/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15249938]

I recently remembered a very fine reply someone posted on /adv/ about two weeks, and am curios if you folks here can recommend some books to someone that awfully well fits the person described in the upper, red marked half of the post?
>The problem is something deeper than can 100% be solved by moving out of home or "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". OP would probably just end up wage slaving to make a subsistence living and nothing more because he doesn't know how to "live" and not just exist. There is a sense of learned helplessness emanating from OP that is fairly common across 4chan because these dudes have grown up on the internet without any solid role models, real world hard knocks or sources of life direction. These guys cruise through high school, maybe get through college fine with a degree their parents or teachers recommended would get them a job. But once they're out and in the real world they realise they have no long term goals, no drive, no deeper connection to those around them, no career aspirations, and they're afraid to make the slighest mistake. It's all well and good to say "just do it" but these guys are coming out here like "what reason is there to do it?" or questioning what they even WANT to do. Pointless to tell someone to start living when they don't even know what they want to live for to begin with.

[Anonymous No.15249960]

/adv/ is normalfag central

[Anonymous No.15249979]

[Anonymous No.15250006]

>>15249938
This is pretty much me and I also don't really know what to do. The spark that's in others doesn't seem to exist in me, no matter how much and often I try to get it burning.

[Anonymous No.15250031]

>>15250006
This. The worst part is, the spark sometimes comes. But it's mercurial, starting strong but morphing far too quickly into uncertainty or simply dissapearing. That's the shit that hurts the most about this, and it's been taunting you for so long that even the very thought of getting started figuring it out is so piled high with failed, warped ideas that you can't even BEGIN anymore.

[Anonymous No.15250097]

>>15250031
Yeah. I can't completely blame my mom like the /adv/ faggot though. She waited on me hand and foot, it's true, but she tried to encourage me to do music and sport and excel academically. She tried, I didn't. My lazy arse personality, coupled with my discovery of the placating force of internet, fucked me over so badly.

[Anonymous No.15250210]

>>15250006
>>15250031
it's called depression, anon.

[Anonymous No.15250250]

>>15250210
Dunno about that.

[Anonymous No.15250296]

>>15250250
What is it, then? If there was a name to be put to the damn blight then that'd be a start to figuring out what the fuck is wrong with us

[Anonymous No.15250507]

Been in the same boat for a long time but am starting to land. I think it's easy to igore your talents when they go unrecognised from others. Sometimes our talents can even be seen as dangerous by others! Atleast that's what Iv learnt.

Having a talent is not enough: one must also have your permission to have it--right, my friends? - Nietzche

[Anonymous No.15251636]

bump

[Anonymous No.15251687]

The Beautiful and the Damned reminds me of that post. So does French Exit. But neither of them are exactly helpful or inspiring.
The solution I found in my own life wasn't reading. It was working a terrible minimum wage job. I was expected to learn a lot of basic skills on the spot. I ended up coming out a functioning human being.

[Anonymous No.15251936]

I disagree. The problem isn't going to be solved by facing reality.
That quote contradicts itself because he ends up realizing the problem lies deeper than bootstrap. I know many laid back parents that nurtured normal kids and strict demanding tiger parents that ruined them.

It's extremely difficult to pinpoint how the withdrawal from desire happens. I know that psychoanalysis studies these phenomena. Go to therapy.

[Anonymous No.15252171]

>>15250006
maybe stop cooming

[Anonymous No.15252317]

>>15249938
>Why give a fuck?
This must be the modern "why not kill yourself?" Philisophical question

[Anonymous No.15253225]

Bump

[Anonymous No.15253397]

>>15249938
Read Seneca.

[Anonymous No.15253465]

>>15250006
eat some LSD kid

[Anonymous No.15254440]

>>15249938
I feel this. I'd like to have some sort of grand adventure, but in the end my 'spark' is literature which I can do with a typical /comfy/ wageslave life. I mean, i could sell all my possessions, join the peace corps, dirtbag it around the globe...for what? at some point you wake up, you're 30, your body is starting to get aches, and you want to settle into a house and comfy life to maintain what health you can for as long as you can. being a poorfag adventurer is all fun and games until you get a medical emergency you can't afford to properly fix.
>rimbaud
what to live for? no one has ever done anything with their lives but try to subsist. ancient warriors? paid soldiers trying to earn some money the only way they could. they had loyalty to whoever paid them. Read anabasis. ancient lords? one, they were born into money and didn't have to work to support themselves. 2, have fun trying to invade a foreign sovereignty in the faggoty modern world.

everything i want to do is illegal, and honestly, probably for good reasons. everyone imagines themselves as some warlord leading a great host to battle, no one imagines themselves as some poorshit farmer who gets his shit wrecked by a random army from some place he doesn't even know the name of.

