/lit/ - Literature

David Goggins

>>14749961
I joined the Peace Corps. That forced me to grow up quite quickly. It puts you in a challenging situation with no easy way to back out.

>>14749961
>Go to a retirement home.
>See all the self made men who told people to man up and "be a man" and whatnot unable to clean their own ass and begging to die while being bed bound.
>Realize nihilism was right.

>>14749976
I am not american also im not really a fan of peoplework. Technical things seem more interesting

>>14749997
I'm not a fan of peoplework either. Undertaking something seriously challenging can bring out a strength you didn't know you had. Doesn't necessarily need to be the Peace Corps. It helps if there's something stopping you from easily backing out, too.

This is going to be another thread where some faggot whines that his life sucks but then has a reason why all the suggestions people give arent worth pursuing. Anyone who is actually interested in changing their life is able to do it without posting about for attention on an anime board first. If you are being honest with yourself you will admit that reading this thread will do nothing to propel you forward.

>>14750036
OP always has a choice, anon. Perhaps he'll choose to change things and perhaps not, but it's not a foregone conclusion. If anything, that take just enables him to remain complacent.

>>14750036
As an aside, I was also a pathetic, self-sabotaging manchild at one point. I still am, deep down, but I live like a more or less competent and normal person now. So, change is possible.

>>14750032
Thanks friend

>>14750042
I do not doubt people can change. What I am doubting is that attention seeking and wallowing in self pity with fellow losers on the internet is in any way helpful to inspiring that change. OP asking for book suggestions is a ruse. He just wants to complain about how much he hates himself

>>14749961
I took 3 tabs of really good LSD. 3.5 grams of good shrooms will also scare you straight anon. It feels good to stop waste your time entirely but it's a lengthy process.

>>14750036
I am not gonna deny your point however i think this board will pull through. I am aware the odds of this helping are small but probably higher than if i get high and jack off

>>14749961
I became orthodox.

>>14750064
I think you're probably right. Still, who knows.

>>14750067
Tried acid around christmas and had a pretty bad trip. I think it helps with becoming more self conscious

How do you know you need motivation?

>>14750109
There's a difference taking a regular dose and taking a lot. Taking too much is like having a mirror held up to you, so you can see all your issues like you pointed out but it happens until you are nothing. Then from there you kind of have to rebuild yourself. You can choose to stop doing things that are self sabotaging. When I took it I had no idea that was a real thing or a real experience one could have. I was ignorant. Take shrooms. Buy 4.5 grams, take 1 to get a feel for the potency, if they are good and strong take the 3.5 grams. They will discipline you. LSD is iffy, so many fakes out here. You have to know someone who knows what they are talking about. Sorry to hear about your bad trip anon. Life is a bad trip if you are refusing to grow up.

>>14749961
Diary of kyle

>>14750119
A strong inertia paired with feeling miserable aboit being lazy implicates i need to find motivation to change at least one of them. And i think its easier to become active than to feel good about being worthless

>>14750131
Now here's the root of the matter: how do you know you feel miserable?

>>14749976
>Be me
>Get put into a challenging situation with no way out
>Emotionally break down, give up and kill myself
I dunno if it'd work for me.

Read:
Meditations by Aruelius
Enchirdion by Epictetus
Analects by Confusius
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Dammapada by Buddha

>>14750036
>anime board
ahem this is a literature board with an anime culture

>>14749961
Enchiridion of Epictetus. It sounds like you're missing a purpose. You don't know what you want to do, but you also don't want to do anything difficult or boring. Man the fuck up. Join your nation's military. You might not even be accepted, but at least you tried. Get a manual job and learn to take orders and be reliable. It will be an improvement over what you are now.

And trust me I was a neet for more than twice as long as you've been. The earlier you start to fix yourself the less you'll regret it later.

>>14750139
excuses, how do you know that you don't know

>>14750129
I took 360microgram after a long pause from consuming. I dont know if that qualifies for a big dose but i got in a thoughtloop for a few minutes. I think i know what you mean with the mirror and rebuilding yourself but it seems to me that forcing them with drugs might be risky considering i still feel more narcicistic and neurotic since my last trip.

>>14749961
read hunter s thompson then watch his interview with conan obrien and see how romantic alcoholism and drug abuse end.

