Recently I’ve been feeling like killing myself, but I’ve heard that Camus's works can help with depression and suicidal ideation. Where should I start with him?

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Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:39:33 2022 No.20483732 [Reply] [Original]

Recently I’ve been feeling like killing myself, but I’ve heard that Camus's works can help with depression and suicidal ideation. Where should I start with him?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:40:13 2022 No.20483737 >>20483732 Start with the Quran instead my brother.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:41:25 2022 No.20483743 >>20483737 I don’t mean to cause offense but religion just isn’t for me It all just seems like a joke

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:45:03 2022 No.20483752 File: 929 KB, 1404x2133, 1428374636260.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>20483732 check these out instead

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:48:40 2022 No.20483769 >>20483743 the metaphors are true regardless. At least for the bible, i havent read quran yet

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:48:49 2022 No.20483770 >>20483752 again, I don’t mean to offend, but this esoteric stuff just isn’t for me. I’m looking for motivation, reasons to live my life, that I can hold. Things that are concrete. I can’t escape the feeling that I’m destined to die

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:52:12 2022 No.20483778

Camus’ books are full of his own philosophy: a type of nihilistic existentialism that for a lot of people (and Camus himself of course) is, in a way, liberating. I advise you to start from “The Plauge” one of his most famous novels. If you’re more interested in a philosophical book, try “The myth of Sisyphus”. Sincere good luck for your thoughts about ending things. Wish you the best anon!

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:53:47 2022 No.20483785 not really anywhere to "start", dude. Read the stranger, the fall (fucking cozy as hell, and the plague (just plain great). >t. Camus fanboy since discovering him as a pretentious adolescent check his essays out too

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 18:54:48 2022 No.20483788 >>20483785 dumbass me forgot brackets lol

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:01:22 2022 No.20483816 Why is it so comfortable to decay

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:04:55 2022 No.20483829 >>20483816 not doing anything, no effort, no responsibilty, etc.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:06:02 2022 No.20483831 >>20483770 Then you'll never find what you want. You should question the frame that allowed you to reach such an understanding of meaning.

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:25:46 2022 No.20483904
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>>20483732
Camus only works if you're a Chad. He doesn't really advocate anything either, he's essentially just describing how the world works once you remove God. The concept of the absurd man is a strange one to me, in Sisyphus, he writes a few examples of ways to live with the absurd, but really if you recognise the absurd then you're living with the absurd already, it's inescapable. He makes an argument that to live a meaningful life then you have to live as much life as possible, but then the core of his argument is that life is meaningless anyway and any attempt to attach meaning to it is foolish. I think broadly he's correct in his description of the world, but as self help it doesn't really reconcile.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:35:59 2022 No.20483945 >>20483904 What would help, then?

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:38:07 2022 No.20483951 >>20483945 I wish I knew my guy

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:44:13 2022 No.20483982

>>20483732
Read Sun&Steel, start lifting and boxing, go outside and start manual labor projects. This will help 100% I promise you. Oftentimes our pessimistic ideologies and thoughts are just a reflection of the decay of our bodies. You might still believe these things on a logical level after changing your physical conditions and lifestyle, but likely they wont bother you as much.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:53:13 2022 No.20484024 >>20483982 Yeah so you can be happy and mentally healthy just like Mishima was lmfao

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 19:56:08 2022 No.20484034 >>20483982 I’m not exactly unfit, I lift on mondays and run 50 miles a week, so I think my issue is more mental than anything

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 20:35:55 2022 No.20484218

>>20483945
Don't listen to him. Try out Camus, after all what do you stand to lose?
>Fiction
The Stranger, The Plague
>Philosophy
Myth of Sisyphus

I don't have an ultimate answer for suicidal ideation, since each person is its own story, so I can only give you what you asked: a place to start with Camus. Best of luck my friend.

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 20:46:50 2022 No.20484256

Unironically read some Murakami. Try 'Norwegian Wood' or 'Wind-up Bird Chronicle'. This isn't a meme. Something about Murakami's stories 'stepping outside the world' for a few hours I find to be deeply therapeutic and spiritually calming. Hard to explain. Haters on this board are unironically pseuds.