[Anonymous No.15255656]

>>15252171
That isn't the problem
>>15253465
I've seen that backfire massively.

[Anonymous No.15256870]

bump

[Anonymous No.15256905]

>>15251936
>withdrawal from desire

That's a really apt way of putting it. I just don't feel a sense of accomplishment, even when I accomplish stuff. I just mostly feel the frustration or exhaustion I felt while doing it when I accomplish something hard. No triumph, no anything, just a fear of having to do it again. And when people congratulate me for doing well, I don't feel happy at their praise, I kind of feel embarrassed and I wish they'd stop it. It feels like they're lying.

[Anonymous No.15256920]

>>15256905
How are your testosterone levels?

[Anonymous No.15256997]

>>15256920
Fine? They've always been fine. My facial hair is thick and even, my facial features are decently sharp (not OHHH GIGACHAD or anything), sex drive is normal. I do have things I WANT to do, it's just hard to make the mental connection between "task that will scoot me forward a millimeter on the 3 mile track of what I want to do" and "thing I should feel proud of accomplishing".

IDK, it just leaves me with an agitation, kind of. It feels stupid and pointless and I wish I were taking BIGGER or MORE RELEVANT steps to where I want to be. No matter how big or relevant the step I actually took was, it winds up feeling like maybe it was in the wrong direction or a waste of time. Ugh, this is hard to explain, there's a lot of factors in play and they're all pretty fickle.

[Anonymous No.15257011]

>>15256997
Will add that even though this shit is changing, a pretty immutable root part of it is just a sense of frustration instead of a sense of accomplishment when completing or achieving stuff. The one exception is socializing, I'd say.

[Anonymous No.15257155]

>>15256905
This can happen when your self and needs are neglected. Tiger parenting is a form of neglect too. Maybe you never had the encouraging response and embrace of someone that cares

The low arousal you felt at your early efforts of human connection and self expression is imprinted and repeated every time you try to do something. It's natural then that you withdraw from tasks that offer little pleasure.
The one who ought to legitimize your desire fucked up. Be angry at your mom

[Anonymous No.15257195]

>>15250210
Yeah bro lemme check the book of psychological diseases real quick

[Anonymous No.15257474]

>>15254440

If literature is your 'spark', why not learn a different language in order to read some literature in the original? Ancient Greek, Russian, French, even fucking Chinese or something...It's great intellectual exercise, lets you get to the original version of a text, and has real-world applications.

Might involve living elsewhere, too. If that's feasible.

[Anonymous No.15257495]

>>15249938
Oblomov, genuinely surprised it hasn’t been posted yet

[Anonymous No.15257704]

>>15257495
Why doesn't the story offer any explanation on why he behaves like this?

[Anonymous No.15257743]

>>15249938
Imagine blaming your parents for being such a faggot. The refusal to accept responsibility for his shitty life is a big reason his life is so shitty. It's so easy to blame others your entire life so that you don't have to learn or grow

[Anonymous No.15257801]

>>15257743
Boomers out

[Anonymous No.15257908]

>>15250006
It's hilarious to me that the whole point of Indian Philosophy & Religion is to attain this state, and use it to endure all the shitty things we must do for duty as part of a society, the exact opposite of the Western European Cope Model

[Anonymous No.15257919]

Learn about Games And Aims, niggers

>The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness
https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=20E02C92504157D1D0EABD5208C77C32

[Anonymous No.15258038]

Can't you just talk to yourself in your head and figure this out? Just think back to your drive at a young age.

[Anonymous No.15258137]

>>15257474
...why do you assume I haven't? jfc

[Anonymous No.15259191]

bump

[Anonymous No.15259209]

PSA Flight 182 was one of the most fucked up accidents in aviation history. Look it up.

[Anonymous No.15259235]

>>15257743
the people that brought you into the world and raised you for around two decades?
yeah, they have no bearing or responsibility for the way you turned out
fuck off retard

[JN !!vXXhA/qzhjm No.15259959]

>>15249938
IKWYM but I don't think this is something a book can help you with, until you make some more decisions.

