Post yours

>>24558593 (OP)
Probably a "me" problem but i couldnt finish and didnt get anything out of what i read that i couldnt have gotten out if a random fiction book but i only got about a quarter or a third into it.

What did you get out of it? What is the appeal? Did i abandon it too quickly? I was in a weird time in my life and had just gotten back into reading. Also, i was on a road trip with my dad and felt like he was sort of "projecting" us onto the material.

>>24558593 (OP)
The holy quran

>>24558631
Simply put it really just helped me comprehend zen ideas more intuitively when placed in modern western context, which made it easier to implement into my life as an ontological utility, rather than having seen it as a sort of orientalist religious curiosity with dubious benefits, or as it is often portrayed. Zen is a kind of take-it-or-leave-it philosophy. It's highly commercialised in the west and somewhat hypocritical, but I'm too emotional and nervous to not make use of it. It helped me commit to tasks and improve my relationship with time. Helped me find joy in things after a long slog of depression

>>24558593 (OP)
Arms hurt less after reading this

>>24558593 (OP)
Seneca's Moral Letters. Pretty much is a sel-help book. Made a much bigger impact on me than Marcus Aurelius did for what it's worth.

>>24558593 (OP)
Goodbye, Things.
I actually cleaned my room after the first few pages.

>>24558593 (OP)
This was my unstable exe’s favorite book, so unfortunately I cannot allow myself to enjoy it. Really thought some of the ideas in it were interesting, though. also, the author seems to have had a really sad life

>>24558593 (OP)
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

the only part of this book i remember is the part where the main character visits his friends' house and and their kitchen sink has a leaky faucet. he immediately notices it and says "hey your faucet is leaking," and they say "oh we just got used to it".

>>24558593 (OP)
>protagonist spergs out at the pissing contest with somehillbilly professer over hegel or whatever
> protagonist falls down, autistically schreeching, pissing, soiling himself
> stouner is literally me
> phaedrus is literally me(its about sodomy)
how is this the "self help that actually helps"?
>>24559135
second this

>>24560494
Not exactly reading it for the protagonists character

still have no clue what this book was about yet its apparently highly regarded. seems like a bunch of bullshit to me.

This is more general but fits the theme more broadly:

chatgpt successfully diagnosed my rare health problems; made it easier to learn anything, and encouraged me to take diet and exercise (very) seriously. I still consume traditional media though but use AI every day. It's been a better doctor to me than real doctors and more helpful than any book I've read.

>>24559135
Could this fix chronic fatigue?
Is it meditation, if it is it can't help me with my severe ADHD.

Anything for mental toughness? I’m not sure if that’s the correct term. But basically I want to stay calm at all times, like Picard and the TNG crew.

>>24562435
The state you are trying to achieve is called ataraxia. Read the stoics, and read what's survived out of epicureans too.
(Ignore the brainlets who believe the epicureans are naive hedonists, they are more like the stoics than they are different. Also, you can start with Aurelius if you want, when it comes to stoics, but I personally think he's overrated and Seneca and Epictetus are better.)

>>24562486
>Epictetus
Nta but im not convinced we can generally control our desire.

>>24558593 (OP)
I read Thus spake Zarathustra and understood approximately 30% of it. I don't give a fuck though, I felt empowered by what I could understand and my life has improved astronomically since I finished it and have decided to impose my will on the world which is about the only meaningful thing I could take from the book. No I have not read any of his other books, I probably will at some point because I only found out afterwards that I started with the amalgamation of all of his previous works first. Anyway it's a good book and is imbued with powerful Voodoo regardless of your level of reading comprehension and I am almost diagnosable as retarded so that's that.

>>24562544
Eh, you can get a decent amount of the way there if you learn the tricks (malorum praemeditatio, substituting simpler pleasures, etc ) and when to deploy them. Age and reflection will take you the rest of the way.
If you feel like you are not getting enough tricks, read some book on cognitive-behavioral therapy. It is basically stoicism, just gutted of all the pathos and ideology and distilled into tricks and practices. Insufficient when used alone, but useful as auxiliary reading.

