/lit/ - Literature

Go for a rampage

>>15516475
The Illiad

bump, I need answers too

>>15516475

>>15516475
Book of disquiet

>>15516504
I'll second this. Try Schopenhauer. You don't even have to go with his asceticism. There is a way, anon.

>>15516475
It's never too late to improve yourself. Suicide is not improvement. All of the things in your pic can be reversed with the slightest bit of proaction.

>>15516475
I'm broken

Thomas Ligotti is what you need to read. Second the recommendation of Schoppy

>>15516504
>>15516601
Why would you recommend suicide-inducing books

>>15516626
Schopenhauer does not condone suicide.

>>15516475
taoism

>>15516585
whoa... this is deep

>>15516475
If you have health insurance right now (and American), I know a lot of places have telehealth appointments over zoom or whatever, and they aren’t charging copays

>>15516475
You can only fix yourself through action, a constant becoming. People are the sum of their genetics, environment and actions. The last is often overlooked. But what you do is really just what you take into your consciousness, what you DON'T take into your consciousness.

>pic related

Depressed and hopeless people act like that. Their bodies navigate through space to match their maladaptive core beliefs, down right dismissing opportunies and chances for advancement and happiness. I'm speaking from experience, Anon.

Less planning more action. Even making up your bed. You've already seen how things can negatively spiral. It seldom happens in one event. It's the same thing to get "better"

>>15516475
http://www.mangareader.net/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind

I hope you can find the courage to bear this, fren.

>>15516475
I'll be your friend, Anon! What's up? How's the weather? Remember that movie 'The Maze Runner?' Man, that was good. So, what's up?

>>15516793
>that movie 'The Maze Runner?' Man, that was good
I don't think this is going to work out, Kyle

>>15516767
Yet this man refutes your philosphy and entire existence.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d6j7xIca0yk

>>15516639
He respects the decision of suicide

>>15516475
all this is ephemeral, let go, roll with what life gives you and dont get your expectations up.

>>15516475
you must live a virtuous life, or else anubis will find your heart too heavy and devour it.

>>15516475
greenpill

>>15516867
read this, didn't help
>I believe I will live forever *dies*
ok Robert

Someone on /lit/ recommended a book called learned optimism once. It’s not a magical cure, but will help you notice your own patterns of thinking and hopefully intervene when they start to become harmful.
Also helped me comprehend how others see the world, the part about optimistic people explaining away bad events as a result of external circumstances and pessimists seeing them as personal failings is spot on.

>>15516583
Suicide is the perfect solution to all your problems. It is like a clean installation of Windows 10 after being forced to use a disgusting, creeping, virus infested copy of Vista for 20-something years

>>15516601
Ligotti is an incessant and whiny brainlet who does nothing but whine and groan in an uninteresting and inelegant way

Definitely don't read ligotti, It's a waste of time

Karl Ove Knausgård - My Struggle

>>15516475
Well if you take as your purpose the cessation of suffering, everything falls into place by itself.

I've been very lonely since I was around ten years old. I had a mother that tried her hardest to hold me back, destroy my self esteem, and beat me into submission. This has all lead up to me being a 25 year old who has never had a job, a girlfriend, or literally any reason to be happy. I've gotten to the point where suicide is probably my only solution. It'll stop my suffering and hurt my mom who desperately needs some sort of event to make her realize that the product of her parenting lead to this.

>>15516767
Thanks anon! I guess taking action helps you put the breaks on the downward spiral, but what really frightens me is making that life choice between chasing one's passions or chasing a good career. The former option feels more true to my heart, but I still carry some doubts WRT things going south/failure, which would leave me awash with the feeling that I have wasted time that I'll never get back. The latter option is obviously safer, but I'm also afraid that I'll regret not having truly given it my all on my life's projects.

Read David Foster Wallace stuff. His work explores being sad, depressed and lonely but doesn't harp over it and shows a way through it.

>>15516928
>and shows a way through it.
Then why did he commit suicide?

>>15516928
>

>>15516824
This isn't even good b8

>Awwww. The thirtieth Wojack cycle has come back around to suicide. Tsk.
Fuck this shit meme.

Okay, OP. “Deep pit of nihilism”: it’s nonsense. Just your perspective going out of whack. Death is meaningless, life is everything, absolutely everything including perceptions of “nothingness”

>>15516583
Don't be dishonest. Or, if you think you are being honest, your mindset is not too helpful for others.

>>15516767
Excellent. "Just do it". Whatever your mind suggests as a course of action-- begin to do it.

>>15516923
The question about chasing one's passions or chasing a good career is very good. But I think it's easier than that-- Generally just keep taking the first actions that come to mind. Taking these actions will naturally carve out your direction... whether you will end up pursuing passion or a job.

>>15516941
Sometimes it's not enough for everyone. It might help someone else but it was an even bigger challenge for him.

>>15517061
Thank you. Now that you mention it, going deep into rumination only paints a bleak picture of the world on the other end, so snapping out of it and just doing something, anything might very well be the polar solution to what is seemingly a self-inflicted problem. This somehow related to eastern philosophy btw?

>>15516870
Sure, nothing in the "SMILE scenario" has come to pass yet. That's really not the point, and you know that!
The point is: The space of possibilities in human Consciousness is much greater than our ordinary waking consciousness. We have today an emerging science ( which has already advanced significantly since Prometheus Rising's publication ) of how to manipulate these possibilities and to explore greater modes of being.
From those higher vantage points, the depressive, or doomer or whatever pessimistic meme mindset of the week, seems very small and trivial indeed.

>>15516475
Spinoza a practical philosophy
Daodejing
Meditation

>>15517206
His advice includes jacking off and smoking weed and imagining yourself finding a penny until you do
The different layers of the brain thing was interesting but this book is not helpful imo

>>15517162
Sure. I'd say Taoism and Hinduism via the Bhagavad Gita suggest this route most clearly. It's a conclusion I've been personally coming to more and more after reading a whole bunch of stuff.