>>14750137
Good question. I think sleeping a lot, being very underweight, generally avoiding people and bursts of anger are symptoms of feeling miserable. There is a possibility, that thats not that far from the norm. But it would be kinda depressing. I cant say i am feeling miserable relatively to anyone else. All i know is i am unsatisfied and experiencing negative emotion

>>14749961
I can only offer the advice that you step away from college for the moment if you are enrolled. Return to your studies once you’ve collected yourself. Don’t try to push through to finish something when you don’t know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, or if you want to do it.

>>14750139
The breakdown can be part of growth. I really struggle to believe that you're any more pathetic or disorganized than I was before this. Anyway, what's your alternative? It doesn't sound like the status quo is working too well for you.

>>14749961
You may consider joining your country’s Army.

>>14750163
That's not a tiny dose anon. Doesn't sound like it was real acid if you were stuck in a thought loop for a couple of minutes and came out worse. When I took them, reality was absolutely crushed for me and then the after effects lasted for like 3 months. I didn't even want to step on grass because I felt like I was harming life. My suggestion would be try shrooms instead. But you know, I am an aggressive goal oriented person. I was a whining manchild and I didn't want to be that way and I went out looking for answers and I probably did do harm to my psyche in some way but I feel like I got the answers I was searching for that made me move on from that mindset. Good luck man. Everything that's going on, its not about you or me or anyone. It's about us.

>>14750191
I have thought about that a lot. But there just arent many alternatives. I am currently surviving by working half time but i have deep respect for anyone with expertise in stem fields and would seriously consider killing myself if it turns out i am to stupid for them.

>>14750210
You would most likely tap out when you realized how much effort the math took. You're not too stupid for them. It just takes effort to be good at them if you don't have the aptitude. I say this from experience. Passed Calc 1, beginner, intermediate and Adv programming, a machine language class But I had to take Calc 2, Physics 1 and Linear Alg at the same time and I didn't want to work that hard.

>>14750189
How do you know that an emotion you are experiencing is negative? It feels bad? But how do you know something feels bad? What is the bodily sensation you call bad? Because that's all emotions are: sensations in the body.

>>14750210
It’s doubtful that you’re too stupid. Laziness is a more likely disqualifier for STEM than raw intelligence to be honest, but I’d ask you how your performance in school is, if you’re still enrolled. If you’re not doing particularly well and you’re wasting your time skipping classes and doing drugs, you’re only hurting yourself by continuing. You’d do better to go stay with family or spend some time doing public service so you can return with a renewed focus. Drug use and skipping classes is indicative of a larger overall issue which I’m not qualified to speak to but it’s also indicative of a general lack of enthusiasm for your studies, in which case why study them?

I have a question: how do I regain confidence in my intellectual abilities after I've been broken down psychologically to think I'm nothing more than a midwit at best?

>>14750321
Intelligent people are really stupid too. Stop worrying about your intelligence. Focus in on something you like and get good at it. Intelligent people are usually specialists. Specialize in something.

>>14750321
You need to learn the value of hard work. I had a similar experience, grew up believing intellect means all mental tasks are easy, but was humbled by college. It was much later that I finally learned to persevere.

>>14750337
Same

My parents teached me before school so i skipped 2nd grade. In 5th grade i started becoming more lazy and towards the end of german highschool(oberstufe) i started skipping a lot of classes and only managed to finish thanks to a few good grades in maths, physics and political science. I dont like working for anybody(sry i know this sounds childish) but i've had problems with almost every figure of authority since i am ~12. I have deep respect for people who are competent in stem because i feel like there is an objective "true" Truth to their field of study that i miss everywhere else.

>>14749976
this, very gud idea

>>14750384
disregard I thought it was something much cooler

>>14750388
Hah! Hey, fuck you. I actually got to witness a coup d'etat firsthand.

>>14749961
hi i am you
i was beaten down again and again and again by life until i got my shit right
just go to class dude, the future is real and it can get a lot worse than you think if you don't head it off
use your anger. fix yourself, stay busy, fuck, fight or run the pain away.
you have the rest of your life to pursue your own reading. read what your professors assign

Rules Of Attraction

>>14749961
awe
:(
did you hurt your widdle piddle baby hands???
hmm??
hit a wall because mumsywumsy made you vewy angwy?

