Self-improvement thread.
Post authors and fictional characters you get the most inspiration to go on living from.
Pic related.
Also recommend books.
Here goes:
Final Exit - Derek Humphry (Guide to suicide, really tells you what you're in for).
full catastrophe living - Jon Kabat-Zinn (On meditation, meant for people with real problems, will help sensitize you to suffering and how individuals even in the most pitiful conditions try to overcome it)
Meditations
Zhuangzi
Tao Te Ching
Tao of Pooh (Easiest of the lot, explains Tao using Winnie the Pohh)
Letters from a Stoic - Seneca
Unaesthetic
This post was actually incredibly motivational.
>>7932026
Have you read the Te of Pigglet where the author goes on a rant about how feminists are destroying the masculine/femmine balance?
I'd recommend the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius
>>7932055
I don't see how.
Do you feel good feeling superior to other people anon?
>>7932055
Incidentally Woody Allen is who I gain inspiration from.
After watching Husbands & Wives, I realized I was perfectly okay with being single for the rest of my life. After watching Stardust Memories I realized that you have to make the Art for yourself, and critics and fanboy scum are leeches trying to hang on to your own creative and self-sufficient soul - and eventually your Art will place you higher than them, while bringing their needy souls up with you. And after watching Interiors, Hannah and Her Sisters, and Crimes & Misdemeanors, I learned how to see right through the facile pretensions of the people who call themselves the intelligentsia and the stupidity of an idealized system of ethics.
Allen is the best philosopher of our generation.
>>7932100
Did you even read the post? Its clearly saying that people, no matter how famous or great, are just as retarded as you or I. We are ,all of us, capable of seizing fame, fortune, and greatness. The post isn't about feeling superior to others, its about seeing and realizing that you are not superior to others, but this is okay as long as you seize life.
>>7932108
No, the truth is even worse.
The truth is that a person who is smart cannot ever disdain to be below his level for an extended period of time. Neither will you be ignorant enough to acquire the ideal state of mind to ride the zeitgeist, nor will you be able to sustain the shit-tweeting for more than a few days.
So this reveals the fact that the truly wise will never be able to break into the circuit, simply because with a population of 8 billion people and growing, he becomes ever smaller in the infinitely expanding chessboard. Thus, he has to live on his own merits alone.
A person who is inspired by that is as much an idiot as Joyce Carol Oates is.
>>7932127
That is not at all the truth. You are saying directly that wise people can never break into the circuit but that is simply not true. Where is the proof? Everything you said was just fallacious passion-filled rhetoric. You accusing people who are inspired by it of being an idiot is a form of logical fallacy which shows you to be the idiot and bear in mind that post does not inspire me.
>>7932133
Then all I have to do is to ask you, why have you yet to do it?
Unless you already have. If so I'd ask for proof then.
By the way my proof is anecdotal. You ever work for a luxury magazine? If you think you can really get into the circuit then you better learn how to write about everything from the tourbillion movement of a Bulgari Watch, to the horsepower of the Bugatti Chiron.
You have to know how the Bugatti Chiron differs exactly from the Bugatti Veyron, and how the infotainment system of the Aston Martin DB11 differs exactly from the specific luxury-facets of Bentley.
You also have to know how to describe what exactly constituted Alexander Wang's fashion collection, and what Kanye West was wearing at his latest Yeezy debut (it was Balmain). You have to talk about the rooms of the Hilton as if you've lived there yourself. You have to be able to apprehend these worlds and stick with them so as to maintain the veneer of the allure.
I have seen the social-exchange structure of the 1% of the 1%. You have to know all the above with certain finesse, to be able to exchange small talk about these things to them with certain speed. You have to append thousands of polite appendations to countless emails, and send them to PR companies to allow you access. During that point, if you're successful, you have a few hours to find a way to sell yourself as a person of note to a person who wears a specially tailored bespoke Zegna suit, a watch in rose gold and three-complications on his wrist, and probably hasn't even touched a verse of John Donne in his life.
You have to sustain all of that until you break in. Joyce Carol Oates probably does the same but with Literary and University functions, and parties of the faux-intelligentsia. You ever watch one of those parties at an Antonioni movie? You have to be like that. That was when I realized how low I was on the attention scope of these people, and how much shit I had to do if that was my goal in life. If you gain exactly zero satisfaction from these things, you'll crash and burn because of the high interaction factor needed. So, I realized, how much work for how little to me it was.
If you can do that and live that life of decadence, while all of the time being wasted flashes into your eyes at every second, then go right ahead.
>meme general
>>7932200
How are any of the books listed memes?
>>7932168
You are applying that post from before to your own circumstances. Not everything revolves around luxury fashion magazines. That post could be inspirational to those trying to become authors, writings, editors, screen writes, or publishers. A person who is smart can also possess charismatic qualities. They are not mutually exclusive. All of your choices are half chance, you can choose to never take the chance and in turn forfeit your choice or you can by choice take the chance and hope things turn out well, as I've said before by chance.
>>7932168
>>7932244
I think both of you are simplifying the issue quite a bit. But I mostly agree with>>7932168.
If it were easy to be rich/famous/successful, you'd see a billion rich/famous/successful twats.