>>15517224
It's a quarter, not a penny

>>15517237
Now you’ve captured my attention. Where do I start with hinduism? I’m interested in where it can take me

>>15517242
I read it a long time ago, what kind of coin it is really doesn't seem too important

>>15516923
Yeah, that's definitely a difficult decision. It's one you're going to have to make yourself. But often you can steadily work at both desu. It takes strict time management and in world that is trying to steal away and eat your attention. That... economically relies on having your attention.

I'm also /fit/. I can bench press more than 315lb. But that took years of continual grinding. It's basically the same way for everything. That Chad banging Stacies also coincidentally talks to a lot of women, while a bitter incel never even leaves his room. If a 10/10 girl sincerely tried to fuck him, he'd self-sabotage all of that shit to maintain his self-concept.

Authors read and write a lot.
Jacked people lift a lot.
Good students study a lot.
Popular people socialize a lot.
LeBron James plays a ton of basketball
Fucking pro gamers game a lot
Even Batman fucks with insanely powerful villains because he can prepare and plan enough for them

Get what I'm saying? Action and movement.

I'm reading Andre Agassi's biography, Open, right now and this nigga hit 2,500 tennis balls with the net hiked up another 3 in a practise session. At that point if would be much harder to be BAD at tennis with that kind of work put in. He said that he hated playing tennis too!

There's a mountain of science touting the benefits of exercise. But mentally, I think the benefit is just that it not only reminds you of the ability to move through space, but strengthens that very ability to move.

Nothing even has the CHANCE to happen until you swing the bat. Keep swinging and you'll find out what you truly want. That can also be found in the cold experience of failure.

Write down something you'd like to do. Actually write it down, in an app or on paper. Something small and within your reach.

It's not going to be easy, you'll (still) feel sad and sorry for yourself. But almost nothing worth doing comes easily and without discomfort and sacrifice.

>>15517224
Sure. Agreed. In many ways the book hasn't aged super well. The more whimsical exercises aren't helpful for modern audiences. The shock value might have done something for a 70's boomer, today we expect more concrete techniques.
It's a bit of dream of mine to put together an 'update' to Prometheus Rising.
it's not like nobody else has been writing about this stuff, I skimmed The Code of The Extraordinary Mind last year, for example, mirrors PR in a lot of ways, but I find that contemporary writers lost some of the charm and the... frankly, the sense of wonder about this stuff. Willfully altering your state of consciousness is really fucking wild...

>>15517237
Can someone really learn about taoism by himself? Studying the nature of the tao and works like the tao te ching seem like the kind of thing that needs some sort of guidance, otherwise you just end up interpreting it in a distorted way, much like millions in the west have done with any eastern philosophy that Manages to come this way.

>>15517247
Well, I would absolutely recommend the Bhagavad Gita. It's fairly short, and contains all of the most important information to the philosophy.

>>15517299
Aye, well, do your best. We don't all have access to the teachers we'd like to have. Live your life and try to see how the text and ideas relate.

>>15516583
you're missing the part where he's been proactive and betrayed repeatedly

>>15517260
>At that point if would be much harder to be BAD at tennis
This is the real key. What would you have to do such that failure becomes impossible? That's the place to start.

>>15516504
What were Schopenhauer's thoughts on suicide?

Can someone summarize them?

>>15517590
I'm interested in this as well. Hopefully somebody comes through and sums it up.

>>15516475
What's some literature that'll BTFO my atheism and nihilism?

I'm planning to attend an orthodox church after quarantine.

>>15516767
>>15516504
>>15516973
i was in the same boat and read all of that but i don't think any of it made me happy. trust me, the meaninglessness of life is much easier to bear if you have status, money and a social life. maybe even just working a job can sort of fill that void, make you feel needed, give you purpose. get some sunlight, work out, hit up an old friend, get a haircut and some fashionable clothes, apply for jobs or university. you'll be better, trust me. I've been through it and i feel much better now.

>>15516825
He doesn’t.

>>15518029
Explain

>>15516475
Why isn't a therapist an option right now OP?

>>15517635
read plotinus and then forget about t it. do not waste your time on bs religion

Buddhism.

inb4 someone erroneously thinks Buddhism is nihilistic

>>15518139
Where to begin with Buddhism?

>>15516475
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

>>15518214
The four noble truths and the eightfold path.

>>15516475
don't need a book. just this picture of a frog.
no need to thank me, but you are now cured. :)

>>15518290
The psychological principle behind pic related is called "reframing". Apparently people that are emotionally resilient do this naturally with any negative event that arises. They did studies where they "taught" people diagnosed with anxiety and depression to reframe their thoughts in positive ways and it had a significant effect on their mood and sense of well-being. I believe that most modern psychotherapies like CBT use this principle as its foundation.

>>15516767
>>15517260
Great posts anon

>>15518321
they do and it's all from Neuro-Linguistic Programming. They're very slowly and quietly introducing NLP and other hypnotherapy techniques hoping to god the normies don't catch on, get spooked and sperg out on them

>>15518290
Is this Pepe going to become the new Jesus?

>>15518564
Isn't NLP untestable pseudoscience?

>>15518616
is it based on western physiology,
does it follow some peer-reviewed psychological model,
does it abide by clinical practice regulations,
does it have the magical Western Science™ Seal of Approval?
No.
Hence why normos would sperg if they found out.
Does it work better, faster and on a wider range of issues than psychology ever did, even in Freud's wettest oedipal dream?
I encourage you to try it out for yourself!

>>15519080
Any specific books on NLP anon? Does it work on other people or just yourself?

>>15519133
trance-formations, by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, the creators of NLP. It's a transcript of a seminar they gave.
Then you go off and start learning patterns. they wrote these two 'Patterns Of The Hypnotic Techniques' books, but there's been many "3rd party" books cataloguing patterns from different sources.
And it's actually much more suited for treating others.

>>15519485
I've read that book and to me they have all the hallmarks of pseudoscience: technical jargon with ambiguous meaning, putting the burden of proof on the subject ("if it doesn't work, it's your fault, not the method"), and of course, unreproducible results. But then so does most of modern psychology (including popular methods ike CBT)

Can you describe why or how it worked for you? I'm naturally skeptical about anything having to do with psychotherapy, but I'm interested in other people's take.

