All the Great Books inevitably take a few pages to tell you that you need to stop wasting time reading or overthinking and go outside to experience real life, meet others, and start a family because your actions that impact that world and the connections you make with others are the only things that truly matter, and real experience is worth 10x more than "experience" gathered second hand by reading.
The more I read the more I notice this sentiment, yet every time I finish a book that tries to teach me this I just end up picking up another. At what point are we spinning our wheels failing to heed the lessons our endless readings are trying to impart?
>I sighed - and regarded with wonder my past self, which preferred the company of book or pen to that of man or woman; which, if the author of a tale I was enjoying appeared, would wish him away that I might return to his story. I had chosen the dead rather than the living, the thing thought rather than the thing thinking! "Any man," I said now, "is more than the greatest of books!" I had not cared for my live brothers and sisters, and now I was left without even the dead to comfort me!

>>24567804 (OP)

can't remember this sentiment in anna karenina at all. or any of the books i've read desu. i think you're reading too many novels written by women

>>24567804 (OP)
>meet others, and start a family because your actions that impact that world and the connections you make with others are the only things that truly matter, and real experience is worth 10x more than "experience" gathered second hand by reading.


Ahaha, nigga go outside for real. Everyone is a phone zombie now

>>24567825
Really? Nothing about Anna Karenina made you feel that way?
>These thoughts oppressed and tormented Levin, now more and now less strongly, but never left him. He read and thought, and the more he read and thought the further he felt from his goal.
>Latterly in Moscow and in the country, having convinced himself that he could get no answer from the materialists, he read through and re-read Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schilling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, those philosophers who explained life otherwise than materialistically.
>Their thoughts seemed to him fruitful when he read, or was himself devising refutations of other teachings, the materialistic in particular; but as soon as he began reading, or himself devised, solutions to life's problems, the same thing occurred every time. Following long definitions of vague words such as spirit, will, freedom, substance, and deliberately entering the verbal trap set for him by the philosophers, or by himself, he seemed to begin to understand something. But he had only to forget that artificial line of thought, and to return direct from real life to what had appeared satisfactory so long as he kept to the given line of thought-and suddenly the whole artificial edifice tumbled down like a house of cards, and it was evident that the edifice had been constructed of those same words differently arranged, and without regard for something in life more important than reason...
>Whether he was acting well or ill he did not know, and far from laying down the law about it, he now avoided talking or thinking about it. Thinking about it led him into doubts and prevented him from seeing what he should and should not do. But when he did not think, but just lived, he unceasingly felt in his soul the presence of an infallible judge deciding which of two possible actions was the better and which the worse; and as soon as he did what he should not have done, he immediately felt this.

>>24567804 (OP)

this is intellectual romanticizing of the "simple" people being honest and noble savages, when they drink, beat their wives, fuck their daughters and are miserable. chinese cultural revolution peasant fetish post

>>24567804 (OP)
You need to find a balance between defect and excess. Both are dangerous for yourself.

I can't go outside and figure put how ww1 lead to ww2 though.

>>24567804 (OP)
>All the Great Books inevitably take a few pages to tell you that you need to stop wasting time reading or overthinking and go outside to experience real life, meet others, and start a family because your actions that impact that world and the connections you make with others are the only things that truly matter, and real experience is worth 10x more than "experience" gathered second hand by reading.
Some people aren't meant to live the sort of life that you envision. In the Middle Ages, people would spend their entire lives in monasteries and convents because that was the best way to lead a fulfilling life. What recourse does that same type of person have in today's world?

I don’t read literature for any lessons and the suggestion that I do, that I read in order to develop myself, gain new perspectives on life, learn how to act in new situations, etc is grossly offensive to me

>>24567997
We do not live in a world where locking yourself up is the rational choice like it was in the Middle Ages

>>24567804 (OP)
Great literature is the purified essence of language and reveals to us truths and worlds that common language is incapable of. It informs and reveals and builds the conditions of human connection itself. Dante is the father of the Italian language and therefore Italians themselves, Shakespeare is the father of the English language and therefore the English themself.

