/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20295078]

Are there good books to read in order to overcome misanthropy? I tend to think that most people are absolute retards and I cringe at almost anything, and it's led me to become quite uptight.
This is a visceral emotional reaction to other people, not an intelligent one, because I'm not smart or better than anyone else at all.
For instance, most people here I actually appreciate. But seeing the average Reddit or Twitter comment, and meeting the average person really does make you think that the world is fucking retarded and doomed.

[Anonymous No.20295083]

>>20295078
I haven‘t interacted with real people i don‘t know in such a long time that i genuinely can not tell anymore if all of humanity is far superior to me and i‘m hiding out of shame or if people are so insufferable and stupid that i retreated out of disgust.

[Anonymous No.20295087]

>>20295083
I definitely think it's a personal failing on my behalf most of the time, because I am very uptight.
For instance, I tend to watch cooking videos on YouTube, and came across this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a63lALX1zzc

Never in my wildest dreams would I review fast food just as a normal guy on YouTube.I would cringe myself into the next dimension and think it a disgusting reflection of my masculinity. But reviewbrah and this guy are doing well at it, they both seem like nice men who are comfortable in themselves.

But then you go on any major social media platform and see how hysterical and retarded people are for the most part, and it drives me right back to feeling disgusted. It's a curse and I'm retarded for falling into it.

[Anonymous No.20295092]

>>20295078
Read about extraordinary people, like Plutarch's Lives and watch weird shit like ballet or extreme weight lifting or moto gp - stuff where you see the absolute limits of human potential instead of a few words someone wrote on social media while taking a shit on the toilet at work.

[Anonymous No.20295096]

>>20295083
Same here. I recall crawling into isolation because I simply couldn't deal with the basic normoid (and women), but after few years I see every semi-functional adult person as far superior to me.

[Anonymous No.20295097]

>>20295078
Unironically start with the Greeks. I rejected it as a meme for years, even before coming to /lit/. There’s a more general reverence for the classics in my country than in, say the UK and the US. It’s not like every Joe Schmoe is reading Plato but most people of average intellect have at least a passing familiarity with the subject and I basically Dunning-Kruger’d (inb4 le reddit) myself into rejecting what the Greeks have to offer based on the simplifications and misinterpretations I had been familiar with, considering them influential but inapplicable to contemporary life. What I mean is that you should familiarize yourself with the history, mythology as well as the philosophy. Copleston on Greek philosophy is a good place to start, from there you can go on to read what interests you. It really helps to put things in perspective and, for me at least, was a life-affirming experience. Some would cynically call it a cope and they might be right but it’s preferable over the bugmannery of my previous life.

[Anonymous No.20295108]

>>20295087
In my experience, people online and people irl are not the same breed at all. Online, it seems very easy to feel contempt for humanity, irl it seems very easy to feel inferior. If i observe the people around me, i usually find that there‘s a whole class of humans irl that simply do not really use the internet at all. I‘m usually intimidated by them since they use their time for things like gardening, hiking and other actual hobbies. Thus the population that does placate themselves online is already filtered for low class behavior to begin with.

[Anonymous No.20295113]

>>20295096
Ouch. In my case i think i started hiding because i felt like i couldn‘t even try to compare and now i‘m probably trying to rationalize my isolation due to shame by telling myself that most people suck anyways so it‘s better to stay away.

[Anonymous No.20295121]

I also think that my decades of isolation have made it impossible for me to grasp where i‘m standing. I have no way of knowing if i‘m an absolute idiot or insanely smart compared to the average human being walking the streets. I fluctuate between feeling like both on a daily basis. It even reflects in things like how i view my cooking skills. Some days i think i can cook like a top chef and on others it feels like everyone is probably more capable than me in preparing even a simple dish. It‘s confusing to exist like this. Maybe humans need other humans just to be able to have a clearly defined sense of who they are and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

[Anonymous No.20295128]

all it took for me was seeing how shit the "educated", atheist, and generally urbanite bug people are, and by contrast, how much better the more humble folk are. it really shines a light on the best of humanity and suddenly even those who are not exactly bright can still stand out like diamonds in the rough despite themselves, you start to see them less as "retards", and you start to realize what life is really all about.

[Anonymous No.20295143]

>>20295128
That's what I don't get. Many of the "approved" and "accomplished" people on Twitter, IE the blue checkmarks in many relevant fields, are fucking insane narcissists with the most shallow sense of self-worth imaginable. It's so embarrassing to the point where I imagine many don't even have self-awareness. But then they're also accomplished? It just doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous No.20295146]

>>20295143
I sometimes wonder how disrespected those are who go public with their knowledge by their peers, like scientist who write books on nutrition or something alike. I bet they are seen as narcissistic attention whores by everyone else who was involved in those studies.

[Anonymous No.20295149]

>>20295078
I think that misanthropic thinking can only be overcome by changing the fundamental beliefs you have. You are now operating on certain axioms, which in all likelihood haven't been challenged sufficiently. Try reading Liber Novus by Carl Jung. He offers radically different way of looking at existence, and I think it's the best book you can read in your situation

[Anonymous No.20295238]

>>20295078
Read Rousseau.
Humans tend towards good, it’s society that corrupts them and makes them evil.
Shitty behavior like materialism, consumerism, violence, narcissism, etc is conditioned rather than innate.

[Anonymous No.20295721]

>>20295078
>I NEED A WHOLE BOOK FULL OF WORDS TO INSPIRE THE PROPER ACTION
these are all the words you need: if you hate everyone so much start killing them, if you won't then fucking kill yourself

[Anonymous No.20295742]

>>20295128
The real redpill is after this stage realising that everyone is shit.

I hate the:
Upper>Middle>Lower
Classes, in that order.

[Anonymous No.20295876]

>>20295721
still wrong, these are the only words he needed:
kill yourself