/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3480830]

has literature or philosophy changed you in a practical and observable way?

Or are they just a form of escapism and entertainment?

[Anonymous No.3480844]

Twilight, The Hunger Games, and 50 Shades of Grey taught me not to give women any respect.

[Anonymous No.3480843]

yeah i feel like a better person now, and like i understand things around me with a lot more clarity. reading is cool, though i hate people who fetishize reading as if the words are more important than what they're struggling to say.

[Anonymous No.3480845]

it helped me overcome some pretty crippling self esteem issues and start doing the things i want to do, with a goal in life.

[Anonymous No.3480860]

Of course it did.

[Anonymous No.3480872]

>>3480845
>with a goal in life.

what goal?

[Anonymous No.3480880]

I suppose it has probably helped me expand my vocabulary a little bit.

[Anonymous No.3480903]

it has changed what i talk about at parties and what i think about while i'm going to bed. also helps me bullshit essays if i have to write any.

[Anonymous No.3480911]

Literature through the examples of good and bad people taught me to be a better person.

Philosophy made me think more critically about things, makes me more doubtful, and gives me an unwarranted sense of self importance + ability to bore people while hanging out with my twenty something friends.

[AnalCrust !m9jxTLhLcw No.3480921]

>>3480830
Studying anything remotely related to ethics SHOULD change you.

>implying you're not psichologically too weak/damaged.

>>3480844
Eh... I can't blame you...

[AnalCrust !m9jxTLhLcw No.3480929]

>>3480830
>>3480830
Studying anything remotely related to ethics SHOULD change you.

>implying you're not psichologically too weak/damaged.

>>3480844
Eh... I can't blame you...

[Anonymous No.3480931]

philosophy helped with:
- critical thinking
- analysis
- higher order logic
- separate facts and myth in my own received beliefs, values
- prioritize research and research questions in my field
- identifying and eliminating unnecessary sources of anxiety, depression, etc
- understand the arguments and beliefs of others

the list goes on, its really endless. philosophy sharpens your thinking and opens you up at the same time.

literature helped me with:
- vicarious experience (understanding others)
- vocabulary
- common ground between myself and others
- explorations of certain humanistic themes from someone else who sat down to think about them. for example joseph heller experienced, thought about, and wrote about war. now i dont need to fight in world war ii to gain some perspective or insight into what war is like; joseph heller gave me some of his own thoughts and experiences

so overall in life it has been indispensible for communication and social skills. i can talk to anyone, understand them, become their friend. i can work with co-workers more easily. when i go on dates i can ask the right questions or reflect on our conversation to conclude whether or not this girl and me have potential.

[Anonymous No.3480937]

ya but it also lets you know that nothing really mattress, and all your goals are trivial and transient, just like your problems

and pretty much life is too long and slow

[Anonymous No.3480939]

It made me jaded and introverted

that's practical

[Anonymous No.3480940]

>>3480931
>separate facts and myth in my own received beliefs, values

yeah this

[Anonymous No.3481011]

Philosophy has helped me stop procrastinate since all the basic philosophical entanglements intrinsic to procrastination have already been resolved.

I use to procrastinate all the time but now I hardly ever just wander off and think. My thinking is now more rigorously organized and starts and completes itself in tackling concrete, practical tasks.

Everything is easier to read and understand since 99% of all thinking is essentially thinking the same. You can "see" farther in the logic space of things. You're always 3 steps ahead.

Procrastination and "deep thoughts" are merely amateurish manifestations of rigorous thinking. The "philosophizing" of the people consists of ad hoc stillborn attempts to scale the Absolute which inevitably result in the retracing of one's own well worn paths.

There are no practical instruments that can measure the benefit of a stringent study of philosophy as opposed to regular, organic, spontaneous thought. The Endowment effect means that people who have studied it for a long time will say that it was useful.

It was my destiny to study philosophy. I can't imagine myself not having taken the path of thinking that I did. Philosophy chose me, as it were.

Fiction has brought to me the greatest joys that I have ever known. The characters that I have encountered in select tomes have provided for my soul unmatched spiritual friendship and intellectual communion. The collection of iconic narratives that constitute the inner fabric of a culture and civilization is, after all, essentially literature.

[Anonymous No.3481025]

>>3480872
i want to build my own house, work in information networking and be a father of the beast we're going to create in the coming years.

[Anonymous No.3481026]

It's kept me from killing myself.

