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/lit/ - Literature

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16876608 No.16876608 [Reply] [Original]

What book(s) permanently changed your view of yourself and the world, leaving you with a sense of having a bit more of a clue than the average person?

>> No.16876623

>>16876608
Start with the greeks

>> No.16876626

>>16876608
Plato. I started w Republic, bad idea, and I found it amazing how he had answers, and still does, to pretty much everything brought up on a superficial level. As I studied more, and I discovered metaphysics and found he had an interpretation to everything, I found him as a good ladder to sift through bullshit. I'm going to read the Bible sometime soon and write out a Christian metaphysics because that's been something I've found solace in seeing at every turn that the Bible had said what I was discovering.

>> No.16876648

>>16876626
Albert Camus thesis on Christian Metaphysics is short and interesting

>> No.16876784

>>16876626
I've been thinking lately that Plato is sort of the prerequisite for any intellectual thought. Like doesn't it sound foolish that most people with political opinions probably haven't read the Republic or even know who Plato is?

To OP I would say Beyond Good and Evil, Geneaology of Morality, Jung, Diplomacy by Kissinger, The Gospels, The Prince. I'm reading Decline of the West now and it might be one to add to the list.

Also learn a foreign language if you haven't. For me, learning German changed my understanding of words and grammar big time.

>> No.16876873

Seneca-Letters to Lucilius.
It helped me in a time when I was at my lowest.

>> No.16876945

Being no-one by Thomas metzinger

>> No.16876948

adolf hitler - mein kampf

>> No.16877037

I like the book The Interpretation of Universal History by José Ortega y Gasset. His lectures on Toynbee's books is a must. In terms of the progress in means of communication, I wholeheartedly believe his critique

>> No.16877543

Sculpting in Time by Tarkovsky
You don't have to watch his movies to understand what he's saying

>> No.16877587

The book of self awareness.
It's not a real book
It's just something I have

>> No.16877590

>>16876948
this, but unironically

>> No.16877591

>>16876873
i came into this thread to say this; you have another in this world, friend.

>> No.16877928

>>16876608
Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Demons
Houellebecq's Atomised

>> No.16877934

Man and technics

>> No.16878066

The Brothers Karamazov
The Plato - Aristotle - Augustine - Aquinas progression

>> No.16878091

>>16876608
The Republic. It finally made me realize I was stuck in Plato's Cave my entire life. Thus started the quest on finally being able to get out of it.

>> No.16878109

Siddhartha by Hesse
Bhagavad Gita
Metaphysics of War
Crisis of the Modern world
LOTR read from a traditional/Catholicism sublimated pov
Introductory western/eastern philosophy material.

>> No.16878299

>>16876608
Culture of Critique

>> No.16878692

any books by Carlos Castaneda

>> No.16878721

>>16876608
Knowledge and Decisions

>> No.16878761

>>16876626
Related, but the work that changed my life the most was Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I used to have a tenuous relationship with God, but after this book I feel very okay about my religion, which is now firmly Christianity. I feel like Lewis' observations of the world around us were so spot on. That's where I would start if you want to read the Bible, very complicated book requiring in person studies and rigorous church attendance for most people to truly get it. Mere Christianity is the perfect starting place for anyone curios, and I read it in an afternoon. Changed my whole world view in a few hours. Lewis' other Christian works are also very good too!

>> No.16878766
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16878766

>>16876608
my diary desu. when my counsellor read it she got super mad at me for writing what I wrote about. it changed her view on me permanently and now she thinks I'm a godlike figure.

>> No.16878778

>>16878766
t. Reginald Barclay

>> No.16878784

>>16876608
Anna Karenina, Nicomachean Ethics, and The Republic, all in the same year.
>>16876873
Good taste
>>16876948
Not so great.

>> No.16878788
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16878788

>>16876608
dis niggas writings

>> No.16878792

>>16876626
Plato definitely changed my thinking but I like the early dialogues much more than the republic.

>> No.16878797

>>16878784
>all in the same year.
Why is this relevant?

>> No.16878803

>>16876608
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Stranger - Camus

>> No.16878804

>>16878792
>but I like the early dialogues much more than the republic.
How so?

>> No.16878818

>>16876608
Will to Power,
Discipline and Punish,
Phenomenology in general.

>> No.16878831

The Republic
Das Kapital
The Brothers Karamazoff
some obscure poetry

>> No.16878855

The Bhagavad Gita. But you probably need prior knowledge/experience to understand it, so it's not really this book alone that changed me. Now I live only for the highest attainment and don't care about anything else since it's all impermanent, transient and meaningless.

