Trying to have an existential crisis here /lit/ give me your best books to induce this feeling.
Why the hell would you WANT an existential crises, ignorance is bliss anon.
>>7785098
Being and Nothingness
>>7785106
To see what all the hype is about.
get a job
Stoner
Death of Ivan Ilych
Its one of the things that inspired Heidegger
>>7785115
this. you have to really feel it yourself and not in some detached reading a book in your comfy bed way.
Having a dead end job with no idea of what you are going to do if you quit is a sure way to bring on that feeling.
it's not an existential crisis if it's something you feel like chatting about on 4chan or reddit
that picture of john travolta is giving me an existential crisis
>>7785109
The hype is from people selling their existential crisis's to people who romanticize them.
Existential crises may seem like good fun from the outside, but they're not. I've been unable to enjoy anything for years.
>>7785745
Let's face facts. Cos you posted this in the first place means that you think its worth while and says that you use 4chan a lot. Im guessing you lime reading posts on 4chan and the attention you get from posting no?
>>7785098
Same. I can't tell which is more horrifying: Either reality is a boring and monotonous "wait in line" until death with no absolute truth, or everything we know about it is wrong.
The Last Messiah by Zapfell.
Unfortunately there's no longer a place to read it free online. But find it and you best be believe you'll be triggered.
>>7786305
How exactly does one perform this "lime" that you are speaking of?
>>7785124
Well that would explain last years existential issues and closest i came to a meltdown about my future.
Comfy pro-existence happy books lads?
>>7785098
I considered existential crisis to be bored richfag bullshit until I turned roughly 23. I suddently didnt know anymore what I was here for, what was the purpose of my body beeing here, all kinds of weirds feeling, then I gave a kick in my ass, decided to pursue projects that are dear to me and it went fine, know i only get that feeling when i'm unproductive and lazy. Anyone had that ? Is there literature about that kind of realization ?
Who else had an existential crisis at a young age?
>be me
>~8 years old at a Catholic School
>A couple of classmates and I are taken to library
>Random woman talks to us about "being human" and ties it into God
>Some girl talks about the idea of small humans inside of us that make our decisions
>deepshit.png
>I repeat the phrase "It's weird that I'm real" inside my head for about a week straight
>Start to look at myself in the mirror and think about just how weird "being a human" really is
>think about what my purpose is, why I'm here, what is reality, the regular stuff
The phrase "it's weird that I'm real" still triggers me
>>7785745
Go to a doctor, for fuck's sake
>>7786850
All literature is about that realization
Conspiracy against the human race
>>7786887
>Tfw we shouldn't be here.
>>7785109
It's like you kind of want to kill yourself or something, not a good feeling. It's probably how many people get on anti-depressants
>>7786892
Yea, anti-depressants cure everything, it's just uhhh... a chemical imbalance! Yea... that's it!
>>7786735
like this
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THIS IS A LEMON LINE
REPOST IT, OR YOU BECOME A LEMON
AND JOIN THE LINE
>>7786887
I used to get waves of a totally unexplainable melancholy (that I now feel when in existential thought) as a kid when I'd lie in bed with my Mum for some reason.
>>7788127
freud.jpg
Myth of Sisyphus because you sound like a 15 year old
>>7785098
Your life is literally pointless. One drop of water in an endless ocean.
As soon as you understand that, accept and embrace it, then go on with your meaningless life. It's what I did, and I feel way better then when I was trying to push it away. Now I genuinely enjoy doing things to waste my time, and I genuinely enjoy being with friends and family. Good luck and cheers, anon.
thread theme:
https://soundcloud.com/goodnightcody/alone-on-this-island
>>7786816
Funnily enough this cured a bout of depression and existentialism for me.
The way Zapfell wrote made the reality that nothing we do matters freeing and palatable.
Soon twenty five. Been in such crisis for half a year. Two months ago a question came across me - "what would be different if I killed myself, would there be anything bad about it for me?" - and it scared me, because I always used to joke about things like suicide; but there I was, considering it, not hysterically, but calmly and rationally, which is that much worse.
I cannot find meaning, not in love that is given to me, not in joy, not in religion. Everything is going to wither away. I would pray to be wrong, but if there was a God and he gave us eternal life, we would just sail to the ultimate boredom and then beg him for an end. We cling to our animal senses and we try to irritate them and then ease them, so we would forget about the void.
I am tied to a chair in an empty room, and either I die or sit there 'till God sees fit to erase me.
Please help me. I wish I could go back and unthink.
>>7785098
I've been really getting stuck on individual words and letters and getting sucked into whether or not those words, sentences, phrases actually have any meaning
Nietzsche is dead
>>7785106
I don't know what all of the hype is about, I figured it was just a meme. I can't even imagine what one would feel like, I mean, do you truly lose all joy in life just because you think NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING T_T?