[Anonymous No.3481033]

>>3480830
“As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing--not art, not sex--more than going to the movies. ” - Gore Vidal

What is life, after all, but escapism from the certainty of death and annihilation? What good is money and accomplishment if not to grant you access to the best forms of escapism and entertainment, a pretty girl in the flesh and pure cocaine, a mansion in Venice and a fleet of private jets?

[Anonymous No.3481046]

>>3481011
>all the basic philosophical entanglements intrinsic to procrastination have already been resolved.

To which works and/or thinkers/writers are you referring?

[Anonymous No.3481080]

>>3481011

Are you a virgin?

[Anonymous No.3481123]

It made embark on a shitty career path that will probably result in me either unemployed or teaching english in asia in a couple of years.

[Anonymous No.3481128]

I think it makes my life worse

[Anonymous No.3481129]

>>3480830
It made me realise "I" don't really exist.

[Anonymous No.3481133]

>>3480830
Philosophy teaches you how to use reason as a tool to do whatever you want. Be it mind games, fucking with people, exerting your power over them, getting them to do what you want. Which is why politicians do undergrad philosophy, then law.

[Anonymous No.3481196]

>>3481129
> "I" don't really exist.


you exist, unfortunately, but not for long

[Anonymous No.3481198]

To ask if something as broad as literature or philosophy changed me in a practical and observable way is just to pose a question that doesn't make sense to me. It is not observable because I can't get outside of it to look. Because they made me who I am, along with all else, parts of my life. For as long as I act and think, I'll carry them with me. There is no before literature in my life, so how would you expect me to say how it changed me? What I learned through one fairy tale is more than all that I've got wasting my seconds of life watching a commercial ad on tv or being this masochist that I am to post in this shitty place. A sharp tongue, a cathartic moment, a witty thought, an articulate metaphor, ideas, dreams, thoughts, the pleasure of new questions above all else, it is all not to be lost in the words, but to find myself wandering through new ways of thinking and thus, new ways of living. I pity those who read or do anything for escapism. There is no such thing, you don't escape, you only hide cowardly and for a flash moment. Art is no place to hide, it is a place of exposure of truth, whatever that might be to you, you'll find it. And to think one can escape through it is to pretend, to justify a lack of courage and this lack of courage is the very truth escapist literature exposes. Entertainment is education and vice-versa, and you ought to be aware of this. We have to be prudent with how we use our time, to be sensible to this information we receive. Digest it.

[Anonymous No.3481205]

>>3481198
>To ask if something as broad as literature or philosophy changed me in a practical and observable way is just to pose a question that doesn't make sense to me

Dumb.

[Anonymous No.3481214]

>>3481196
There is no I

[Anonymous No.3481215]

>>3481214

>a monkey telling me he doesn't exist

[Anonymous No.3481217]

>>3481215
>monkey thinking his ego is real

[Anonymous No.3481223]

>>3481215
>>3481217

>Monkeys half-assing existence theories, while still existing.

[Anonymous No.3481227]

>>3481217

>Ego
>a meaningful concept

...

[Anonymous No.3481242]

>>3481227

Is your butt hurt?

[Anonymous No.3481243]

Now you two retards are crossing the line.

[Anonymous No.3481245]

Herman Hesse's Siddhartha made me think about a lot of crap the first time I read it. I'd say that book in particular has changed me a lot. Every book has, to some extent.

[Anonymous No.3481247]

>>3481133
You deserve the word 'edgy'. Try reading something besides the prince when you finish higschool.

[Anonymous No.3481268]

>>3481247
>You deserve the word 'edgy'. Try reading something besides the prince when you finish higschool.

Philosophy is a double edged sword.

[Anonymous No.3481506]

Literature has provided me with both a space to think, and a means to explore the way others perceive the world around them; it gives new horizons in the way that no ingested 'mind expanding' chemical every could.

I do worry when I read about folks who seem to be hiding away from life through the medium of the book, rather than using it as an aid to appreciate life, but each to their own I guess.

Philosophy on the other hand has left me increasingly bitter as I suspect that in order to turn philosophy into a suitable competitive academic subject (or: something that an 'elite' few can make a living out of..) we've totally ruined the very concept of teaching basic critical thinking skills. All we really needed to do to make the world a better place was to teach kids to sit there, and hold a dialogue with one another for an hour a week, doing logical questions and answers without resorting to getting mad or trying to laugh it all away.

Shit should of stopped at the conversational style of the Republic.

[Anonymous No.3481507]

>>3481268
a single edged sword is a double edged sword.

[Anonymous No.3481517]

>>3481507
a sword without an edge is an infinitely edged sword