IMHO you should consider what your ancestors did. We are the culmination of a couple hundred thousand years of selection and we all evolved for a specific purpose. That purpose could be digging ditches, being a leader, being a corporate cog, playing music, teaching people, committing crimes to keep lawyers and police in business, selling roasted almonds on the streets of Vienna, hunting, making toys...the point is that if you do what you were literally born to do, everything will make sense. It might make you rich and successful, it might make you poor, it might kill you, but it will never make you miserable.

[Anonymous No.15259994]

>>15250006
>>15250006
the spark just binds you to world, and the suffering within it, and is the very cause of further birth (as in, children)

detach from the world, dissapate, cease. there is nothing in consciousness that isn't ultimately disatisfaction

I mean take a deep look at your post and attitude - you are craving the desire to have a goal to strive towards. but when analysed, striving towards something is driven by a present lacking, disatisfaction, incompletedness. if the present isn't whole, we imagine a future, an other than now where it isn't and run like a rat wheel chasing an imagine state where it is.

you've grasped the worthlessness of the rat run, but your solution isn't dissapation, dissolution? instead you want to re-embrace the false hope, the pollyanna? the striving towards an imagined future where it's all worth it?

thank yourself for stepping off the wheel! dont lament that you stopped running..

[Anonymous No.15260507]

>>15249938
I know that feel very well. Just existing rather than living can be a feature of complex PTSD. I'm convinced that it is the root of 90% of mental disorders. You should read Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker. It's on Libgen.

[Anonymous No.15260632]

>>15249938
This is the problem that the Beat generation struggled with: the yearning of romance in a world that does not allow for romance.

You see for example in Kerouac's On The Road a kind of weird amalgation of the hero's journey that is both an adventure and a deadening experience of the modern world, where a guy leaves his wife to go on a roadtrip, but the trip is mostly boring and uneventful, marked by doing shitty jobs, like dishwashing, to finance the trip. Nonetheless you get the impression that there is a spiritual aspect to it all not marred by the deadening activities of the modern world.

Interestingly enough, Updike wrote a novel with the very opposite thesis that leaving home to look for an adventure can lead to disastrous results.

Obviously most of the Beat artists, with a few exceptions hitting jackpot with their work, lived in poverty, but their very motto was not caring--because caring about their wealth, and even their function in society, was being part of the rat race they wanted no part of.

It all depends on your perspective, I guess. Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman is a good read on this, albeit a bit dated and a bit sexist by today's standards.

[Anonymous No.15260638]

>>15250296
Avolition and anhedonia, probably caused either by depression or schizoid PD, considering the anonymity and userbase of 4chan.

[Anonymous No.15260683]

>>15260632
Also not to be a finger wagging nanny here, but reading such threads generally just put you in a loop of despair, where each feedback just feeds into your cycle of depression, that to a certain extent morphs your world view or even the reality of it (in a non-schizo way of course). Most feedbacks here seems like logical extension and confirmation of your own despair, but they really aren't as inevitable as you think.

[Anonymous No.15260705]

You don't have to "live", don't hold the mere hedonism the masses and even so called great men live by as the highest ideal. Transcend.

[Anonymous No.15260715]

>>15260507
>I'm convinced that it is the root of 90% of mental disorders.
To a hammer, everything is a nail. There's a wide range of overlap, which is why accurate, differential diagnostics requires many hours of testing and interviews, introspection. Though while most people aren't introspective, logical and smart enough to accurately self-diagnose, there is value in people with serious issues, either suffering or dysfunction, reading through descriptions of different disorders. Far better to learn something from collective experience than to stumble in the dark trying to reinvent fire.

[Anonymous No.15260933]