>>15517635
I mean seraphim rose literally wrote a book on nihilism, but I suspect you have read it given you posted him. Heidegger wrote some commentary on Neitzsche that is ok and some people extrapolated for theological implications.

> play runescape 10 hours a day
> pretty much no friends, unless family counts
> no future goals
> 0 matches on dating apps, never had any sort of romantic interaction
> chronic back pain preventing me from lifting weights/running like I used to

It's all about perspective. I have very little going for me and I'm perfectly happy. If happiness is what you are searching for, its just in perspective and getting a good form of escapism to distract you from the meaninglessness.

Now back to farming woodcutting xp

>>15517590
>>15517623
He literally wrote a short essay on it: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Suicide

>>15519833
skepticism is great. Naturally, then, any personal anecdotes of mine will not have much value to you. The good news is
>unreproducible results
the results are very reproducible. I could recommend the exercises that you can perform on yourself, or tapes by popular practitioners, but really, nothing is going to compare to you finding a local hypnotherapist in your area, and asking them to help you achieve a deep trance state. Seriously. Just tell them you're curious, you don't want any work done in particular, you just want to experience trance. after you have first hand knowledge... basically the doors are blown wide open.

>>15516475
There’s really nothing once you reach a certain point of gone. People... they just aren’t the same. At times you’ll go back thinking for some reason this is different. You know you’ll regret the decision but you swallow your pride and tell yourself it’s just you. No, they’re not the problem. It’s just you. But that’s just it because maybe it really is you who’s the problem. You think to yourself, why should others conform to your worldview. It’s selfish.

You realize you’ve experienced this thought pattern many times before. But if I am aware of it why can’t I change it? It’s seems so puzzlingly simple but it quickly fades. What’s the point. You know you’ll never get anywhere because you’ve already tried. You try again anyway.

>>15518608
Jesus is the new pepe

>>15516475
The power of now (eckhart tolle), Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shunryu Suzuki), The Miracle of Mindfulness (Thich Nhat Hanh) and The Courage to Be (Tillich), Your brain on porn (Gary Wilson)

>>15517590
iirc: suicide is wrong because it deprives human beings the opportunity to deny the Will. It is in fact an act of Affirmation of the Will, considered as a means to end one's perceived suffering.

>>15520059
>But that’s just it because maybe it really is you who’s the problem. You think to yourself, why should others conform to your worldview. It’s selfish.
I agree to the extent that others should not conform to your worldview and by extension, you should not profess your views unless asked. Otherwise, it becomes pontificating. However, it is not inconsistent to also personally believe that the actions of others are actually in precise conformity with your worldview.
>You know you’ll never get anywhere because you’ve already tried. You try again anyway.
Man must be restless because that is his nature. However, it's not a nature that should be celebrated. It's tragic.

>>15516504
this
Not even memeing...really helps putting things into perspective.
You gotta know your Kant though, that first chapter on knowledge is fundamental to the whole of Schoppy's philosophy

>>15520325
Based anon. Schop's philosophy moves from a Kantian foundation. People who meme his philosophy as simply being "Depression: The Philosophy" are immediately filtered. His "pessimistic" conclusions only arise after 300 or so pages of epistemology.

>>15516475
I’ve been reading through pic and would suggest it if you are trying to break an addiction problem (porn/internet) and trying to also cultivate better studying habits.

>>15520321
You fail to see the point, as does everyone else. I do appreciate your input if it is sincere and well meant.

don’t
>browse /pol/ 12 hours a day
>have 0 self respect for yourself
>edge to porn for 6 hours
>eat only sugar/fast food and drink soda
>get 0 exercise
>don’t get any sunlight and don’t interact with anyone else
>kill your inner monologue with daydreaming

and i guarantee you won’t be depressed

>>15520393
It was sincere and well meant. However, enlighten me if I’ve missed the point.

>>15520409
Do all of those things. I have goals. I exercise. I have a social life (admittedly, a small circle but whatever). Still want to go to sleep and not wake up. What do?

How many births have you not done hard and painful labour with body, mind, and speech. Now at last, stop! 10.8


Being pure consciousness, do not disturb your mind with thoughts of for and against. Be at peace and remain happily in yourself, the essence of joy. 15.19

Give up meditation completely but don’t let the mind hold on to anything. You are free by nature, so what will you achieve by forcing the mind? 15.20

You may, as a learned man, indulge in wealth, activity, and meditation, but your mind will still long for that which is the cessation of desire, and beyond all goals. 16.2

Everyone is in pain because of their striving to achieve something, but no one realises it. By no more than this instruction, the fortunate one attains tranquillity. 16.3

Happiness belongs to no one but that supremely lazy man for whom even opening and closing his eyes is a bother. 16.4

When the mind is freed from such pairs of opposites as, “I have done this,” and “I have not done that,” it becomes indifferent to merit, wealth, sensuality and liberation. 16.5

He who is desireless, self-reliant, independent, and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality. 18.21

There is neither joy nor sorrow for one who has transcended samsara. With a peaceful mind he lives as if without a body. 18.22

He whose joy is in himself, and who is peaceful and pure within has no desire for renunciation or sense of loss in anything. 18.23

For the man with a naturally empty mind, doing just as he pleases, there is no such thing as pride or false humility, as there is for the natural man. 18.24

Ashtavakra Gita

>>15516475
You can just call this guy the wilter.
>Komm, süsser Tod

>>15519886
Woodcutting level?

>>15516475
>trying to intellectualize a problem that itself stems from intellect
You must be more of an animal. Stop thinking, just do life

read BAP

>>15520409
I’m healthier than 99% of the people on this board guaranteed, but I still wrestle with troubling existential problems. I will however say that having a clean, wholefoods diet with zero sugar has helped me immensely.

>>15516601
Yep. I bottomed out last year and Schope and Ligotti met me there. They are companions to see you through until you shrug and decide it's too much trouble to top yourself.