I don't know if I'm just too stupid to have one or too smart to have one. I've never really had to look for meaning in life, my basic assumption from childhood was that the world is an absurd, disorganized place where nothing really makes sense and man finds his own meaning along the way.
I mean, I 'prayed' (aka asked for favors) to god until I was around 10 or so but without being a fedora tipper, it was just a childish impulse. I never needed any real metaphysical model to help explain the world around me.
I've thought about the stuff but it never really throws me into a 'crisis', maybe like a somber afternoon before I say "lol whatever" and get over myself.
>>7789024
You haven't looked into the abyss yet.
Better to Never Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence by David Benatar
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti
Have fun!
>>7789071
I had fun with you're mom last night if you know what I mean
>>7789071
I beg you to tell me you're no older than sixteen. Do it for my sanity. This is a sincere request.
>>7789024
Ok, first: So you assume that youre either too smart or too dumb to have a crisis which is moronic, because the seed of a crisis is not necessarily intelligence or lack thereof. Certainly, a modicum of introspection is required (an existential crisis is necessarily tied into examining ones existence) which is related somewhat to intelligence, but not solely.
Second: im going to write a fucking essay on crises when I get back from class at 4, I hate phones (but in the meantime, please understand that a fundamental component of a crisis is a revision of personal axioms, the fact you have a consistent (since your earliest memory apparently) and very base (not a bad thing!) view of the world means that you will not undergo a crisis by attempting to remove or destroy your axioms (which essentially appear to be the utter lack of any axioms). Instead of a nihilistic crisis (which is impossible for you, going from 0 to 0 is not a crisis), if (IF) you undergo a crisis it will be from you instilling value in something, NOT in the removal of value. It is possible that you will not realize you instilled value in something (or more likely someone) until they are removed and you find yourself thrown into...... Yes you guessed it: a crisis
>>7789283
I'm 28.
>>7785098
That OJ series is pretty good.
>>7789345
Having recently gone through an existential crisis this was very informative anon and makes a lot of sense, thankyou.
>>7789345
This explains why I start questioning my place on earth when I'm too drunk to get it up.
>>7785098
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Notes from Underground
>>7786305
There's a difference between liking something and enjoying it. I like eating pizza, I like masturbating, I like shitposting on 4chan. But nothing gives me a deep sense of fulfillment, not once in the last few years have I thought to myself "I'm happy with my life and the way it's headed". I don't get any of those moment of genuine happiness that most people experience a few times each day, that just seems so alien to me now.
>>7786892
I think they'd just put me on anti-depressants, but I don't think that would help with an existential issue. Sure it might take the edge off when I get upset (although that doesn't happen very often anyway) but would it help me to find any meaning or purpose? No. I'm actually trying to understand my problem 'from the inside' - I'm a psychology graduate, currently studying a master's related to mental health, and considering a career as a clinical psychologist. The problem is I feel it's completely hypocritical and unauthentic to cure people of depression when I'm currently depressed and believe there is a rational reason for my depression. I'm still trying to work it out.
>>7789675
I read the Death of Ivan Ilyich last week. was quite good.
i preferred Master & man by Tolstoi though
>>7789684
Just accept the lord bro.
>>7789718
Wish I could, my life would undoubtedly be a lot better if I believed in some sort of higher power that I could devote my life to. But I've not seen any compelling argument for the existence of God, and therefore my mind can't accept religion even if it knows it would be healthier if it did.
>>7786887
first one
>10 years old
>watch Carl Sagan's pale blue dot video
>tfw so small
>tfw I could become the most important man on earth and still would have no more impact than a stillborn child
>tfw sitting at the top of a staircase crying every night
second one
>13 years old
>parents watching a show about if free will is real or not
>come in at the end
>"All scientists have come to the conclusion that free will is an illusions"
>HOLY SHIT
>spend the next month laying on my bed trying to make sense of it all
>constantly feel depressed
>isolation
>more crying because I was a little faggot
That last one go me into philosophy though, and looking back on it now, it really left a positive impact on my life.
>>7789751
We are not fully rational beings. It's ok to have some irrational beliefs.
>>7785109
Imagine being unsure about everything. You should kill yourself but you're unsure of that too
The quark and the jaguar
Its physics heavy, also it may cure your crisis as well
>>7786887
Was sexually abused as a child, nobody knows, so even at age 8 I used to cry myself to sleep every single night because I had a sincere belief in God and Hell and used to read Revelations in The Bible everyday and due to what happened I felt I was doomed to eternal damnation. Was depressed up until about 15 but functioned normally, played sports, had friends et cetera and never let on to anyone. Those years were fucking dark and the whole thing was a long existential crisis, in effect. The feelings still linger and in my heart I am a very pessimistic person about people and life.