>>14750535

>>14750401
nice, got a story?

i second the shroom poster
i was literally OP smoking weed for 6 months straight doing nothing and just sitting in class wasting my time
did 5.5 grams of shroom at an internet friends house after driving for 12 hours straight and i came out a changed man after total ego death. Got my shit together, worked manual labor during the summer, finished my last semester of uni, realized i hate office shit, and now am doing fire stuff.

do shrooms it will humble you and direct you

>>14749961
-Stoics were a nice intro to applied self-discipline. "Guide to the good life" by William Irvine is a good overview of the principles, you could also do the Meditations and Enchiridion dance.
-Robert Greene "Mastery" is a wonderful look into the greats and how they did great things.
-Definitely recommend picking up some biographies of people you look up to. Shit, even if it's Arnie, but badasses like Grant, Ford, Musk, Carnegie, etc. too. You will pick up their mindsets and habits through a kind of osmosis, and have a bunch of full power role models to measure your thinking against.
-Spirituality has been a cool late-comer if that resonates.
"I Am That" "Silence of the Heart" are good enlightenment texts, and supplemented with some alan watts videos make for a good relaxed way of looking at things without stressing too hard.
-If you're into more applied spirituality, look up some law of attraction philosophy type stuff. "How to manifest an epic life" by bentinho massaro is top notch and offers distilled principles without having to wade through all the nonsensical bs of 'the secret' and all the super hippy shit.

After HS I went to berkeley and got engineering degree then joined the marine corps infantry, so I postponed the edge nihilist drama till after I left the corps. Luckily the entire time I had been reading and studying the entire time, even still there was plenty of ptsd and angst to get through. Get some role models, start doing some fun introspection, and follow the breadcrumb trail of your joy. Fuck everyone who tries to force you into a box, you got this.

>>14749997
>Will only do things he's a fan of/interested in
Look! Your problem, it's right here!

>>14749976
I wanted to do that. My father adviced me to do that. I applied to regiment my grand pa and my pa went. Get refuse because I am partially deaf from a hear. Fucking sucks. I seriously believe that my genetic would of got fully developpe if I got the combat training, the drill and the discipline.
Now my dad says to re-apply until they take you. But I got college and internship planed. Sucks for me and them, now they are begging for people.
Fuck the army but at the same time I respect it, from a traditionnal point of view.

>>14750606
Shrooms poster here. Very similar experience. I'm not saying I have it all figured out. Just saying to OP, reality is not what he thinks it is and just do your best, take responsibility for you own life.

>>14750601
https://quillette.com/2019/03/24/the-fall-of-a-third-rate-stalin/

>>14749961
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9NhjMOWUNY

Read the Enchiridion by Epictetus.

>>14749961
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Do_Men_Stupefy_Themselves%3F

>>14749976
The peace corps only accept people with college degrees.

>>14749961
First of all you need to stop hitting impenetrable things with your hand, retard. When I was an angsty boy I liked to punch shit too, but I punched shit that broke, like thin ice in a lake or a rotting pumpkin. If you're going to punch shit don't punch shit that will break your hand, punch something that will yield a satisfying take to it.

You are someone who clearly has no capacity for self-direction at this point in life. You need some structure, and it's not the structure of college which many experience as an imposition. I'm hesitant to say join a cult or far right extremist group but it would be helpful if you found something larger than yourself to contribute to. That is the antidote for nihilism.

>>14750321
Stop valuing intelligence. If your intelligent, so be it. If you aren't, who cares? Look where being smart got you. Whats important is that you do the best with what you got. If you work hard and your heart is in the right place, it all works out in the end. And if it doesnt, it certainly didn't turn out worse.

>>14750613
Can you tell me about your experience going from Berkeley to the Marine Corps? Did you commission or enlist?

>>14751942
>it would be helpful if you found something larger than yourself to contribute to
I think finding that thing being so difficult is why people are sad

>>14750606
shrooms made me acutely aware of how uncaring and empty the universe is and how all there is is suffering. like I already knew all that, but shrooms shoved it all right in my face and had me really feel it in the depths of my psyche. that episode made me depersonalized and the ensuing year was the worst of my life. I later took acid a few times and had more positive experiences I guess but anyone thinking about taking psychedelics to improve their life should be very wary

>>14750378
I wish my parents put effort in my education. I had to go 1 h earlier to school over the course of first grade because my refugee parents couldnt speak german.
>>14750337
Ho do you learn to value hard work? I tried but it all of my attempts were futile (lesrning to code, arduino, math). My parents were helplessly lazy; sitting indront of tv all day and using the playstation and disney channel as nanny for us. I tried Goggins but hurt myself in the process(injurie that im suffering from since november)
How do i become a dilligent?