>>15520832
>and decide it's too much trouble to top yourself.
This. I don't want to upset people either. Though, it doesn't stop me from thinking non-existence is preferable.

>>15516475
x-oomer memes = I'm twenty something years old and I'm sad

>>15520373
>all these books
completely useless if you have existential depression.

>>15516475
The Bible you massive dumbass

>but Christians are crazy idiots who deny science and gay rights!
No, Big Bang theory was proposed by a catholic priest (contemporary scientists laffed at him because they thought he is trying to interpret Bible in this manner or something), Jesus literally says "let you who is without sin cast the first stone" when some jews were about to stone some slut, basically read the New Testament (Good News translation probably, it seems to be easiest to understand and is decently objective) and decide for yourself.

Switch to Optimistic Nihilism.
It pisses off depressed nihilists.
It pisses off religiontards.
It pisses off /lit/ to the core.
By virtue of being an entertaining position to have & being the next logical step to where you are right now, the transition is only rational.

>>15521710
What would optimistic nihilism entail?

>>15516793
Normalfags like you are so insincere and cringe

>>15521710
It pisses off noone.
>just enjoy life shit that upsets you doesn't matter anyway :)
Basically delete faith from Christianity and this is what you get. Worldly woes don't matter.

It's cool but OP said
>I truly have no purpose or goal to get from life. I see those as byproducts of having purpose, otherwise I feel they’re superfluous relations that only serve to distract you from the slow decay of life.

I mean yeah there's an option to pick up a cool hobby like mountain biking.

>>15521702
Look at this Christvulture descending to prey upon another soul for his Jeebus cult. Away with your mental illness-inducing slave cult

>>15521724
All nihilism really is is an honest perspective you give to the world. That the truth of everything is the truth of nothing. But as a human being, you are still enslaved to your biology, that is, emotional respones.

So to explain, if you want to become an optimistic nihilist, you have to betray your framework while still holding it up as a truth.
The difficulty comes in coming in terms with living in a delusion- Hence why many nihilists are being called out as "fakes" or "disingenious", which is ironic since the very same nihilists by definition SHOULD not care about the legitimacy of the world they live in from a purely nihilistic point of view.

>>15516767
QFT. This book got me out of an overthinking / endless planning phase.

>>15517260
Is it worth to read that book if you dont know what you want?

bump

>>15517918
>the meaninglessness of life is better when you distract yourself from it

nah no thanks, go big or go home

>>15521092
Yes. And?

>>15516475
1/13
PREFACE
Many of you need a wake-up-call. A slap in the face. A bucket of cold water. To snap out of this fucking phase of laziness and procrastination. To light a fucking fire under your asses.

The Internet offers all the advice you could ever need on how to get your life together. You have websites, you have books, you have the advice of other people, and you even know yourself what the fuck you have to do. But you don't know how the fuck to take action. You know how to swim, but you're too fucking scared to dive in the deep end.

So here I am to explain to you clearly why the fuck you aren’t taking action towards your goals. And how to fix it.

>>15525011
2/13
INTRODUCTION
You always know what you need to do. If you could only follow it, you’d start seeing results. There’s no debate there. If you take action and systematically work towards your goals, you’re going to see progress. That’s just how life works.

Succeeding in most areas of life isn’t actually that difficult. 90% of success is showing up. If you can maintain a clear head and do what you need to do, work consistently towards your goals, and make steady progress, success isn't that hard to come by.

But people just aren’t willing to put in the work. Why? We’re too ugly. We’re too tired. We’re too lazy. We fear failure. We’d rather sit back and click through Netflix to watch a show we don’t even enjoy. We’d rather play another game of Fortnite and waste away our precious time here on a meaningless game. We’d rather sleep another two hours. We’d rather watch that hot pornstar get fucked by a BBC and then jack off.

Don’t lie. It’s what you do. But in reality, it’s what all of society does.

But just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean that you should. Stop living like the rest of the sheep out there and reclaim your independence. Start respecting yourself. Take responsibility for your own life. And don’t live your life like one of the many mindless drones out there indoctrinated into society, pawns to corporations and business, wasting your finite existence on a hodgepodge of meaningless and unfulfilling technological stimulation.

>>15525024
3/13
THE VICE OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT
Most guys here live in a perpetual state of over-analysis. You read a hundred posts on 4chan, you read a couple more articles with click-bait titles, you read a couple self-help books, you watch Youtube videos, and you keep pretending like you’re taking massive action. Every once in a while, you feel like you have a fucking epiphany, and this makes you feel as if you’re learning and moving forward. When in reality, you’re stagnating and making zero progress.

“Self-improvement is masturbation.” You can thank our lord and savior Tyler Durden for this underrated piece of gold. You’re pretending to yourself that you're making progress without actually changing anything. Instead of being a pathetic, miserable fuck who does nothing, you're just a pathetic, miserable fuck who reads feel-good self-help bullshit, goes to the gym, and repeats affirmations to himself in the mirror.

In other words, stop covering yourself in layer after layer of fake pretenses, motives, and qualities. Stop searching endlessly for that next epiphany, and for that next piece of meaningless, external motivation.

Look within. Ask yourself what you truly want, what you truly desire out of life, and how the fuck you are truly going to change.

Don’t “improve” your current self. Change who you are.

>>15525036
4/13
THE PLAGUE OF INACTION
I’ll take a wild guess and throw this out there—if you could list 10 things you could do right now to move towards your goals, you could easily rattle them off.

You all know what the fuck you should be doing. You all know you should ask that girl out, study fucking harder, hit the gym, open that business… you know you need to fucking do it. You know you it’d be good for you and you know it’s the right thing—but you don’t fucking do it!

You just sit around in a haze of useless procrastination and perpetual laziness, telling yourself you’re going to do that fucking thing tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes. You’ve woke up late, you’re feeling like shit, and something else came up. And so you put it off until tomorrow. And so on.

A few weeks or months later you look back and you realize that all that valuable fucking time has passed and is never coming back. And you’re no closer to your goals.