Anonymous Mon Jun 6 21:08:15 2022 No.20484351
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>>20483732
I've also struggled with suicidal ideation for the past couple of years though I firmly believe that, at least for the time being, I'm getting a grip and moving on from this depressive episode.
Recently, I actually found a copy of Walden in my local book donation spot. The themes in that book seem to reflect my newfound appreciation for simplistic and humble living that I've grown more accustomed too.
The weird thing is, I find, that the more I try and harden my mind against despair the more I am overwhelmed by it. Mainly because by putting conscious effort into my thoughts, actions, and motivations against entropy, despair, and wickedness my mind is constantly racing with anxieties about entropy, despair, and wickedness. Recently, I've looked towards genuinely focusing my unconscious and conscious thoughts to a more liberated free form of joyfulness and genuine appreciation of things (as well as a fair bit of prayer, but I'm a Deist so if that's not your forte then it's not really necessary). By doing this I've found that I genuinely think less and less depressive thoughts and do less things I would consider to be bad, simply because the concept of these things have less a central theme in my day-to-day and more of a chance encounter during my wholesome operations of life.
Cheers.

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 21:15:46 2022 No.20484392 >>20483732 reading Camus made me want to kill myself with how shit it was, so I would advise against doing so as there's better stuff out there

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 21:17:12 2022 No.20484399 >>20483816 >>20483829 Because humans are social animals and if you've been denied this, or worse, can't buy into this, you will rot alive without understanding what is happening to you

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 22:59:22 2022 No.20484800 >>20483732 The Myth of Sisyphus. It helped me with suicidal ideation for a long time. I wish you the best anon :).

>>	Anonymous Mon Jun 6 23:03:10 2022 No.20484811 >>20484399 I think this is correct. I always come undone the worst when I’m socially isolated.

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 01:13:57 2022 No.20485429

>>20484034
Get some love in your life. The pursuit of women and the passions of romance lights my heart on fire. I know this sounds faggy, but it works, at least for me. Camus loved women as well. Major player. Just be sure if you tangle with women you dont do it out of a desire for bragging rights, numbers, body count, all that trash. Be genuine to yourself, and it will show to others. Camus talks about this in his chapter on Don Juan in the Myth of Sisyphus.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:19:44 2022 No.20485735 >>20485429 This is why people say Camus is retarded. I think that you should self harm as penance for offering this as genuine advice.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:23:04 2022 No.20485743 >>20485735 Please don't project, I've never done any self harm to myself, nor will I ever. It stands as my genuine advice. If you dont like it, not my problem.

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:31:59 2022 No.20485788

>>20485429
I’ve been thinking of trying to feel love. In fact I actually plan to meet up with my high school crush this Saturday for dinner. I don’t think she sees it as a date, more of a catch-up, but maybe she’ll want to go out again. I’m honestly questioning if this is even something I should prioritize when I wake up every morning with thoughts of suicide but anything has to be better than living in my own head depressed and never going out or doing anything

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:35:58 2022 No.20485804

>>20485743
>hello it’s me the ancient sage descended from the heavens. Aeons of mystical knowledge course through my body. I am enlightened. I am more than enlightened. I am who the Buddah’s come to when they need help replying to a girl’s text message. Now, hark my forbidden wisdom and you will be forever free of all troubles - earthly, spiritual or otherwise:
>have sex

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:52:44 2022 No.20485867
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>>20485788
Good decision, buddy. Carrying your burden of thought, you should try to lighten them by trying new things. Being depressed is not very fun. It is all meaningless in the end. Why not have fun while you're at it. Enjoy yourself. We all really are gonna die. I think our experiences makes it all worth it, both the bad and the good. Go through all of it with a light smile on your face (pic rel)
I suggest you do pick up Camus. I went with The Stranger first, then read the Myth of Sisyphus, then go on to read more about the guy, then you can finish off the rest of his works. Be warned though, his books are supposed to be uplifting, you might read it differently if you are devoid of some sort of hope that things could really be better.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:54:07 2022 No.20485873 File: 132 KB, 1556x2400, 71P6eSzlNdL.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>20483732 The Myth of Sisyphus It's very accessible

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:56:04 2022 No.20485881 >>20483770 >I can’t escape the feeling that I’m destined to die shit anon neither can I. I've just resolved to hang out in my house and play resident evil until I can get an appointment with a psychiatrist.