>>7789780
That's pretty much what I've been trying to grapple with for the last few months. I'm convinced that the only way humans can be happy is to endorse irrational beliefs. So rationally, the best way to live life is to be irrational. And yet I can't accept anything irrational, I'm not capable of that sort of 'doublethink' that's necessary to live a happy life. I wish I could say to a girl that I would love her forever and mean it, I wish I could believe that God has a plan for every one of us, but I think that these sorts of things are just lies we tell ourselves. And if I know it's a lie, I can't live my life by it.
>>7789807
Read Either/Or
it basically says there are only two ways to live life based on the fact that: Either we are the greatest good in the universe Or we are not. My recommendation is that you try both lives and choose one.
>>7789833
I've been trying to read more existentialist texts (currently on The Brothers Karamazov), so I'll definitely add this to the list.
>>7785098
Start with this...
This is a lot of text, but this is how I did it. It was an accident but due to the reproducible nature of mathematics I think this might be a good guide.
step 1:
read mathematics. Pretty much anything will do, any cohesive theory that can be used to think about interactive processes. Group theory, set theory, graph theory, information theory, combinatorics, geometry, differential equations, etc.
step 2:
Start to boil everyday processes in your own life down to descriptions within the framework of some mathematical theory. Interpret your meetings with people in the language of graph theory, describe the worth of your actions in information theory, etc.
What’s crucial here is that you attempt to do these things, really put some effort into it and let your mind reel at the implications. You should be solving nothing while becoming more and more vexed at apparent contradictions you encounter (contradictions rising from a conflation of your presupposed expectations of the world with what you are describing mathematically).
Really gorge yourself on these thoughts, you should be dreaming mathematical nonsense, you should wake up with a sense that you understand everything only to realise that what had just consumed you was gibberish. This is important, maths should be creeping into everything you do whether you like it or not.
step 3:
If you haven’t naturally done this already start to try and describe your current thoughts within a mathematical framework. To do this you can look into Logic, but your mind will do a good job of describing the atoms of your consciousness. This is all part of the fun, You’ll naturally carve everything up without help from logicians but sooner or later you’ll become dissatisfied with how you carved things up, that should send you down a rabbit hole.
step 4:
Go to whatever your favourite theory of maths is at this point and look at the list of axioms that found that theory, just stare at them. Ask yourself if you believe them. Ask yourself why you believe them. I recommend shannon’s axioms for the entropy of information, those can be killer. Or, if your feeling vanilla stare at the zfc axioms. Just think a lot about axioms.
step5:
Right, if you don’t think you’ve had an existential crisis by now then get really high. If all that maths is crammed in your head – I mean really crammed – then getting really high will fuck you right up.
Be careful, yeah? You’ll probably want to kill yourself and there won’t be any good reason not to. Just wait it out and read Nagarjuna, you’ll be less lonely, something about a dude 2000 thousand years ago having the literal exact same thoughts that you’re having should chill you out.
After you’re over it check out Wittgenstein again, there’ll be a kinship there and then gradually ease yourself into continental philosophy. Be careful when reading Postmodernist philosophers.
>>7789951
Me again, I didn't post the book OP specifically asked for. Got too exited I suppose.
Here's Shannon's original paper that founded Information theory. It's a good read.
http://worrydream.com/refs/Shannon%20-%20A%20Mathematical%20Theory%20of%20Communication.pdf
>>7789951
STFU Fag you sound autistic.
>>7789951
>rambles about interactive processes of everyday life
>fails to mention category theory, topos theory, formal epistemology, dynamic epistemic logic, decision theory, game theory, linguistics (pragmatics especially--for real life run-of-the-mill chitchat and discussions are most often than not NOT literal: it's chock-full of jargon, idioms, body language, etcetera) etc.
>literally picks the wrong formalism/framework for studying information (Kolgomorov is miles ahead of Shannon's oft-bombarded meme of a book)
>>7791545
Well, what I was trying to get at, that may have not been explicit, is that what you choose is pretty much arbitrary. It's simply about building a system of thought from the ground up and finding parallels between that system and your own life. The existential crisis kicks in when you pull the axioms out from under the rug of the system and as your life that's now tied up with it crashes down to the ground.
The theories I talked about were purposefully abstracted away from systems of thought that are traditionally used to think about the processes of living in order to make the connections you form necessarily strange. It'll really help your crisis if you view the world from a stand point that seemingly no one else has ever stood at.
Again, this isn't a question about the best language to describe the interactive processes, it's a question of what's going to fuck you up.
I, for the most part, agree with you about Kolmogorov complexity but the paper I linked to is the literal start of an entire field of mathematics. Whether you agree with Shannon or not (and hopefully not, that'll help with the crisis), there's merit in reading the thing.
And maybe I came off as an arrogant dick-head when writing it. What I was describing was pretty much what happened to me and in universalising the language it made me sound like I know what's best for everyone. I know no one's taking this advice, who's about to get up and enter a strict regime of shit loads of maths and sleepless nights on the basis of what an anonymous poster told them.
On the Vanity of Existence by the Schopenmeister
