucking go listen to kendrick lamar or go watch the new avengers movie. Quit reading altogether.

[Anonymous No.12562405]

>>12562218
See >>12562244

[Anonymous No.12562413]

>>12562401
This is your response to someone not liking the literal "meditations" of an emperor? I'm not a stoic. I never want to be. How do you feel about Mein Kamph?

[Anonymous No.12562439]

>>12562152
>my boy Marcus
Your behavior is shameful and niggardly

[Anonymous No.12562451]

>>12562439
why you throwin shade at me bro
you know it's all love

[Anonymous No.12562650]

>>12561986
It is. It's nothing more than a glorified self-help book. It was even advertised as such during the 19th century.

It's a book that should be read, but honestly there's little there that's revolutionary-- "be one with nature" is something a lot of philosophies espouse.

[Anonymous No.12562662]

>>12562650
Yea but Marcus isn’t writing in isolation. The Stoics were Heidegger-tier autists when it came to language; Nature isn’t the same nature as scientists, hippies or anti-vaxers refer to.

[Anonymous No.12562673]

>>12562244
>t. Drinks soda by the gallon because “I don’t like things that don’t taste good at first and I only drink what I like”

Disliking things is a waste of time; like everything and then pick the best ones.

[Anonymous No.12562679]

>>12562662
Yeah when you phrase it like that this dudes livejournal is pathetic kek. Glad we agree.

[Anonymous No.12562696]

>>12562673
what an embarrassing post. I bet you thought the second bit was clever lmao. So everyone in history has to like marcus aurelius or they are whatever tryhard caricature you can come up with?

[Anonymous No.12562709]

>>12562662
Yes, "nature" is more esoteric in Stoicism, but there are other philosophies that have a similar interpretation of nature, like Trancedentalism and Buddhism.

Keep in mind that I have no particular objections to Stoicism either. I would consider myself a stoic, but it's been so prone to misinterpretation in our current times that I have to call the Meditations overrated simply by virtue of the fact people are treating it as the alpha and omega of philosophy rather than as a starting point.

[Anonymous No.12562749]

>>12562696
Yes. They’re cutting themselves off from something unnecessarily by ruling it out. Read it, go “cool story bro, more important stuff to read” and be on with it. If life pulls you back around to it at some point, you remain open to it being good in some way.

Disliking things is a waste of time and merely a grounds to high five people on the internet.

[Anonymous No.12562765]

>>12562749
You're a fucking faggot and nobody thinks you're interesting.

[Anonymous No.12562770]

>>12561986
Meditations is worth reading for the fact that you get to see the inner musings of not only a Roman Emperor, but also the inner musings of the most powerful man on the planet at the time. However, if you want stoic thought with any profundity you read Epictetus.

[Anonymous No.12562782]

>>12561986
Agreed. I don't know why /lit/ shills it so hard.

[Anonymous No.12562804]

>>12562770
>the most powerful man on the planet
lol *adjusts /lit/ glasses* *prepares subjectivity diatribe*

[Anonymous No.12563014]

>>12562127
>that pic
sometimes people need other people to say obvious things to them, and just because it's someone from the side who tells them something obvious, it works.
>so deep bro
not so deep as big black dildo in your anus bro.

[Anonymous No.12563045]

I'm reading it right now and it's really not super interesting, just a whole lot of >>12562127 . I think I just don't agree with the stoic mindset. What are some good works of Epicurean literature to compare it to?

[Anonymous No.12563080]

>>12563045
>works of Epicurean literature

should we tell him?

[Anonymous No.12563091]

>>12561986
That book completely changed the way I think, thoughts led to actions, and I took what I learned to dig myself out of nihilism and depression. If you didn't find it useful then so be it, but that book is not overrated.

[Anonymous No.12563095]

>>12563080
It's no use, he's retarded

[Anonymous No.12563100]

>>12563080
all I know is that there's a big poem, but the (admittedly minimal) research I've done shows nothing else. Does none exist? If so, bummer.