And the more this happens, the more you rationalize to yourself that nothing good will ever come of actually taking action, the more you decide to devolve into escapism, the more you condition yourself to accept defeat, and the more you fall deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of defeatism.

You tell yourself that there’s no point in trying anyway. You never feel like doing anything. All you want to do is saturate your empty mind with a bunch of stimulating, pixelated nonsense and try to distract yourself away from your valueless existence through video games, porn, TV, and the endless stream of distractions at your fingertips.

>>15525054
5/13
We have a psychological term for that—“learned helplessness.” In a famous experiment, scientists gave electrical shocks to two groups of dogs—one that could stop the shocks by pressing a lever and one that couldn’t. Later, when given the chance to escape by jumping over a small barrier, the ones who had been able to press the lever immediately escaped. The group of dogs who had no lever just lay down on the floor and whined as they were being shocked.

The same effect is one of the major causes of depression. You repeatedly fail, learn that you’ll always be a failure, and struggle without escape. And when you’re actually presented with the chance to take action and change your life, you’d rather just stay defeated and mire in your own misery.

You’re probably realizing right now that everything I’m saying applies to you. And I’m going to tell you how to break free from this self-imposed prison.

FEAR OF FAILURE
If you were 100% guaranteed to succeed if you asked that girl out, started your business, and started lifting regularly, would you hesitate to go ahead with your goals? Absolutely not. You’d immediately do it.

You’re afraid to commit. You don’t want to tell yourself you’re going to quit porn and video games. You don’t want to commit to starting a new life. You don’t want to commit to breaking free from your endless cycle of procrastination. You don’t want to commit to anything.

Why? Because you’re afraid of failure. You don’t want to try and fail. What’s the point of trying anyway if you’re probably going to fail? Right?

Let me tell you something. You’re going to fucking die. You’ve only got one life. Every second you waste living below your potential is never coming back. Ever. You’re the youngest you ever will be right now. Think about that for a second.

>>15525065
6/13
If you keep allowing this pathetic fear of failure to control you, you’re going to live out a sad, depressing, miserable existence for the rest of your days. And you’ll be buried six feet under and everybody will be glad you’re finally fucking gone.

So, what do you do?

Make a goddamn fucking decision. Silence the voices of self-doubt and avoidance rationalization, and just do it. Commit to the decision. Write it in a journal. Tell a friend for accountability. Change your fucking environment.

Stop rationalizing, stop watching motivational Youtube videos, stop reading Reddit posts, and stop passively wasting your time waiting for that time to come when everything suddenly changes and you realize it’s time to start taking action. That time will never come. Ever.

Tell all those inner voices to shut the fuck up and just make the FUCKING DECISION!

Start small and spiral upwards. Turn the shower cold for 30 seconds. And then a minute. And then go full fucking Bond and don’t turn it warm. Talk to one stranger a day. And then two. And so on. Go in small incremental steps that will exponentially push you further forwards.

>>15525076
7/13
COMFORT ZONE/FEARING DISCOMFORT
Yeah, it’s fucking easy to wake up at noon each day, throw a pack of instant noodles on the stove, and sit back and binge ten episodes of Breaking Bad every day. Yeah, it’s fucking easy to just sit home, play Call of Duty, and avoid the gym.

It’s all you’ve ever done. And will do, if you keep living this way.

Your brain literally rewires itself to continue your habits, ways of life, and normal routines if you repeat them over long periods of time.

What you do, you become. And what you are, you do. It’s a positive feedback loop that spirals in whichever direction you choose. If you continue to act like a fucking buffoon, you will become one. Just like we say here that you shouldn’t look at what girls say, but at what they do—you are what you do, not what you say.

You tell yourself you’re going to start a Fortune 500 company, but you can’t even get out of the bed in the morning. You tell yourself you’re going to be fucking Casanova but you can’t approach that pretty girl at Starbucks drinking her fucking vanilla Frappucino. Stop deluding yourself and face reality.

So, what do you do?

Train yourself to appreciate discomfort. “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

You’ll never get anywhere in life if you do whatever you feel like doing. Love the discomfort and embrace the thrill. The pain of regret is worse than the pain of discipline. And ironically, putting yourself through discomfort will make your life miles better than you could ever imagined it to be.

How can you train yourself? Take cold showers every morning. Sleep on the floor with nothing but a blanket and a pillow. Dance in public. Intentionally force yourself to take risks.

Facing your fears head-on and pushing through discomfort is the fastest and most effective way to self-mastery.

Rewire your brain to be excited for new challenges. “The beast that bears you fastest to perfection is suffering.” - Meister Eckhart

>>15525090
8/13
Successful people love discomfort. They embrace the challenges. Without it, they would have nothing to live for. It’s what keeps them going.

Your “comfort” zone isn’t really “comfortable.” It’s just a place of stagnant procrastination and lack of progress where you just sit around, rotting internally and corrupting your potential. You only choose to stay in it because your fear of the unknown overwhelms your current discomfort.

No progress in life ever comes without pain and suffering. None.

PROCRASTINATION
The average person wastes 8-10 hours a day. Video games, Netflix, mindless browsing, cheap dopamine hits, etc. It doesn’t really matter. All procrastination comes from the same root cause—thinking that you have more time.

When you have a paper due in an hour, you’ll fucking finish it. If the bar is closing in ten minutes, you’re going to have ask the girl back to your place. If you have a terminal illness and have just days to live, you’re not going to be fucking watching TV or doing any of the other bullshit that we fill our lives up with.

When there is a deadline, you’ll get it done. Apply Parkinson’s law to dramatically increase productivity in your life:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

In other words, however much time you get to complete a task will be how much time you take to actually finish it. If you are given three weeks to finish a process paper, you’ll likely procrastinate the first two and half weeks and finish it on the last few days. If you are given two hours, you’ll fucking crank it out. It’s just how we work.

You think you have tomorrow. You always do. And how often do you actually do what you told yourself you were going to do when the day comes?