>>24561246
no, I’m still mid-grade fatigued easily
best of luck to you and your doctor figuring out why you’re fatiguing easily

Sadly, Porn. It’s written in a very unique style unlike any other self-help book. The author does his best to filter out people who won’t actually put in the work to change by filling the book with cuck porn (first 35 pages is just a skit to a cuck porn scene iirc) where most of the text is under footnotes. I think it even went as far to say that if you were a grown woman or a man above 40, you shouldn’t bother reading the book since you’re incapable of the change that’s prescribed by Teach and that you’re coping consciously than pretend you can meaningfully change. The fundamental thesis of the book is that >you are fake and gay and that you were shaped by, sadly, porn. By using a Lacanian lens to analyze literature and other forms of art, the author challenges you to actually “traverse the fantasy”…as well as learn some calculus lol. This book has made a serious and noticeable change in how I live my life, though it is fundamentally brutal work.

Sadly, Porn. It’s written in a very unique style unlike any other self-help book. The author does his best to filter out people who won’t actually put in the work to change by filling the book with cuck porn (first 35 pages is just a skit to a cuck porn scene iirc) where most of the text is under footnotes. I think it even went as far to say that if you were a grown woman or a man above 40, you shouldn’t bother reading the book since you’re incapable of the change that’s prescribed by Teach and that you’re much better off coping consciously than pretending that you can meaningfully change. The fundamental thesis of the book is that >you are fake and gay and that you were shaped by, sadly, porn. By using a Lacanian lens to analyze literature and other forms of art, the author challenges you to actually “traverse the fantasy”…as well as learn some calculus lol. This book has made a serious and noticeable change in how I live my life, though it is fundamentally brutal work.

The only one you need.

>>24562795
what if I’m over 40 but have only seen like three minutes of porn in my lifetime tops

>>24558631
It's not a you problem, Pirsig's an idiot who misunderstands literally everything he tries to talk about.

>>24558757
>helped me comprehend zen ideas
Astonishing since, like every other concept he borrows to appear worldly, he claims it is something it is not.
But I suppose it's possible that you were just in a place in your life where a story by and a smug shithead who can't be bothered to engage with anything sincerely. Ideas, friends, his son, mortality, anything.

>>24562972
Porn is used to represent “marketing departments”

>>24558593 (OP)
i read this in high school and don't remember anything about it except that the main character was a bad father

>>24562795
So what kind of changes did it ultimately cause you to make?

>>24563686
I’d describe it as two fold: one part asking myself the hard questions, questions that I’ve avoided for long periods of my life. The other part is stripping away all the things in my life that I was doing that was ultimately “performative”, things that I did not for myself but to look a certain way to the “other”. I realized just how much of my personality was driven by society and not me. So I’ve been stripping away all the fakeness and being more “real” if that makes sense. Practically speaking, it meant cutting off friends that weren’t really friends, drawing hard boundaries at work as far as what I will and will not do, dating exactly what and how I would like to, picking hobbies that are true to me and not necessarily what’s popular, and fundamentally living my day marching to my own beat. This might be obvious shit to some people, but for me, I needed to be jolted awake.

>>24564762
>dating exactly what and how I would like to
oh so u came out as gay

>>24564762
Thanks. I'm trying to engage with the book and his blog and it's very difficult for me so far. But I really appreciate your two posts they are compelling me to explore his ideas

>>24564762
It's funny how reading Stirner, who is not doing anywhere near the amount of deconstruction than Teach, drove me do to exactly the same.
I have a feeling that self-help books, when they work, tend to have the same effect. It's just the question of what book you personally need to take you there.

>>24564767
Nah, more so I stopped playing the dating meta. I never liked the meta and I won’t stoop to it anymore.
>>24564830
So this anon >>24564945 is on point with
> I have a feeling that self-help books, when they work, tend to have the same effect. It's just the question of what book you personally need to take you there.
If you find Teach/TLP’s stuff to not resonate with you, that’s totally fine and dare I say, normal. Teach was trying to target a specific demographic of people that are well read but won’t *do* anything in their lives to reflect the new information they ingested. The fundamental message is: do. Do something, anything, so long as you choose and not because of I do x I will get y mentality. As Lacan said, you must traverse the fantasy (know that you are fake and gay, and live accordingly).