To deduce that anyone can be successful just because you see a few morons achieve success is outright deluded because you're ignoring the millions and millions of morons who tried to achieve success but got destroyed. the successful stand out because they're successful while the incomparably larger and massive graveyard of incompetent failures is silent.
This is why I think >>7932055 is naive.
The few incompetent people you get to see end up there either due to luck or a series of fortunate events or circumstance or power or having the right connections (which they get through luck or circumstance or through other connections) or simply being rich enough to be noticed.
it is also naive to think that you stand a chance or have a shot at success if you can make it through merit and merit alone. what matters is how much of that merit is saleable.
if you can produce something that sells...wait no. if you can CONVINCE someone(with influence, money, power or other means) that you can produce something that sells, only then do you have any shot at all. This statement in its entirety captures the essence of public success.
>>7932244
Oh yea. Absolutely. That's how Woody Allen runs. Take note of the fact that Woody Allen's best films are generally underlooked, while people attach themselves to his earlier comedies which catered more to the crowd. And even Woody himself shows how he plays these various kinds of social functions in those films. He's the smart + charisma guy.
But man, you're really simple aren't you. Your sentence structure tells me that you're extremely earnest, probably not particularly good at English, and really don't know how to read the whole point beyond the surface.
The fact that you're arguing with me that I may possibly be destroying the hopes and dreams of other people who may be inspired by a 4chan meme is proof of that. (as an added remark, if a person was inspired by that kind of 4chan meme, then there's a high propensity for them to be too condescending to even make it)
Kiddo, my point was that shit like working out social functions, and getting into these types of circuits, requires extensive time and effort that is a complete movement of your whole being. Opportunity is one thing, but if you're not even predisposed to that kind of interaction then you're shit out of luck. If you have better things to do and you can't stand the time and effort required to solicit, extensively, the opinion of the masses, then you're shit out of luck. It doesn't matter whether its university functions, fashion magazines, or silicon valley meetups - the standards of such interactions are the same. Associate, extensively, and small-talk about the various topics that you're involve in, build a network, and flatter the people who are already in it.
To re-iterate, anyone who uses that meme especially to inspire themselves are going to be predisposed to a condescending mentality, which already is going to put a drain on them if they try to solicit that kind of society.
I mean, did you even look at the picture? Why are you even trying to argue this? Do you even think that a person who's smart and charismatic would be in a place like this? They'd already know all the steps they need to embark on whatever path, rather than looking at shitty memes for inspiration. If they can balance their time, and enjoy both society and can chase their goals, then fine, but those are rare and in-between.
After a while, I realized I'd better be off as a freelance writer just soliciting work on the margins, and trying to make the most of my own time, which is what brings me more stability and joy than that kind of rumpus-life. My first post was pointing that out you simpleton, that you cannot be who you aren't, even if you got the opportunity to.
If you're going to state something of worth here, instead of flaunting out idealisms, why haven't you even grounded your own words with any kind of matter? What's the point of trying to rebut me so abstractly if you have no anecdote, proof, or whatever to put on the table?
>>7932283
Well, luck is one thing, but you also have to be in the position to be able to accumulate the signals of the rich. You can't sell yourself if you don't know the signals, and that's how a lot of people fail. The top models, from Gigi Hadid to the Kendall Sisters, have been in the circuit since birth. They got all the modes of access down.
If I had never been in there, I would never have been taught the type of tone you need to tailor to even gain access to that industry. Well, nowadays there are quite a ton of helpful guides on the internet, which helps a great deal. How to craft your CV, how to sell your copy etc... But really embodying that persona is a whole different deal. You can't convince them over just one iteration. It has to be maintained.
There's a difference between an idiot and a person who can't read social cues. The idiot can still unconsciously read the cues.
>>7932312
I haven't even been close to the industry so I wouldn't know. But yeah, I ca understand why social cues and signals are incredibly important in it.
But then you see children (who obviously aren't experts at socializing or interpreting signals or the extensive effort that you think it requires) who skyrocket to fame after just being noticed for their saleability (eg, bieber, or whatever youtube sensation or latest retarded pop star is in right now). just do something to get noticed or go viral, that's a shortcut and I don't think that requires a lot of participation in social circles.
However I concede that this scenario might be incredibly rare. A massive exception. There might be millions of talented failures attempting to get noticed or trying to go viral but only few manage to luck out. So I guess the traditional means/methods would require you to be either ridiculously talented (great) or do what you described: socialize and participate extensively in the industry which might take a toll if that isn't what one is acclimated to.
>>7932294
not him but if you were aware of the verbiage and amount of condescension to which you resort in order to make a simple point then you might not have that higher an opinion of yourself as you do compared to him right now.
Hey, wow, you guys sure have delusions of grandeour. You would have to, to be dissapointed in the least by the fact that you won't be famous.
I meant inspiration along the lines of inspiration to live life as it is going to turn out, i. e. mediocorely in every material sense (if your life is not like this then you are an exception by definition).
>>7932344
I mean the inclusion of Stoics, Zhuangzi and the Buddha should have hinted at this being a cozy Zen thread in disguise lol.
