/lit/ - Literature

>>7962750
Maybe. What makes you so sure?


>>7963346
I intend to, currently reading Anna Karenina and am enraptured with the brilliance.

>>7962235
Im something of an Existentialist, but also find meaning in many things. To the point that my narrative in enmeshed in a much larger narrative of humanism.

Each book I read enriches me, gives me insight into others and myself, and pleasure at knowing the minds of better people. For you God is stability, for me there is no stability except change. That's the buddhist in me, and it gives rise to suffering, yet aceptance of this and a reduction in certain cravings and ignorance reduce it.

Purpose comes from helping other people and yourself. From understanding, compassion, and growth. It's pretty similar to the way a Christian lives really, but instead of God I see humanity and nature as beings to which I belong, and which I can potent and nourish, and which can and do protect an nourish me.

Sure people are fallible, but our collective knowledge sees more and more, and together we can make God (a loving society, since God is love). But the problem with assuming your God isn't fallible, is that everything you know about God comes from other people, who are fallible. And so are you, meaning that very belief could he wrong.

However my aim isn't to dissuade you from your faith, merely to show you that our footing and aims isn't inherently different. We are both humans with the need for love, compassion, dignity, and purpose. Let us enrich one another rather than reduce.

The wise person is not minimized by differences and disputes, she is enlightened.

>>7961146
Let's be frank, the list is much larger. You can't read all the books you want to read so you have to make choices.

What makes this book worth reading?

>>7960133
I deny nothing, you failed to answer the inquiry.

>>7959320
Have you read it? If not you're the perfect close kinded anti intellectual.

>>7959786
I am here right now.

>>7959159
No problem. I dont have to know anything about where I am, to know that I am.

It's like saying, how can you be, if you don't know the time?

>>7957211
I've heard good things about it, but I also saw a hipster carrying it around at my favorite vegetarian restaurant so now I'm not so sure.

Say more of why it's good. Why should I read it and not say Don Quixote or Under the Volcano or The Red and the Black for example?

>>7957604
Precisely, that means the book was effective for both of us. It was distubring in a very good way.

I think successful Marxist writers must achive that outcome. To make us afraid and feel bad for how we are today, but to see that a better world is within our reach.

The disturbance is not merely towards nihilism, but towards something better. Anxiety is supposed to make himans avoid a threat, or realize something is wrong. Sometimes we need to be disturbed to act rightly. Otherwise we really are just robots.

>>7955546
For me many things are self evident, one of which is the suffering is bad, thus I aim to reduce it.

I also know many things about what I do and how it makes me feel, thus I act accordingly and get the outcome I desired.

>>7956287
Orly?

>>7957460
The Art of Loving, because you realize how truly fucked everything is, and you see what you must change.

Seems to me given the size of any field, you have to decide what to pursue. Certain writers seem interesting only because of an aura they give off. Like Hegel. Then you read his Stanford Plato entry and find it interesting but not all that useful, so you move on to something that does interest you.

I don't think I need to read everything to have a good grasp of the majority of ideas, and delve into ones I like. Recently I've found a lot of life insight in reading psychologists and you certainly do not need the Greeks or Hegel to get it. However, having more background knowledge and a critical lens can make reading itself more fruitful.

>>7952340
Certain things are self evident. I think there I am. I intuitively know suffering is bad because the evidence is the phenomenological experience of it. And from such truths you build upon it.

>>7950121
What about becoming an artisan in a small town?

Though you have a better shot at plumber, electrician, or carpenter than sushi chef, swordsmith, etc. In the end you can pretend your Jesus while building wooden stuff.

It's a matter of perspective really. I think an important element is how you interact with people. Do you lift people up? Do you say beautiful and true thigs that weaves insight around you? Do other people smile when you come in the door and weep when you leave?

A romantic is a beacon of hope, for a more pure life. Showing others this life is key.

>>7949909
No, it's the difficulty to live a moral life in a deeply sick and twisted society. Among other things.

It's about how difficult life is in general, why even amidst the chaos you should be the beacon of light, and how sad it is when such people exist because the world shits on them
He's basically Jesus, but only a fool would really be that kind in such a cruel world, but you should still do it because it's right.

>>7948326
Is this one of those things wear you are just excited by your current book or this is one of your first philosophy books?

I plan on reading Kierkegaard eventually but not right this minute. Can you present or share some of the insight possibly? Or at least describe it in some way?

>>7950842
Tough one anon, Under the Net by Iris Murdock comes to mind.

Box Man by Kobe Abe is out there in a different way. I read it almost a decade ago and now kinda wanna reread it, was a real trip.

>>7935465
>>7945948

If you're going to attack Buddhism at least actually criticize it


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

Get the basics, if you disagree address it. Or focus on the four noble truths first. What do they get wrong, just make sure you have a correct understanding, and you don't just attack a strawman.

>>7945277
No, you cannot. Western materialism is fundamentally dependent on exploitation of both humans and nature.

When I said understanding I meant it. You understand the interconnectedness of all things and rationally determine that what is harmful to nature and people cannot be the Buddhist way. Compassion for AL life is a prime tenet.

Your simplification is intellectually disingenuous.

>>7945245
>>7945251

Not really. Maybe you are thinking only of monks, who simply create their own community.
But Buddhism aims to reduce suffering, become compassionate, help others, and become the best version of your self through understanding of reality.

>>7944307
>>7942421
>>7940980
>>7940960
>>7936525


Some people seem to be on the righy track and others seem to have a strange conception of what Buddhism actually entails.

I don't call myself a Buddhist, but I adhere to a lot of the ethics and oractices like meditation for some time. I also adhere to many other doctrines and principles, and sometimes I just fall into hedonism.

My idea of Buddhism is that it is NOT life denying, rather it is total life affirmation. To be completely aware of both our minds and the world around us. Not to attempt to hold back emotions like joy or sorrow but to feel them fully and not to grab them.

Meaning, you are more free to experience the heights of ecstacy. But you can also experience despair but since you do not ruminate into it, it will not hold you, whereas positive emotion is the more natural one to be in.

It's aims arent much different than Christianity in that you have a relationship of pure positive regard that enables actualization. Buddhism attempts to do this with a clear relationship to the self and world.

On Becoming a Person is not a Buddhist text, but speaks to what enables growth and there is a lot of overlap with Buddhism.

This thread is the sad culmination of relativism and pseudo-thinking that dominates late capitalism.


>much deepness
>*knowing*
>desuuuuuuu

It's a regression to basically some kind of mysticism. Either that or a deep ingraining into pure ideology and fiction like believing purely in economic growth over environmental concerns. You gus have gone with th former.

>>7936989
>>7937080

I respect your ways, just like I respect Quakers and Buddhist monks, but I cannot do this. I find meaning in participation of a social process. I'm an educator and aim to raise people's minds to be critical, free, and capable. My meaning comes from helping other people, and thus participate in a sick society in the hopes of making an improvement.

I live fairly minimally as well, try to eat vegetarian, don't own a car, etc. Use my old Computress that is 7 years old.

>>7938114
Good psyche books that give you hope and insight into humans and our purpose. The Art of Loving by Fromm and Becoming a Person by Rogers.

Emile an Education by Rousseau, and many other books about education can give you perspective on how important it is and how we can make it good like: How Children Fail by Holt, Teaching as a Subversive Activity by Weingarten, and The Schools of Tomorrow by Dewey.