>>24561246
I hope it gets better for you. I have this shit for over 15 years now but I still hsve some hope.

>>24562795
I love the last psychologist and I would love to find something that's in a similar voice.

>>24565630
Psychiatrist* whatever

>>24563207
I guess you, Anonymous /lit/ poster, have a monopoly on what is true, and should be considered an authority over someone who wrote a lengthy book on the subject, succeeded through the merit of it's usefulness for the thousands of people who read it and at least found a little use from it.

A lot of self help books are just the same shit rewritten. Alan carrs smoking book got me to quit for a week but then vapes started getting good and I smoke while drinking. I might go back and finish it some day.

>>24558635
ZEN and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I read as a teen, MY Mom gave it to me. IT'S REALLY GOOD. AND I recently purchased my GOLD embossed copy of The HOLY Quran. IT'S the best book written IN ALMOST all of History.. The writing of The Sufi is good too, u should check out Suwardi IF u love The Quran

>>24564762
But it's impossible separate the "true self" from society. How much of this process of individuation is just exchanging one mask for another on the insistence of the author? Whenever I try to strip myself of aspects of my personality that seems unwittingly influenced by socially driven insecurities, the more it seems like I'm a completely empty vessel, or a filter that the world passes through. Maybe that's the point. The ego is a false representations of human behaviour. When you run away from it, it ends up changing it's shape into something more appealing to the circumstances. My desire for "change" is not change, but reduction. Recently my aim is towards becoming less separate from others, less wrapped up in the presentations of self, but for various reasons, my personality not withstanding, prevent me from letting go. Finding yourself separated and alone is as terrifying to me as losing myself in the crowd, but there's a greater sense of personal ease in the latter than there is anxiety and despair in the former. If I'm getting you wrong, tell me. I haven't read the book

The Havamal, if that counts. it's the book of the Edda in which Odin imparts wisdom to man:
>34. Long is and indirect the way to a bad friend’s, though by the road he dwell; but to a good friend’s the paths lie direct, though he be far away.
>35. A guest should depart, not always stay in one place. The welcome becomes unwelcome, if he too long continues in another’s house.
>36. One’s own house is best, small though it be; at home is every one his own master. Though he but two goats possess, and a straw-thatched cot, even that is better than begging.
>37. One’s own house is best, small though it be, at home is every one his own master. Bleeding at heart is he, who has to ask for food at every meal-tide.
>38. Leaving in the field his arms, let no man go a foot’s length forward; for it is hard to know when on the way a man may need his weapon.
>39. I have never found a man so bountiful, or so hospitable that he refused a present; or of his property so liberal that he scorned a recompense.
>40. Of the property which he has gained no man should suffer need; for the hated oft is spared what for the dear was destined. Much goes worse than is expected.
>41. With arms and vestments friends should each other gladden, those which are in themselves most sightly. Givers and requiters are longest friends, if all [else] goes well.
>42. To his friend a man should be a friend, and gifts with gifts requite. Laughter with laughter men should receive, but leasing with lying.
>43. To his friend a man should be a friend; to him and to his friend; but of his foe no man shall the friend’s friend be.
>44. Know, if thou hast a friend whom thou fully trustest, and from whom thou woulds’t good derive, thou shouldst blend thy mind with his, and gifts exchange, and often go to see him.
>45. If thou hast another, whom thou little trustest, yet wouldst good from him derive, thou shouldst speak him fair, but think craftily, and leasing pay with lying.
>46. But of him yet further, whom thou little trustest, and thou suspectest his affection; before him thou shouldst laugh, and contrary to thy thoughts speak: requital should the gift resemble.

>>24565764
You’re 100% on point and I certainly agree. Even your experience mirrors my own, so I’m right there with you. In any case, that’s why I put “real” in quotations. Lacan doesn’t believe “authenticity” is real for exactly what you’re saying. That’s why when he says to traverse the fantasy, he’s asking you not to strip away illusions but recognize them as illusions in the first place and act accordingly. If putting on a certain mask helps you make friends and makes you happy, do it, knowing that you’re putting on said mask. In my case, I choose being separated and alone for now as I figure out what mask I want to wear around people in my private life.