I feel that Pessoa is the end-game of this type of thinking. You reach a point in life where the external world just doesn't seem that appealing any more, due both to your disillusionment and also your well-honed imaginative capacity. Sometimes I think about travelling or something, just running away and visiting Prague and Brussels etc, but realistically these are just memes that I am pursing, knowing in advance that my time in these places will consist of queuing for food, walking around, avoiding the rain, perhaps visiting a museum or gallery so the visit doesn't seem wasted, maybe having a conversation with a random guy in a bar who says something vaguely philosophical about living in the moment and wishing me well, and then what? You're just burning time, money and mental energy trying to convince yourself that you are doing something worthwhile. I sometimes watch vloggers as they film themselves visiting random cities, and it's all so boring. Most of their time is spent deciding where to eat, and then saying how much they enjoy the food. They say they enjoy visiting van Gogh's exhibition in Amsterdam but really the artist himself would probably have appalled them in real life, and was himself rather despondent and introverted. The danger of this type of thinking is solipsism, which is no good, but realistically when you have a decent enough grasp of what life is like, how societies function, the net benefits of investing yourself for various pleasures (e.g., housing security, food, a romantic partner) it's tempting, if you are already quite imaginative and withdrawn, to simply exist and exert yourself physically as little as possible. It's possible to take some small emotion you've experienced and use it as a means of understanding what kind of emotion you would feel in similar situations similar to the one which caused the initial emotion. There comes a point where you have to decide where you realise what life is about and either decide to go along with things and appreciate the rewards of your mental and physical exertion, or commit suicide. Due to various reasons, however, including parental coddling, welfare net, prolonged adolescence etc there are many of us living in the grey area between these two choices, a kind of voluntary purgatory, wherein we do not really exist, feel no genuine pain or pleasure, and exist as a kind of weightless collection of thoughts and memories waiting for time to kill the body we reside in.

[Anonymous No.15261092]

>>15260933
Fucking brutal.

I legit have become emotionless since going through the process you described 1-2 years ago. Life is just a charade, a big game.

[Anonymous No.15261118]

>>15249938

I was more or less where you are when I was in my early late teens and early twenties, some 10-15 years ago. I was getting an engineering degree but I didn't like engineering that much. I had a profoundly mediocre social life.

Then a bunch of things happened. I started devoting myself more to stuff that actually interested me, even if I saw no career path in them. I fell deeply in love with a girl who was a manipulative bitch. I saved a bit and moved abroad for a second degree that matched my interests better. I learned some kickboxing; I bought myself prostitutes and did drugs. I did a PhD. Eventually I started dating and getting into serious relationships.

Were any of these choices the right ones, fuck if I know. Not all of these things paid off. In some ways I'm worse off than if had gone through with the original "plan". But at least I'm no longer experiencing that fear of missing out on life, of "wasting my potential" (the estimate of which I had to revise downwards along he way), of rotting in place...

Make of that what you will.

[Anonymous No.15261145]

>>15249938

I was more or less where you are when I was in my late teens and early twenties, some 10-15 years ago. I was getting an engineering degree but I didn't like engineering that much. I had a profoundly mediocre social life.

Then a bunch of things happened. I started devoting myself more to stuff that actually interested me, even if I saw no career path in them. I fell deeply in love with a girl who was a manipulative bitch. I saved a bit and moved abroad for a second degree that matched my interests better. I learned some kickboxing; I bought myself some prostitutes and did some drugs. I did a PhD. Eventually I started dating and getting into serious relationships.

Were any of these choices the right ones, fuck if I know. Not all of these things paid off. In some ways I'm worse off than if had gone through with the original "plan". But at least I'm no longer experiencing that fear of missing out on life, of "wasting my potential" (the estimate of which I had to revise downwards along he way), that sensation of rotting in place, of drifting slowly into a dead end of a life. I feel like I've developped into a better person as a result of all this.

I don't regret my choices. But maybe if I had just made money as an engineer I'd also be fine with it by now. Make of that what you will.

[Anonymous No.15261179]

>>15261145
Genuinely good post.

[Anonymous No.15261825]

Bump

[Anonymous No.15262196]

>>15260933
Indeed pleasure isn't defined by the external but by our subjective filtering of it. But exactly the miscalibration of some peoples' pleasure mechanism that makes them invest inwards, shutting off input, is a problem. And even if you disregard practicality, it's a quality problem... it's like saying masturbation is better than sex.
That's no proper way to live life. Pessoa was a depressed loser and Van Gogh a crazy loner that died sad and bereft. And even if it's nearly impossible to alter mechanisms that have been reinforced for a whole life, one has to trty

[Anonymous No.15262251]

>>15251936
it's a typo

[Anonymous No.15263096]

bump

[Anonymous No.15263118]

>>15260683
Not the same anon but thanks for that

[Anonymous No.15263145]

>>15257908
>Indian philosophy
>not cope

[Anonymous No.15263153]

>>15249938
If you literally have nothing like the op of that post and are really starting from square one, honestly just going to a church might be a good thing to do.

[Anonymous No.15263297]

You want to have assurance that something will work before you try it, or you don’t want to commit and just want to go on autopilot while doing it. You also might not have faced up to death and you confuse self-development with external milestones.

The honest answer is to devote yourself to something other than yourself and with effort over time things will begin to change.