>>15525103
9/13
“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what is in Fortune's control and abandoning what lies in yours.” - Seneca, the great Stoic philosopher

You don’t have the future. So stop expecting to do things in the future and stop looking forward. You only have today. Don’t fall into the trap of telling yourself that you’ll have time later. When that time actually comes, you’ve likely forgotten all about that goal and you’re even busier.

So what do you do?

Write down your fucking goals. I can’t overemphasize this. Writing your goals down has been scientifically proven to dramatically increase the chances that you meet them. Articulate them, describe them in fine detail, and journal about them frequently. Every morning.

Create positive feedback and accountability. Write out a checklist. Nothing will feel better than taking your pen and drawing a line crossing out the goal you’ve just accomplished. Nothing will feel better than having a checklist completely crossed off at the end of the day. And then taking the paper, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it in the trashcan like Kobe in his prime.

Set a time limit. You don’t have infinite time available to you. How you allocate the finite expanse allocated to you is significant beyond measure. Force yourself to meet the goal by a deadline. Set a date. Whether it’s a few days, weeks, or months from now, set a date. A specific date. Don’t make it unrealistic. But don’t be lenient on yourself either. If you’re not serious about meeting your goals, you never will.

>>15516475
Anon, you, yes you, are the best book you will ever read. Things happen in life so your story becomes greater. Big hugs.

>>15525110
10/13
WAKE UP TO REALITY
Consider this scenario for a second: “Imagine for a second that you have a senior thesis paper due at midnight tonight. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon, and you have thirty more pages to write. You’re sitting at your desk, exhausted, tired, and absolutely spent. You’re coming off an all-nighter and all you want to do is hop in bed. Bags of Doritos and chips are strewn across the floor around you. Seven more hours, you think! How the hell am I going to fucking get through this?

But you do. Even though you’re feeling like absolute shit, you push forward. You only get one chance to finish this thesis paper, and if you don’t, you’re fucked, you’re going to fail, and your life will turn to shit. You won’t graduate college and everything will head downhill. So you finish it.

For the next six months after you graduate, you have your own personal goals to wake up at five every morning, lift four times a week, start your own business, and lose thirty pounds.

But of course, what the fuck happens? You fear failure. You fall back into your routines. You fall back into your comfort zone. Your behavioral addictions begin to control you. Six months pass, and instead of being closer to goals, you’re even farther away from achieving them then you were before.

As a result of your failures, you’re set forth on a downward spiral in which you get a shitty career, marry someone you hate, stay overweight, have a financial crisis, become mired in existential anxiety, and fall into depression. Your life has turned upside down, and you consider suicide. Everything falls down around you, all your friends and family leave you, and you try to drug yourself senseless to numb yourself to the pain. Eventually, you die of an overdose.”

>>15525122
11/13
Failure was not an option with the fucking thesis paper, was it? Failure is never an option when you have a job, is it? If your boss tells you to whip up a two-page report on the company’s financial status by tomorrow, you’re going to do it. If you have an opportunity to get a promotion, are you going to waste it?

So why the hell is failure an option with regards to your own goals? Why are the goals society imposes upon you more important than your own?!

Why does getting to class on time matter more to you than heading to the gym? Why does sitting in your little office cubicle in your 9-to-5 job matter more than getting your fucking life together? Why is an essay due date more important to you than living up to your own life potential?

So get off your ass and start moving!

THE FINAL FRONTIER
You get 5,200 weeks in your life. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to live to the ripe old age of one hundred.

Not many weeks, is it? You might be an eight, a fourth, a third, or maybe even half of the way through that. But it doesn’t matter. This is all you get.

You don’t get to live another life. All you will ever see and think in this world is happening right before your eyes. And you’re just wasting it away.

Billions of years of random atomic collisions and lucky mutations have led to your very fucking existence, and you’re wasting it on critically-acclaimed TV shows and video games. It doesn’t matter if you believe in an afterlife or not—you know that this is all you will ever get, here.

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” - Charles Darwin

You’ll never be twenty years, five months, and three days, six hours, and two minutes old ever again. Every moment in our lifetimes is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. We’re the only organisms capable of understanding our own mortality and the value of our existence, and we do nothing about it.

>>15525129
12/13
None of you truly understand how fucking short your life is. How this is the only chance you’ll ever get to exist here. You only have one childhood. You only have one youth. You only have one chance to live your twenties. And your thirties. And so on. You only get to choose a career once. There are no second chances, no rewinds, and no redos.

You’re on a train hurtling in only one direction—towards the end of your life.

You think you “understand” that we’re all going to die, that you only get one life, and blah blah so on. Right? Fuck no. You don’t understand it one bit.

If you truly understood the fucking value of your own existence, the shortness of life, and have internalized and accepted your own mortality, you’d be living a completely different life than you are now.

Let your fear of death and your understanding of your ephemeral, finite existence here push you to greater heights than you could have ever fathomed. After all, it is the only chance you will get.

What do you have to lose?

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Hopefully I sparked a fucking fire within your minds. That's what you need. You need to absolutely obsessed with success. Or you will get nowhere.

If you think motivation doesn't last, is bullshit, and doesn't work, you're not motivating yourself properly. Stop buying into other people's opinions and think for yourself. Of course you’re not going to feel like working all the time. But that’s what motivation is for.

People understand motivation wrong.

Motivation isn’t always something that makes energy and vitality course through your veins. Motivation doesn't mean waking up in the morning, feeling on top of the world, and ready to crush anything in your path. Motivation doesn’t always make you want to fucking fight gorillas. It doesn’t make you want to climb fucking skyscrapers. In fact, it doesn’t even mean that you feel great.

>>15525136
13/13
Motivation is knowing that you have to do something no matter what the fucking cost, and then going ahead and doing it. Even if you're tired, cold, and depressed, you’ll do it. Nothing ever happens without motivation.

”Discipline” is just motivation when you’re feeling like shit. Motivation isn’t just a fickle emotion. It’s the knowledge, and drive, with the full force and strength of your being, that regardless of consequences, you must achieve something.