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 02:58:50 2022 No.20485889
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>>20483732
Read anything by Dostoevsky, OP. That's the best answer for these kind of threads. I don't recommend Camu since he's nothing more than a giant coper.

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 03:24:10 2022 No.20485988

>>20485867
>Be warned though, his books are supposed to be uplifting, you might read it differently if you are devoid of some sort of hope that things could really be better.
Absolute moron take. The entire point of Sisyphus is that you are supposed to cast away hope because hope is what makes suffering painful. You can’t embrace the absurd while still holding on to hope it doesn’t make logical sense.
>If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?
He brings it up again in specifically the Don Juan section:
> But, furthermore, melancholy people have two reasons for being so: they don’t know or they hope. Don Juan knows and does not hope.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 03:28:00 2022 No.20486005 >>20483732 go watch Sisyphus55's video "On Suicide", go read The Stranger, and if you're still interested go ahead and pick up The Myth of Sisyphus.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 03:54:06 2022 No.20486113 >>20485988 I meant hope for something better than his current sad depressive state, I am specifically refering to OP and his condition. You should try giving people the benefit of the doubt. I'm ESL, my syntax might be wacky.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 04:12:46 2022 No.20486185 >>20483732 Just kill your self

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 16:10:12 2022 No.20488233 the french can't philosophize

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:06:29 2022 No.20488681 >>20483770 lmao he doesn't want to die but doesn't want to find meaning in things outside of himself

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:19:44 2022 No.20488732
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>>20483732
Go for the Myth. Its a very quick read and should give you what you are looking for. Suicide and death was a constant personal issue for Camus, one he managed to circumvent better than any other suicidal artistic type I can think of. It is not a "profound" book, especially not from a philosophical point of view, but it shows the thoughts of someone who struggled with the same issues as you and how he dealt with them.
>>20483770
>I’m looking for motivation, reasons to live my life, that I can hold. Things that are concrete. I can’t escape the feeling that I’m destined to die
Yeah, definitely the Myth. That very feeling and its "ontological" correlate, the Absurd (I put the parenthesis here because from a theoretical point of view for Camus the Absurd is not ontological, as opposed to Sartre) is one of the main issue discussed.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:23:51 2022 No.20488752 >>20483732 Stranger and sisyphus. And idk if anyone here likes Camus that much but he certainly helped me with the same issues you are having

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:24:31 2022 No.20488753 >>20483945 your choices are either religion, hedonism, or suicide

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:28:40 2022 No.20488775 >>20488753 You religious fags are pathetic. Kill thine self

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:29:00 2022 No.20488777 >>20483945 Alcohol and other frivolous distractions.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:31:20 2022 No.20488787 >>20488775 >anon is able to post this hedonist detected, many such cases

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:31:38 2022 No.20488789 >>20488775 give one other solution

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 18:33:26 2022 No.20488797 >>20488753 All of the above at once.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 19:05:17 2022 No.20488929 >>20488797 shhh don’t tell them the secret

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 20:37:22 2022 No.20489377

>>20483732
I mean any of his books really but if you’re looking specifically for the philosophy on suicide stuff then it’s The Myth of Sisyphus.
I thought it was pretty easy to understand on its own terms. He spoils a bunch of endings on other literature but I guess if you’re that fucking depressed you’ve got bigger problems so I’d give it a try.

>>	Anonymous Tue Jun 7 20:41:08 2022 No.20489387 >>20483770 You ARE destined to die. It's going to happen anyway so why not do something else in the meantime instead of rushing things?

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 20:59:07 2022 No.20489454

>>20483904
His point as I understood it was that without gods one is presented limitless possibilities-you are no longer constrained by the layers of doctrine and taboo of organized religion (he wasn’t quite as edgy as Stirner on this point but the general idea of it seems to hold true to him). So instead of not pursuing your goals/desires for some arbitrary reason, you’re free to do whatever you can accomplish with your own ambition and skill. There’s no need to be meek now in the hopes that you’ll be rewarded later, you should live life as fully as you can now, in whatever way you understand that to be. Every day presents an opportunity to find some sort of joy and strive towards a goal you create yourself. This doesn’t mean he’s saying you’ll have a super special life of a rockstar or whatever if you just believe, but he’s saying you can still strive and find worth in the pursuit of living your life’s passions. This opportunity disappears when you die. Basically, you have all eternity to be dead, why not try to create and enjoy something with this random opportunity that you happened into?