For many the realisation that they aren’t at the centre of the universe is shattering and makes them feel like everything is pointless. But think instead how liberating it is. There are things in this world which have never known your despair.

[Anonymous No.15264237]

>>15260933
I feel this so strongly regarding traveling, especially because I'm surrounded by people who feel that traveling is like the end-goal of life.

[Anonymous No.15264332]

>>15263153
thats what i did and it worked but now all the churches are closed and i want to kill myself everyday. the first thing i think of when i wake up is killing myself so i don't have to go to work, then when i get home i drink until i forget that i have to do it again tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.15264693]

>>15259994
based. samsaric careerism ("I have to DO something, I have to BE something, I have to BE RECOGNIZED for something...") is death.

[Anonymous No.15264738]

>>15260933
The sort of travelling you describe does indeed sound suicidally boring becsuse it's pre-packaged and predictable. There is adventure only if things can and do go wrong.

[Anonymous No.15264852]

>>15263297
I think due to decades of solipsism it is now damn near impossible to find anything external to myself to live for even though I know this is the right thing to do and living in my own head for years is just nightmarish.

[Anonymous No.15264923]

>>15264738
the key component of adventure is a goal. modern travel is just empty hedonism. like if you have to travel for work, then thats cool, but going on a vacation is lame as fuck and don't tell people about it because they will resent you for being a faggot

[Anonymous No.15264942]

>>15249938
I'm so fucking tired of idiots and midwits coming here and shitting up the board. I hope you kill yourself, OP.

[Anonymous No.15265467]

>>15259235
It’s in the OP’s best interest to not blame his parents. They can do nothing for him now and no parents are perfect. You think *all* kids raised like OP in the pic related end up as 23 yo useless faggots? OP can only rise from the ashes by taking accountability now.

[Anonymous No.15265555]

>>15250210
its the hikikomori disease

[Anonymous No.15266075]

>>15261145
>fuck whores to be a better man
been there, done that, I can attest to this

[Anonymous No.15266176]

you niggas really think all of normalfags walk around with a burning joy de vivre everyday, nah man, theyre all addicted to social media, they all watch tv 6 hours a day, it's very human to be lazy as shit. are 'career aspirations' such an alien concept to you? i swear to god, you fags on here love pitying yourself, and love glamorizing anybody who doesn't come to this place (read normalfags). 98% of all people are just slowly bumbling their way through life, wasting the huge majority of it. and just because you haven't spent as much time around people or didn't hold hand with a girl when you were 14 doesn't mean you're automatically demoted to this second, worse tier of human

[Anonymous No.15266890]

>>15266176
based post nig

[Anonymous No.15266908]

>>15250210
All this guys need therapy, yet they think a new meme will save them.

[Anonymous No.15266918]

>>15266176
You clearly don't know many normalfags

[Anonymous No.15266922]

>>15266176
Best post.

[Anonymous No.15267195]

I've been considering self murder for a while now and reading this thread got me closer to a decision. Blowing my top off with a shotty is ideal but it's impossible to aquire. What's the next quickest way?

[Anonymous No.15267446]

Just read Ligotti bro

[OP No.15268342]

>>15264942
Is this thread really worse than the 317th about Jordan Peterson or some /pol/ bait thread about some vintage antisemitic pamphlet?
>>15265467
>OP can only rise from the ashes by taking accountability now.
Without wanting to sound presumptuous, what does "taking responsibility" even mean?
>>15260715
>>15250210
>it's called depression, anon.
That's what I have been thinking about too.
I'm a diagnosed sperg and high functioning autists have sky high depression rates of like 50%.

[Anonymous No.15268907]

>>15266176
Posting a cartoon african doesnt somehow magically dispell the empiracy proven phenomenon of dropout men, and hiki men. In fact the niggers of america are the best example of this, as 80% of them are exactly what OP is lamenting.

[Anonymous No.15268975]

>>15267195
Long drop hanging is the #1 method of suicide for freedom challenged individuals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Table_of_Drops
An exit bag can work as well, if you'd prefer a passive suicide in the confines of your own home, but the popularization of the method has lead to some companies including oxygen in their inert gas tanks, so you'd want to ensure that's not the case.

[Anonymous No.15270061]

>>15266176
Bullshit, simple as. Whats with this obsession that certain faggots have with saying that everyone is identical? That all humans feel the fucking same thing all the time? boring pathetic little grey men, humans are incredibly diverse.

[Anonymous No.15271439]

bump