And life's fucking hard. Nobody is disagreeing with you. But it's time for you to stop letting life passively control you, and for you to become the master of yourself and fucking destroy life once-and-for-all.

You can complain all you want, play victim, and cry about how unlucky you are. About how shit the cards you were given in life are. Go ahead. But nothing will change, and you’ll go on living a pathetic life you are.

Man the fuck up, I say.

It’s all on you. Nobody will change your life except you. No book, no Internet article, no quote, no video, and no philosophy will help you change your life, unless you choose to.

You’re dying right now. Stop sleepwalking through life and wake the fuck up.

How long are you going to wait before you start living the life you’ve dreamt of?
So, get out there, WAKE THE FUCK UP AND TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!

What would you recommend to a depressed late-20s shut-in with little life experience?

My instincts are telling me to quit my job and walk around Europe for a while. Feel burned out.

>>15525160
>walk around Europe for a while
you could try Camino de Santiago

>>15525160
unironicly do charity like feed the poor or help the homeless. you will see how bad you got.

>>15521828
stupid loser. Nihilism is killing people and you're against a cure

I am 25, my mother held me back from everything, didnt let me go out to hang out with friends, hardly let me make any decisions on my own, never let me have a job, beat me, emotionally neglected me, went out of her way to embarrass me every chance she got(she once taped a failing report card of mine to the door so neighbors could see how bad i was doing), and it all completely ruined me. i have nothing to care about in my life and my mom doesnt think she did anything wrong. i genuinely see no light for myself at the end of the tunnel. I don't want to be alive anymore.

>>15525939
Anon, you deserve a respect for who you are, no matters what others say.

>>15516475
Spinoza’s Ethics
Though I suspect you won’t read it anyway because you’re a pathetic whine-poster

>>15520373
but why do I work

>>15525939
Read Rollo May's Man Search for Himself. Specifically there is a chapter where he talks about the struggle against parents and mother.

You need to "cut the psychological umbilical cord" so to speak. Become your own person, transcend the hurt she caused and the restrictions she placed on you. Ideally don't speak or talk to her again.

GL anon, and don't kill yourself.

>>15526094
thank you. I'm going to read that book as soon as possible.

She was a good mother in every other way but she did more harm than good. I need to move across the country and cut ties

OP read SCHELLING AND BHAGAVAD GITA

>>15526276
>SCHELLING
what about him?

>>15525864
Have you considered that people are driven to these fears BECAUSE Christianity has been failing in its role?

>>15516475
Read The Psalms or the Gospel of John. You're not the first to feel this way, friend.

>>15517635
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
On Guard, William Lane Craig
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas À Kempis
The cloud of unknowing, anonymous
The Psalms, King James Version

Late Ernst Jünger made my outlook on life different. He just sees so much in the little things and the world around him. He just pays so much attention on the moment and he connects things so nicely its sometimes almost spiritual.

Also Hesse ofc. And Nikolai Leskow.

>>15525939
Kill her

>>15526601
What do you find personally inspirational about the Psalms?

>>15525144
The only thing Im really motivated to do now is to kill myself after reading that

>>15526679
then ill just go to prison. i would rather just kill myself

>>15516475
The Bible and Gorgias are what you need for your predicament.

>>15525144
Nice blogpost dude. But I could have read Tony Robbins and received the same bugman tirade which ignores the metaphysical basis for OP's problems.

>>15525024
>>15525054
>You always know what you need to do. If you could only follow it, you’d start seeing results. There’s no debate there. If you take action and systematically work towards your goals, you’re going to see progress. That’s just how life works.

This is absolutely not true for a good number of people. And if this is not true, it looks like your whole spiel falls apart.

I appreciate your trying to help OP and others, but the macho "You're lazy, just be responsible and everything will be great!" thing is less and less relevant to the modern age.

Have you really never been stuck in a rut for years despite consistently trying hard to get out? Come on, man.

To sum it up:
1. You don't always know what you need to do. And the longer you've been stuck in unhappiness despite trying hard, the less you'll know what to do, or even care about.

2. Sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) even if you think you know what you need to do, you may try to do it, continually fail, and make no progress. You don't just get whatever you want, unless you're wealthy, maybe. And I hope you're not trying to give advice to rich people.

>>15525011
How does Jocko's dick taste? I've been working hard and studying for lofty goals for years now and I still want to die in my sleep every night.

Have you ever sat back and contemplated that there is a little bit more to what is wrong with this world beyond some physicalist notion of "hard work"?

>>15525011
How does Jocko's dick taste? I've been working hard and studying for lofty goals for years now and I still want to die in my sleep every night.

>>15517224
He says you don't have to partake, but it does help with calming yourself and getting into a pleasurable state quicker than most yoga practices; which you should still do for the long term health and emotional benefits of the exercises. I know it looks weird on the surface but the book has practical advise on how to take control of your mind, body, and "reality". It was designed to be an owner's guide to the human nervous system, after all.

>>15516870
I've thought about that a lot and I think the answer lies in R.A.W.s personal life. I think his theories on life extension and meta-programming(self-healing) hold a good deal of weight. For instance, his development of polio as a child went into remission by his positive attitude and the regular exercises from the Kenny method.

He was born poor and Irish in the 30s, was crippled as a child, his daughter was murdered. In spite all of that, he kept his cool and stayed positive with all that trauma. Cut to the 90s, he's struck with post-polio syndrome but walks with a can and still feels happy. Then Arlen, the love of his life, gets terminally ill. He cares for her until she dies, after which Wilson kept getting sicker and sicker until eventually he died in 2007. His making it as far as he did I think was proof enough that a lot of his methods really worked, if at least on a basic level. What I think killed him was that the grief of Arlen's death took his will to live that once kept him going.

Just look at his final interviews. He went from a little huskey and jolly to scrawny and trembling within about seven years of her death. He still believed in and hoped for the future, but I think he was ready to go at that point. We all might die one day but nothing's certain, friend. Good luck.

>>15516867
I was just about to recommend that.

>>15517918
>just get a haircut bro
why, anon? why would you so torture us?