Anonymous Tue Jun 7 21:09:30 2022 No.20489500

>>20488752
I’m not gonna hyperbolize and say the book alone saved my life but Sisyphus did come into my life at pretty important tipping point. Felt good to have someone coming from the same place make the case for life with so much passion. Since frankly, layers and layers of logical proofs aren’t really gonna save anyone. Gotta give it some oomph, and that’s what he does.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 00:31:08 2022 No.20490372 Ive never met anyone who was less depressed after getting into camus, usually they just got more pretentious

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 00:34:31 2022 No.20490383 >>20490372 I was less depressed anon I think pretentiousness stayed about the same, couldn’t get a lot worse.

Anonymous Wed Jun 8 00:35:32 2022 No.20490394

1. Read the myth of Sisyphus and realise it’s very good but also written by a man in different world to today
2. Read Schopenhauer and realise Germans knew everything
3. Shoot a mosque because the world is a lovecraftian cosmic rock

Once you’ve found a good way to go out
>>20486185

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 00:40:55 2022 No.20490417 >>20483732 Just do it.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 00:47:57 2022 No.20490448 Don't bother, its cope. If you're beyond cope, there is no salvation.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 01:00:03 2022 No.20490530 >>20490383 well thats good to hear

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 01:24:01 2022 No.20490648 >>20490448 "Cope" as a concept has been refuted

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 01:27:32 2022 No.20490662 >>20490648 Sounds suspiciously like more cope.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 01:52:52 2022 No.20490775 >cope means to contend and strive, and secondarily to overcome >people act like the ability to cope is a negative Fucking zoomers destroying the language.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 02:00:10 2022 No.20490813 >>20490775 cope is only bad if youre deluding yourself into inaction

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 02:04:40 2022 No.20490832 >>20490775 cope means to be forced to accept somebody else's will because you're impotent

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 07:52:05 2022 No.20492081 >>20483770 brothers karamazov, anon. do read it to the end, if you get near it, you will understand why

Anonymous Wed Jun 8 07:57:37 2022 No.20492094

>>20483732
If you're feeling depressed and suicidal, I find more logical to go for comedy to pick you up, not something that will make you sink deeper into thoughts.
When you're done with Camus, maybe try some PG Wodehouse or some other suggestion in same category?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:00:38 2022 No.20492103 >>20483732 do a flip for the lols

Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:00:59 2022 No.20492104

>>20483732
How about instead of listening to retards ITT, you go have a psych workup done and get prescribed a low-dose sample of Prozac. Stop being an edgy adolescent cunt and do something for others, step outside your privileged bubble and experience reality as it is. Life sucks, that doesn't make Camus worth reading or his ridiculous pseud philosophizing magisterial. If you're actually suicidal, you need to go ahead and kill yourself. There is no meaning, no worth, no hope. But I know that you're not actually suicidal, you're just an attention-seeking cunt. Go get medicated, work on your BPD and shut the fuck up.

Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:18:14 2022 No.20492141

>>20483770
I know what you mean I also can't get into anything spiritual and I know it's a downside in ones life. All religions are bullshit to me 100% and I just can't unsee it. The writer I'd recommend is Gurdjieff and before reading him check a TL'DR on him because I still think he is full of shit even though I'm reading him so you might not like him.

On Camus check out Stranger and The Plague. I think The Plague is more relevant to the topic. I'd also recommend Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:19:18 2022 No.20492145 >>20492141 And The myth of Sisyphus of course

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:20:54 2022 No.20492147 >>20492104 cringe

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:21:23 2022 No.20492150 >>20492147 but correct

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:22:43 2022 No.20492154 >>20492150 it's bottom of the barrel advice from a bottom of the barrel person.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:26:21 2022 No.20492163 >>20492154 perhaps, but correct nevertheless

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:28:53 2022 No.20492165 >>20488753 Religion and suicide are just hedonism, but retarded.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:37:36 2022 No.20492183 >>20484351 >for the past couple of years Fucking casuals, I swear to god. Suicidal ideation used to be cool until you plebs came in.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jun 8 08:38:37 2022 No.20492185 >>20488753 >retarded >that requires courage >that requires even more help

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/lit/ - Literature