>>24568011
whether you like it or not literature is moral

>>24568280
You're right. It's simply not a realistic option for people today. So what do you propose we do with a group of would-be hermits and monks who desire to spend their time alone in contemplation?

Reading is legit for cucks and a overall waste of time, not really so different from watching slop on Netflix or playing vidya. The only thing worth reading is something to get you ass back in gear in whatever pursuit you're in, information to get into action, the rest is pure bluff.

>>24568406
You can just extend to logical to any grindset shit you're peddling. You work hard your entire to get a 2 bedroom apartment and die. Seems like a waste of time no?

>>24568406
you probably scroll 4chan all day

>>24567804 (OP)
No, the point is just to not let reading consume you, like any hobby or pursuit. All things in moderation.

>>24568406
yes but at the same time it's basically the only thing worth doing besides writing

>>24567804 (OP)
it's a matter of balance, as other anons have pointed out.

>>24567910
I wish they just did that. They're way worse in reality.

>>24568565
>it just is, okay?

>>24567804 (OP)
>real experience is worth 10x more than "experience" gathered second hand by reading.
Which real experience? Some real experience sucks, and some second-hand experience is awesome. Not to mention second-hand experience can help you have better real experience by informing you of different facts or possible ends you could pursue or possible interesting and beautiful ways you can think of otherwise mundane things.
This line of yours sounds like the manic black-and-white thinking of a self-hating neurotic. When you stop and think logically about it for a second, it breaks down.
>>24568346
The same thing they always did. Go into academia.

>>24568406
The fact that you felt the necessity to affirm this in the literature board tells me all i need to know about your assessment.

>>24567910
Not really. It's intellectual awareness that "simple" people are dishonest and vulgar savages and it's in your and history's best interest to whip them into shape through exploitation and shaming. Experiencing life is about submitting to your creator and understanding your existence through its eyes and praxis. You are the eyes through which the universe beholds itself and knows it is divine. You are the eyes and conscience of your creator. Reading is ultimately a luxury, a pleasure, and like all pleasures they are best done in moderation, a little postprandial enjoyment or some light entertainment to fight the demon of insomnia, a little extra to maybe hold some new information in how to exploit and fuck over everyone and everything you're competing with, but not much else.
To waste a life reading is tragic. So is to waste a life playing video games. Shame both things (when they're good) are so pleasurable.

>>24567804 (OP)
>Is the ultimate goal of reading to stop reading?

The very question is not what you should be asking. There is no "ultimate goal" of reading because reading is a medium to absorb various facets of human culture and entertainment. You should reevaluate why you began reading in the first place. Once you find your starting point in why you read, then you can start searching for your own ultimate goal.

>>24567896
Lmao blew that pseud out so bad

>>24568836
NTA but what of those who don't have academia as a viable option?

>>24568280
We don't? It's only not rational because the filth reaches everywhere and you are punished by societies and states for daring to. But it's still the ideal.

>>24567896

huh? this excerpt isn't about experiencing real life vs experiencing it in a book. he's reading philosophers not fiction. Levin experiences plenty of real life, meets plenty of people, and is desperately trying to court kitty to start a family. he's not using books as escapism a la your point in the OP. i can see why, superficially, you think this passage somehow contradicts what i've said, but it doesn't.

>>24570299
Highschool teacher doing research on the side. Or a menial job as a security guard. Or live off of their autism government funding. Or straight homelessness.

>>24567804 (OP)
I’d like to know wag great books you’ve read that you think this. You probably haven’t even read 1% of the canon realistically and are trying to scrape together some impression formed from your own biases.

>>24568836
>>24570299
>>24570846
Academia and monkhood are very different lives. Monks practise quietude in body, mind, and spirit; whereas academics are blabbermouths on every level. Same goes for wageslavery. In today’s world, there is no space for silence.

>>24570120
All life is tragic.

>>24570909
Goalpost shift. The original criterion was people who "desire to spend their time alone in contemplation," not people who wanted to live like a medieval monk.

>>24567804 (OP)
The goal is to make gods creation more like god.

>>24571728
No academic does that