/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19244605]

In the last decade I have only read literature of a pessimistic and nihilistic nature.

[Anonymous No.19244635]

>>19244605
So..did you at least have fun?

[Anonymous No.19244656]

>>19244605
Good for you I guess.

[Anonymous No.19244690]

>>19244605
why aint you killt yerself yet?

[Anonymous No.19244717]

> In the last decade I have only read literature of a pessimistic and nihilistic nature.
and?

[Anonymous No.19244798]

>>19244605
Based

[Anonymous No.19245239]

>>19244635
I'm ensnared by a looming sense of comic pessimism.
Reading philosophical and literary works of a pessimistic, nihilistic, or defeatist nature is, at best, cathartic.

[Anonymous No.19245247]

>>19244717
I would rather live as a depressive than falsely as a pawn of affect. At least the former grants me a sense of authentic being.

[Anonymous No.19245253]

>>19244635
I'm ensnared by a looming sense of cosmic pessimism.
Reading philosophical and literary works of a pessimistic, nihilistic, or defeatist nature is, at best, cathartic.

[Anonymous No.19245267]

>>19244605
I don't blame you

[Anonymous No.19245276]

>>19244605
can you list what you have read?

[Anonymous No.19245279]

>>19245247
>I would rather live as a depressive than falsely as a pawn of affect. At least the former grants me a sense of authentic being.
You are inside a comfort zone.
A place where happiness is "impossible"
Why?
You FEAR meaning.

[Anonymous No.19245635]

>>19245276
To name a few notable books off the top of my head
>Cioran: Heights of Despair, Trouble w/ Being Born"
>Schopenhauer: World as Will Vol. 2, Studies in Pessimism
>Zapffe: The Last Messiah
>Ligotti: Conspiracy Against The Human Race
>Benatar: Better Never to Have Been
Open to recommendations, preferably post-Schopenhauerian pessimism

[Anonymous No.19245650]

>>19245635
Also heavily influenced by terror management theory, so have read numerous psych papers related to that topic

[Anonymous No.19245734]

>>19245279
We can hopefully agree that suffering is intrinsic to life and that man a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy. Even when these needs are satisfied, all one obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to them but abandonment to boredom.
Both dissatisfaction and boredom are conditions of meaningless, so either way, our lives turn out to be meaningless. Down deep we all know this.

[Anonymous No.19246175]

>>19245734
You're correct. Let's hope this is transitory mental illness and not reality. Or at least there will be moments where we imagine it isn't like it is, and really believe it

[Anonymous No.19246244]

>>19246175
There are times where one can attain a state of "rausch", categorized by Nietzsche as one of the more powerful of experiences possible for human beings.

For example, when an aesthetic phenomena stimulates such a state, the individual is vaulted into a higher mode of being, one characterized by power, strength, and an intoxication which mirrors the excitement of sensuality.

This ties into Zapffe's notion of sublimation: a fourth remedy against the pain of existence. Sublimation differs in kind from the other three remedies in that it is a matter of transformation rather than repression. Via sublimation, the individual harnesses the large amounts of energy associated with being overcome by the pain of living, and utilizes such energy to fashion creative works of beauty.

Taken from: https://academyofideas.com/2015/12/nietzsche-zapffe-beauty-suffering-nature-of-genius/

[Anonymous No.19246276]

>>19246175
>>19246244
As an aside, I do believe I suffer from melancholic depression.
It is only logical that I have an affinity for philosophical and literary works of a pessimistic, nihilistic, or defeatist nature.

This raises the question of whether we have a choice in which philosophy we subscribe to. Is it of our own accord or a matter of our predisposition, whether that be genetically or environmentally conditioned?

[Anonymous No.19246324]

>>19245734
what forums does Ligotti frequent?

[Anonymous No.19246367]

>>19244605
Any recommendation?

[Anonymous No.19246463]

>>19246324
Ligotti.net

Maybe he lurks on 4chan too because he said in an interview that there is minority of his readers who live their mom's basements and he highly sympathize with them.

[Anonymous No.19246476]

>>19246324
I wrote this. Essentially pieced together excerpts from Conspiracy Against the Human Race and personalized it.

[Anonymous No.19246499]

>>19246367
Start with Ligotti
I recommend anything in >>19245635
The Schopenhauer Cure is also worth reading

[Anonymous No.19246531]

>>19246324
>>19246476
The writing in its entirety if interested. I cover Schopenhauer's metaphysics, ethics, and how these relate to cosmic pessimism.

https://pastebin.com/m4H4VaZh

[Anonymous No.19247053]

>>19246531
ah, nice.

i like the classically pessimist writers (Schopenhauer, Cioran, Zapffe, Leopardi, etc.) because they help concretize a certain familiar mood i’m familiar with but i’ve never understood why we have to treat the normative side of their work as some kind of unavoidable truth. if the Will is all there is, blind chance and the brutality of meaningless nature, why do we necessarily have to be pessimistic (or optimistic for that matter) in the face of this? if anything, shouldn’t we then conclude that we are free to represent things as we wish? to frame “meaninglessness” as something inseparable from suffering seems to just be the flip-side of the old naïvete the pessimists were trying to break free from. we can make of this meaninglessness whatever we may and to make a bleak horrific grayness of it and nothing else at all seems to me the most pitiful way to live. the pessimist account isn’t some kind of brute fact, it’s just another myth, as as i said, the obverse of the optimist’s.

[Deep&Edgy !pSkjEcB9sQ No.19247072]

>>19245635
You'd probably like Eugene Thacker's garbage

[Anonymous No.19247296]

>>19245734
Where is this from?

[Anonymous No.19247499]

>>19245635
after an entire decade of reading nothing but pessimistic lit, all you can come up with for recommendations is 5 of the most commonly discussed books on /lit/?

[Anonymous No.19247535]

>>19247499
I was thinking the same thing. In a decade I would have killed myself on top reading most of the pessimist canon and writing my own philosophy book.