>>14753741
>I tried but it all of my attempts were futile (learning to code, arduino, math)
did you actually enjoy doing that stuff? maybe find something you truly like and keep at it even if it doesn't come easily to you. That way it will become a lifestyle rather than a chore. Something like that

>>14752752
>Can you tell me about your experience going from Berkeley to the Marine Corps? Did you commission or enlist?

During two summers of undergrad I went to officer candidate school and commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduation. Then about a year more training in leadership, high pressure problem solving, surrounded by a bunch of frenemies and pushing myself beyond mental and physical limits. The shift from college to corps wasn't as difficult as hs to college. In many ways it was easier: I had a direction, I was focused, I knew I wanted to be where I was, and it was my decision, no one else's. Got a crazy amount of experience and set foundations for being a fucking powerhouse of disciplined creativity that has let me basically retire at 30, only doing what I love every second of the day. 8/10 would recommend. One of the better decisions of my life. Even the shitty times were good times. I got to run around shooting guns in the forest, screaming into a radio and jumping through fires and smoke, controlling tanks and shit through the squawkbox in the back. Playing soldier was dope. I was never a victim and always took charge wherever I went. If you want to be the closest thing to being a god on earth, choosing who lives and who dies, go to war and make up your mind to enjoy every second of it.

>>14753461
This, psychadelics have some kind of "cure" mania buzzing about them that primes people for the negative experiences they'll have with it

Hey OP, as someone who thought they could just smoke weed, skip college classes, involved in a crooked circle of what you may call pretending to learn, and someone who near the end of all that chaos started breaking things as an anger pressure valve and had to essentially restart my entire identity as a result, some words of advice. You should be grateful that you are still young. You should stop smoking not because smoking is some antecedent cause to a negative effect but to demonstrate your own capacity for self control, because i remember in the height of my weed use I would fucking do anything to get more of that shit. I became skilled at making excuses to smoke, at the expense of things that, later I came to feel I valued, and thus I felt a sense of loss. I'm gonna guess you don't do much of anything. You should invest in a real, physical institution like a job or school, practice making plans and bringing them into realization, you gotta animate the machine man, there's no guarantee you will make it to the other side but if you do, you'll be able to look back (and forwards) with a smile. You need to develop self honesty, the power to create your reality (I assume the feeling of constantly being "created" by others and never feeling like you can really express yourself may be involved in the kind of frustration you demonstrate) not look for a surrogate recording surface (the opinion of others, the state, your footprints...) I recommend reading Nietzsche but doing that the right way is a little bit of a journey. You seem interested in philosophy anyways, what were you majoring in school? I'm lucky to have a major that I picked as a dumb high school student that coincidentally I came to love anyways, so I'm lucky in that department in terms of always having a "direction."

>>14750712
is this dude really implying the 'eternalism' gained by special relativity is contrary to nihilism.
listen the whole point of nihilism isn't that events don't last an infinite amount of time but that they have no metaphysical or spiritual and thus no moral (platonic moral) consequences. I can still be a nihilist even if my nihilistic acts persist forever in space that's literally no biggie.

>>14749976
>Peace Corps
I might just.

>>14755657
join the War Corps instead desu

Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche

The fact that this hasn't been mentioned at all in 71 replies shows you how much these other idiots know about the answer to your question.

>>14749986
Real men die before they grow too old.

>>14754048
Very good, you were a combative?
I would like to know how hands on the Lt gets, how would it compare to the experience of an infantryman? You got regular weapons practice?

University isn't very good at providing positive feedback, it specializes in negative stimuli. Or no feedback at all, your imagination goes wild and you will start doubting yourself and exaggerating the challenge. The less contact you have with the staff, the more inhuman and worse it gets.
You might feel overwhelmed with the amount of material, especially if you skip lectures, or the lectures make absolutely no sense to you. The bare minimum is to understand them, you might need to actually open a book in that case.
You need to make it your goal in life, right now your goal might be more "go home, feel good" or pursuing some artistic pipe-dream. I'm not saying to get rid of those things completely, it's just your study needs to be at least on the same level of hierarchy.