>> No.16878862
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16878862

I read this book at just the right time I my life, and it showed me that the questions I had been trying to formulate, the personal struggle I had been grasping, they were already there, and really didn’t give me answers or taught me how the world “works” but showed me a little of myself and what I had been feeling without being able to form the words.

>> No.16878872

>>16878797
It was a life-changing year for me, for many reasons.

>> No.16878890

>>16878872
Oh, I assumed there was some sort of an overarching thread between those works.

>> No.16878952

>>16878804
I like the books for the dialectic methid and I think the use if the method us not as strong in the republic. What he says might be true but the way he arrives at his conclusions is not as rigorous. After reading the book I read discussions on the book and several sources agreed with my feeling. Still a decent book though.

>> No.16878958
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16878958

where do i post my dick

>> No.16878977

>>16878890
Nah, I just read them all in the same year that I had other significant events going on.

>> No.16878994

>>16878977
>I had other significant events going on.
yes...?

>> No.16879000

>>16878952
Interesting. I hadn't yet read the early dialogues.

>> No.16879232
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16879232

>>16876608
At risk of sounding like a fehg: Industrial Society and Its Future. It felt like I had accessed some kind of forbidden knowledge when I first read it. Started going out in the woods more, started fishing and rabbit hunting.

>> No.16879264

>>16876608
The Bible and Nicomachean Ethics

>> No.16879297

>>16878803
>t. Pseud

>> No.16879331
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16879331

>>16876608
My journey started by reading Lucretius and then looking for commentary on it. The author of pic related has a blog where he touched on it and this impacted on me greatly, so I bought his book. I used to be on the New Atheism train but this guy really demonstrated why science needed religion in the early days. These days I'm reading Jung which to me seems like the perfect convergence of empiricism and spirituality.

>> No.16880299

>>16879232
>Industrial Society and Its Future. It felt like I had accessed some kind of forbidden knowledge when I first read it.
same

>> No.16880331

>>16879297
>fake patrician

>> No.16880370

not to be that guy but i value marx for showing that mental frameworks outside liberalism exist

>> No.16881746

>>16876608
Candide by Voltaire. It helped me stop worrying too much about the world around me, now I care more about the connections I form and my craft rather than the world as a whole and idle distractions.

>> No.16881784

>>16880370
Everyone starts somewhere anon lol

>> No.16881817

Anti-Oedipus

>> No.16881828

>>16880370
Marx is definitely worth reading. He only gets a bad name because of the larpers online.

>> No.16881834

>>16876608

The Holy Bible KJV

>> No.16881876

The Big Book of Alcohics Anonymous

>> No.16881877

>>16881828
Why is he worth reading outside a different interpretation of value?

>> No.16882611

>>16881877
He hated gays and niggers and loved guns.

>> No.16882625

>>16876608
Life of Pi

>> No.16882649

>>16877591
This but ironically

>> No.16882673

>>16878862
You live for things that can be consolidated. Where is your substance?

>> No.16883175

>>16876608
the hungry caterpillar

>> No.16883758

>>16878862
But is it FUN?

>> No.16884422

>>16880370
Marx unironically had insightful evaluations of many things. Tards obsessed with either arbitrarily defending or hating the communist aspect give him a bad name

>> No.16884439

>>16878958
In your ass.

>> No.16884444

>>16876608
Notes From Underground
The Holy Bible

>> No.16885220

>>16876608
Decline if the west
Man and technics

>> No.16885226

>>16876608
the mulamadhyamakakarika fundamentally altered my view of all phenomena and entities

>> No.16886294

>>16884422
even seemingly reasonable people lose it all in their weird, nonsensical obsession with WORDS like socialism, marxism, etc. i guess everyone has a blindspot but the mental gymnastics to never look at it reasonably and god forbid favourably are so cringy.

>> No.16886309

>>16884422
I've read that he mentioned that 0% interest rates market that absolute completion of capitalism. What other stuff did he adequately assess.

>> No.16886317

>>16876608
Books by Kierkegaard

>> No.16886327

>>16878761
have you read the abolition of man?

>> No.16886334

>>16879331
>this guy really demonstrated why science needed religion in the early days.
As it does now, since we are still in the early days

>> No.16886453

The elementary particles

>> No.16886552

Either/Or