>>12563095
rude

[Anonymous No.12563234]

>>12563091
accretionist detected

[Anonymous No.12563318]

it's okay

[Anonymous No.12563404]

>>12561996
and that's where I live, you're all losers jesus christ

[Anonymous No.12563410]

>>12562127

sad for u

[Anonymous No.12564085]

>>12562392
that girl is pretty cute

[Anonymous No.12564122]

>>12562255
how can someone write so much and mean so little? The flaw in your argument is that you think your ideas of justice, freedom, pride, and glory are something we hope to manipulate out of Nature. I seek only harmony from Nature and that is all I find.

[Anonymous No.12564148]

He was an emprah, not a writer or a philosophers. Most world leaders arent smart people, just very ruthless and corrupt ones, which makes an ardent stoic like Aurelius a curious blip in history.

[Anonymous No.12564164]

>>12561986
Wait'll you get started on Augustine's Confessions.

[Anonymous No.12564263]

>>12562137
You're meant to deal with your emotions in a reasonable way and not avoid them you silly little man.

[Anonymous No.12564616]

>>12562127
the worst part is the whole book is pages and pages of similar "insights"
it's literally instagram inspirational quote tier, mixed with teenage philosophy

and people eat that shit up just because it has a roman emperor's name on it

[Anonymous No.12565199]

>>12561996
cringe but redpilled

[Anonymous No.12565674]

>>12562208
How to understand Stoicism

[Anonymous No.12565680]

>>12565674
Read Epictetus

[Anonymous No.12565903]

Read Seneca and Epictetus

[Anonymous No.12565949]

Retards in this thread only read books that offer true philosophical enlightenment in a different way every time, I guess. To me, reading the private diary of an emperor, as opposed to reading the words that the usual book buried incel figure wanted the world to read, was interesting in its own.

[Anonymous No.12566104]

>>12562255
>?
>Oh
>!
>CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
>. . .
What a histrionic cocksucker Nitzy was.

[Anonymous No.12567505]

>>12564164
I've tried to read confessions three times
What a snore

[Anonymous No.12567721]

>>12562127
>dude we must live according nature, and that includes me presuming what 'nature' actually is and wishes us to behave as, so basically live according to me not nature lol

[Anonymous No.12567765]

>>12561986
>Stoicism

[Anonymous No.12567791]

>>12567721
>I can't understand natures basic principles
>durrrr

[Anonymous No.12568417]

>>12567791
Lol, please enlighten us all as to what nature’s ‘principles’ are - even assuming nature has principles is egocentric

[Anonymous No.12568478]

>>12568417
>Lol, please enlighten us all as to what nature’s ‘principles’ are

Cf. Biology textbook.

[Anonymous No.12568486]

>>12561986
BASED
>>12561991
i threw st augustine's confessions in the trash

[Anonymous No.12568548]

>>12568478
Cringe, and I’m not even jokin, I literally cringed at that awful awful response. Are you even a real human?

[Anonymous No.12568558]

>>12568486
what did you do to the bible?

[Anonymous No.12568579]

>>12568558
nothing, i have a copy of the dead sea scrolls too

[Anonymous No.12568611]

>>12568548
Science hater detected.

[Anonymous No.12568618]

>>12568548
Your neurosis is not argument, biology has obvious principles

[Anonymous No.12568627]

>>12568548
Are you Jewish?

[Anonymous No.12568653]

OP here. I started with Seneca, Spinoza and Schopenhauer. I've read about 3/4 of Seneca's letters. Maybe reading these authors first ruined Marcus for me. Idk, but he's unironically just blogposting and says shit my dad would say.

[Anonymous No.12568664]

>>12568611
>>12568618
>>12568627
>I learn stoicism from a biology textbook
obvious samefag, but lol

[Anonymous No.12568671]

>>12568664
Consider instead that many people find you retarded