No wonder you start doubting yourself, most people do. Seek therapy, however drugs (even prescription) are just a short term solution. By the virtue of the placebo effect alone, they will help you regain control. But once you have control, you actually have to do the work yourself. You will fuck up though, again and again - this is the sad, inescapable fate of all humans.

>>14754048
Thanks. I ask because I’m a few years out of undergraduate already but I’m considering trying for a commission probably Army but maybe Marines. I’m weighing that against trying for graduate school right now.

One thing that’s made me second guess is just the general peace time environment. It seems kind of slow and maybe not worth it right now. Would you agree?

This is you when you don't read the greeks

>>14749961
You misunderstood Nihilism if your response to it was being a slob.

Nothing mattering or having a meaning is your free pass to create meaning and purpose for yourself. If you don't have the drive for it, just go into organised religion or politics and let others tell you what to want and what to think.

Just stop doing drugs
What are you, a slave to weed?
lmao pathetic

>>14750204
Thought loops are pretty common on high doses anon. 360µg is a big dose. I used to smoke DMT relentlessly and without any care for the "message" or whatever, straightly hedonistically sometimes 10 times in a row to simply watch the light show, to the point it doesn't even work anymore; but I'm honestly afraid to take more than 150µg LSD.
>It's about us.
While that line of thinking is not uncommonly resulting from psychedelics, you shouldn't project it as a generality of experience. Not everyone is vulnerable to that particular kind of psychosis and many people have a variety of lasting negative effects from high dose psychedelics.
And you can ultimately rationalize the mystical oneness experience as a breakdown of communication between brain areas (as is roughly the current scientific hypothesis), negating the whole idea of a ascending to a "higher reality", thus making it finally meaningless.

>>14757155
Hey I said Nietz ;~;

>>14758137
Read Delezue to get a sense of why it isn't meaningless and in fact doesn't need any transcendent quality to sort of act like it does

Shrooms + Nietzsche + Epicurus + Exercise + Healthy diet + A goal to work for = that's all you need bro.

>>14758162
What specifically?

>>14758179
I'm thinking of "how to make yourself a body without organs" from ATP

>>14758202
It could be a state where self-reference (recursion) fails in the brain, thus "you" cease to be with all your memories and concepts, which leaves only awareness lacking the self as an object, i.e. everything-not-you is experienced as an undifferentiated absolute oneness, in ecstasy (as love means oneness). Maybe you have an initial memory from childhood of "This is me" when your brain becomes online so to speak, you becoming aware of your own self-awareness, and a phenomenological regression to the state before that should be inherent to all human experience.
Does that sound like the BwO? I tried skimming the chapter but I'm not really into that writing style right now lol.

>>14757486
Deployed to SE Asia as independent platoon commander. Did humanitarian operations like disaster evacs, counter terrorism stuff in the phillipines, etc. Hands-on as in trigger puller, as a LT, doesn't really happen. Sure, you'll send bullets down range, but you're the one who chooses what happens. You're the decision maker. You are the head of a forty man weapon. You're fighting at a different level. I wasn't the most deadly person in my platoon with a rifle, but when it came to everything, altogether, I was hell on wheels. That was because I made it a point to be so. You could just sit back and be a shitbag, that's what most people do. It's easy to skate.

>>14757682
Personal bias: don't go to the Army. There is a significant difference between the two cultures. Do your own research, as though investigating two company cultures. Graduate school, too. Meet with at least a few people involved with the Army, the Marines, and Grad school, and ask a bunch of questions about their experiences so you can make your own judgements. Marine Corps was great as an officer. Not so much as enlisted. Peace time military is pretty lame across the board, from what I hear, because bureaucracy and such. Depending on your job that will be a bad thing or a non issue. For example, logistics would still be relatively unaffected. Infantry would be a lot more drill and MEUs and such. But hey you can still do grad school afterwards, and it's free. I still have two years left on my GI bill and I got a six figure top tier MBA after my own service.

>>14749961
>habbit
Read "The Habbit Rabbit" by Joe Babbit. But a warning, it sells out quick, so you'd better go out and nab it.