>>15518029
I only read a small collection of bits from Schopenhauer (Penguin "Great Ideas" series), and one of the major pillars that stuck in my mind in the 6+ years since was that he characterized suicide as perhaps the most fundamental right - the most inalienable right in the world.

>>15516585
I want to fuck your spoiler/asshole

>>15516475
12 rules for life unironically

>>15516921
Please don't, anon. At least try

There is something incredibly pitiful about a website as angry as 4chan having literal talk therapy threads nearly go to bump limit on a regular basis.

All you larpers spew shit about "the will to power" and how you hate "slave morality" while anonymously posting how you want to off yourself in a venting thread like this one. Very odd.

>>15528297
wow a site about social rejects have a lot of diversity in it
wow reddit told me that you guys are white supremacist (not knowing that he's in the most liberal board there is)
wow guys reddit told me you guys have the man up mentality
fuck you tourist we care for anons the ones society betrayed
fuck you go back to your r/cringe or whatever the hell you shitty normies go to
leave us alone
GO BACK

>>15525939
Something something your mom something in minecraft.

>>15516475
Please, for the love of God, don't kill yourself. Your problems can all be solved, but only if you keep on living. Offing yourself represents the most cowardly way of escaping, which would be unbecoming of someone whom has braved so much already. Please, hang on.

>t.escapedfromalongandheavydepressiveepisode

>>15521828
kek

>>15525864
dont feed the troll

>>15516921
fuck me man, i mean i generally dont give out advice cos im relatively young(18) and dont really have any idea bout anything but holy shit.
giving up your one chance at life on this earth to... spite your mum? dont. shes not going to 'realize' anything if you do that, she'll still be an asshole.
if she really wanted you to be miserable (or even resented your existence entirely) why not roll the dice on you being able to make things better. wouldnt that be a better way to spite her?

>>15520506
find a reason to your life

>>15529560
>just solve your life xD

>>15528297
PSEUDONIETZSCHEANS?
ON **MY** ANONYMOUS LITERATURE BOARD?!?!

i think we need new words here for the sort of black-pilled existential depression and angst people can somewhat discuss well here, because otherwise the word “depression” just triggers people and gets joke responses

>>15529903
>existential depression
isnt that enough?

>>15517635
After Virtue

>>15520506
Pretty sure this is normal

>>15518214
I'd start with Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, it's a nice introduction to Buddhism for the uninitiated.

>>15529951
Existence has once again been confirmed as abhorrent and vain

>>15529951
Existence has once again been confirmed as abhorrent and vain

>>15516526

Melodrama

>>15529727
Yes. If you can't find a reason to live with all the options available to you today you're honestly just a coward.

OP I have recently been in a rut. Break up with an occupation change and a major health issue Ive been diagnosed with. Feeling sad, listening to sad music, and reading books about being sad really didnt help at all. One day I said lets try "pretending" to be happy. I texted a bunch of old buddies from college and one thing lead to another we are playing left 4 dead together like the good old days. I went to the local asian grocer and tried weird grocery items that looked tasty and fun, just to change up my day. Im reaching out to people ive ghosted and just been texting memes and sharing how we feel about whats going in in america. Just having someone to text, doing something new, and being a little bit self indulgent has been fun.

None of these things fixed my issues, the reality of my problems havent changed at all. However my day to day experience has just been more fun. Take action. I find revolving your life around being sad is actually almost a hobby in itself, its a time investment to be sad. You purposefully dont eat or dont care to eat, sleep in more or sleep less, purposefully choose to just browse the internet endlessly. Instead why do something time consuming/ fun to get your mind off? Ive been making some sangria with local fruits trying out different blends and its been fun.

Of course within reason, life is what you make it.

>>15516879
more like deleting system 32

>>15530108
im happy for you anon. way to go. it isn’t easy

>>15530108
>reading books about being sad really didnt help at all.

Intellectually I know this but god damn do I love the aesthetic of bleakness, melancholy, and doom. What the fuck am I supposed to do. The one thing I love most is poison to me. And as much as that irony stymies my life, it's also fucking delicious.

>>15530108
Good on you anon. I think we all know 'feeling sad, lstening to sad music, and reading books about being sad' doesn't help, yet it oddly feels as if it's the only outlet somehow. I've tried the 'deciding to be better'-route, but it's always so ephemeral. Sometimes it doesn't even last an hour, at most it takes a day before I'm back into my old state. I just don't care anymore; I'm on the verge of getting kicked out of college (probably not much I can do to change that anymore) and I just don't give a fuck. I only care that my parents spent that much money and time on me.

>>15527730
>why, anon? why would you so torture us?

Do you want your character development or not?

>>15517427
>and betrayed repeatedly

Sounds like he isn't learning from his mistakes then. Sure, you'll come across set backs but take each as a learning opportunity and use some intelligence to apply it flexibly to other situations.

Any books that deal with bitterness at being dealt a poor hand at life? I just keep thinking back to this time where I went step through step with some privleged private school kid on how to solve some plug and chug quadratic equation problems and he still couldn't get it. How much opportunity do you think this dumb cunt end up getting in life just because of the money his family threw at him and nepotism? He had no intelligence, below average looks, barely any work ethic. I just can't help but focus in on this one cunt as representative of every other upper class cunt and hate them with passion.

>>15529727
If you think that finding reason to live solves everything you are wrong

How the fuck are y'all not infinitely curious about everything? Dumbasses, if you're not spending 24 hours a day figuring out how to be Da Vinci -- hurry up and end it faggots. Prostitution and euthanasia need to be legalized for fucks like y'all.

>>15530498
i honestly dont have any energy and focus at all.

>>15516921
If you’re gonna kill yourself at least read no longer human by osamu dazai. I think you’d like it.

>>15530498
For real, mate.

Reccomend me a book?

>>15530490
Again: Schopenhauer. Newsflash nobody is happy. That priviledged kid isn't happy and isn't worthy of envy. There's no such thing as happiness. There is only the possibility of achieving joy through silence.

>>15516957
Poor man