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/lit/ - Literature

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6175268 No.6175268 [Reply] [Original]

What can I read to help me become a better man?

>> No.6175273

The God Delusion

>> No.6175278

>>6175268
Reading doesn't make you a better man if you aren't willing to take action, but I suggest Epictetus.

>> No.6175286

>>6175278
Just looking for something to point me in the right direction.

>> No.6175317

The Little Prince

I'm not kidding. It's a very quick read too.

http://download.bioon.com.cn/upload/201111/21084046_8501.pdf

>> No.6175724

By man do you mean human being? Or do you mean moral magisterial manly man?

>> No.6175734

>>6175268

The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell

(it's a start. the more you read, the more you figure out what you need to read, and the better you become.)

>> No.6175738

the Pali Canon
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/index.html

>> No.6175740

>>6175268
Schopenhauer and zapffe

>> No.6175743

Old Man and the Sea
Moby Dick, but focus on the characters rather than the plot

>> No.6175757
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6175757

>Anon asks for books to push them to suicide: A dozen to a hundred posts
>Anon asks for book on how to improve oneself: Three posts

How about
Non-fiction: Epicurus, Thomas Paine, George Orwell's non-fiction, Lucretius, De Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Alan Watts,
Fiction: Les Misérables, Jack London, Ellison's Invisible Man, Steinbeck, Twain, Homer's Odyssey, Moby Dick, Stendhal

>>6175317
Thanks

>> No.6175768
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6175768

>>6175757
>Three posts
At the time of writing

>>6175734
>The Conquest of Happiness
That's the Russel I want

>> No.6175780

>>6175757
>Orwell, Alan Watts

OP asked for books which make you a better person, not a more insufferable one.

>> No.6175781

spinoza's ethics
and
spinoza: practical philosophy by deleuze

>> No.6175801

>>6175268
The distinction between medicine and food is artificial. Eat well to live well and not just avoid sickness.

journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html

>> No.6175808
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6175808

>>6175780
You're one.
It's an open enough request. Here's one.

>>6175781
OP asked for books which make you a better person, not a more insufferable one.

>> No.6175811

>>6175268
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (sp? I'm lazy fuckyou)

>> No.6175813
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6175813

>>6175811
Oh, the irony.

>> No.6175854

>>6175808
>Alan Watts but not Spinoza
>Lucretius but not Deleuze

you could learn a thing or two about consistency, friend

>> No.6176026
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6176026

>>6175854
I'm not familiar with much. The "insufferable" remark wasn't really aimed at that post. No offense intended.

>> No.6177627

>>6175268
Define "better man" first.

>> No.6177638

Mindfulness in plain english

Just google it, the first chapter alone will work wonders.

>> No.6177707

>>6175738
Seconded but read some rigorous introductory material first. And pirate the new translations, buy them later.

>> No.6178682

This isn't going to go over well but Atlas Shrugged. The economic philosophy is childish and short sighted and misses the point that what she wants leads exactly to what it is she hates. Further the character development is terrible, but the psychology of the self respecting and capable man is spot on. Her critiques, though over the top also contain truth.

>> No.6178707

>>6178682
So what you're saying is only a fraction of this door stopper is worth salvaging.

How about Stirner instead?

>> No.6178714

>>6178707
>Stirner

Why don't you recommend DFW too while we're at it?

I swear, this board is being ruined by these fucking memes

>> No.6178733

>>6178714
>Rand rec
>Not a meme

Get bent.

>> No.6178762

>>6178707
No, i found it all worthwhile. I went in with the intention of knowing my enemy. And learning their line of thinking and understanding the errors in it was invaluable. And learning of her legitimate concerns of the leech culture and the stunted people who compose it gives understanding to why they are so extreme in their ideology.

>> No.6178776

>>6178707
I think it's short sighted to consider things you disagree with to be of no value, especially when they wield considerable cultural influence. Few knew the bible better than Nietzsche, or capitalist texts better than Marx.

>> No.6178783

>>6175286
Stoics are definitely a good choice.

>> No.6178884

>>6175268
Thus Spoke Zarathustra

>> No.6178892

By drinking more alcohol and black coffee

>> No.6178893

>>6175268
Nothing.
Go outside and get some experience.

>> No.6178917

>>6178682
I agree with you, there are some things that are true regarding human success.

>> No.6178941

"Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

>> No.6178957

>>6175268
Imagine how much that shit must've hurt. After watching the Jordan pilot burning I wonder how this monk managed to sit through it.

>> No.6179201
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6179201

You want to go, but you think you don't know where to go, so you ask for books to point the way out to you. You have the desire to go through, but not the door. That's because your own doors were shut closed at a given point, you were denied in a certain way. You were heading somewhere, whatever that is, but you felt that path was not legitimate, something was put into question there that made you abandon it. This and that routes were considered useless, rotten, not fruitful, not a correct or adequate source of happiness, knowledge or whatever it was that was part of it.

And so you stop and think: if that was not it, where to? And then asks for books. Who knows, perhaps a really good book from a really intelligent man will offer you something that you can fake to be an objective good route, an unquestionable one, that will actually just be filling you with the arguments that you deem necessary in order to sustain this route and not lose it like the others. Perhaps the same forces that made you abandon them won't be able to rock this one. Perhaps you'll build a fortress of reasons not to feel the same frustration.

When one asks "how to live?" or "how to be a better man?", there is something strange to it. That person is already living and already a man. So why the question? It implies that there must be something wrong with the way that life has been living or with the way that man is. But is it really? Could it be a disparity between what one is and what one believes one should be? In the face of criticism (including and specially one's own) comes the conclusion that one should be something else. But what? Ask for books...

Be careful with this idea to become a better man. Not that all is okay as it is, but one could be overlooking it and judging it with vicious eyes. In this way, whatever given route will also lead to dissapointment or, which is more common and even worse, a major strengthening of the frustration, because you'll remember how many routes you've failed, as long as you keep thinking of it as a matter of fail and success.

A lot of people will sell you solutions, definitely. But I'll tell you in beforehand to consider these apparent contradictions: that without self-acceptance, there is no change and that the less fixed you are at becoming something else than what you are now, the better you'll become.

>> No.6179283

Have good friends. That is the better way to become a better person.

:)

>> No.6179290

>>6179283
not the better way, the best way.

>> No.6179294

>>6179283
Interesting as fuck.

>> No.6179301

>>6178957

An extreme sense of altruism

>> No.6179338

>>6175268
American Psycho