>>7932327
Bieber probably lucked into it, but he had the ability to maintain his persona. He definitely had the propensity for it. At this stage he has enough experience to solicit models, spur on the social media, and get around at Red Carpet events with ease. He also has deals to represent designers at the top. A counter-example you can look at is Mara Wilson. She went in as a child star and was famous, but came out because she couldn't stay in that atmosphere.
Definitely Youtube celebritydom is a recent outlier. And there are millions of those guys who can't make it. Even the famous Channel Awesome, if you read the gossip, has a lot of bullshit going on behind the scenes that's leading them on their road to failure. Youtubers now have their own social functions and system of quid-pro-quo.
e.g. the Toby Turner rape scandal, which was a scandal between Youtubers. So behind the scenes they have to have some kind of network going on. Probably, while it was fair ground when it was just starting up, now there are new institutions in place that makes it more organized.
Social influence is jesus-fucking-hard to master and maintain. You need to take into consideration SEO and track multiple channels, ensure constant stimulation of the populace, ensure you make no gaffes that could fuck you up majorly etc... An established magazine has to have its own website, and probably Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well, regularly updated. Either way, in this wide a social chessboard, you can't go into it as a loner, or half-assed.
>>7932342
Don't worry.
I'm not being paid for to tailor my words, nor am I getting any social influence out of this, so I don't particularly care how it comes off as. For a person like me who writes so much, verbiage takes less effort than making a shorter point.
>>7932347
Isn't it ironic that you seek to justify your own mediocrity through the teachings of exceptional men?
>>7932378
At least that's better than justifying your own mediocrity through the teachings of mediocre men.
>>7932378
top kek. not him but there certainly is some irony to that. but to be honest, marcus aurelius despite being a fucking emperor did not have a very fulfilling, successful or satisfying life. his life as seen by him was quite unexceptional: a grind that he had to endure.
Also, what >>7932381 said.
>>7932381
But that's also what you're doing by asking /lit/ to discuss it with you and dismissing anyone with "delusions of grandeour", as you put it.
>>7932369
what do you write? anyone who takes writing seriously knows the importance of brevity. even someone from the "industry" would know that to stimulation of the populace is tough (As you stated) and therefore can be achieved in shorter and shorter timespans, inforcing the importance of brevity. that's why twitter, buzzfeed and facebook are popular.
if you're resorting to verbiage out of habit and nothing else then you might just be a really terrible writer and ignorant about it.
Stirner.
My interpretation of it, at last, is liberating. But I still have doubts that how I understand property is how he meant it, and it's difficult to fix the philosophy that uses such words in a necessary different way than they are used elsewhere.
(Maybe it would have helped if he did it like Heiddegger and the Psychoanalyst instead of writing like Hegel: Invent your own words and descibe what they are supposed to mean - instead of taking existing words an putting a spin on their meaning.)
>>7932168
This reads like American Psycho
>>7932393
>being a good writer means keeping to Twitter's character limit
>>7932408
that's not what i said at all but great reply to an imagined argument.
i was emphasizing the importance of brevity in both serious literature and bullshit pop media. but sure, be as verbose as you can, resort to a strawman when called out and hope that some day you can develop some decent reading comprehension.
>>7932393
>he thinks the industry is about brevity
Let me show you the beauty of fashion writing:
"Those paying close attention will recall that Wang’s final show for Balenciaga, with its delicate all-white looks, was held in a Paris church, but four months on he has clearly gotten the angelic out of his system. Here, Wang mixed tony tweed with metal-pierced leather; the skirt suits and coatdresses were the most surprising elements of the collection, and the best. He turned the preppiest of preppy codes, embroidered corduroys, on its head, replacing whales with pole dancers—funnier than the intarsia sweaters featuring an enlarged version of the same motif. Wang also glamorized prison garb, sending out one model in a metallic jacket with “county” spelled out in bold block letters on the back; nota bene: It was lined with shearling. Marijuana leaves materialized as intarsias on mohair minis and coats, as lace insets on boudoir-ish dresses, as a print on miniature bucket bags.
As for the declarative captions—“girls,” “strict,” “tender”—splayed across chests and wrapping around thighs where old-fashioned garters would be, they were as much Barbara Kruger as they were Supreme. Sloganeering is rampant across all categories of fashion at the moment. Who knows, maybe the election year has something to do with it? One step more sophisticated than straight-up logos, they serve the same essential purpose of brand identifying in our Instagram-obsessed world. They’re too easy, and Wang leaned on them a little too heavily."
The more snarky asides, stock adjectives, and overdescription you add, the more you can fool 'em. It takes skill to create a semantic haze that isn't unpalpable to the point of Po-mo.
Of course I can tailor it down if I gave a shit. Tech heavy pieces have to be brief because you already have to put in so many specs. If your writing isn't to the point you'll add verbiage to technical specs. The article will be overwhelmed.
But, really, I can write any tone if I gave a shit. Simply put, I don't give a shit now, and thus I don't care.
>>7932397
Old Pat Bateman has been known to shitpost from time to time.
>>7932414
Wang sucks anyways, you can't beat Dior Homme and Jil Sander to be honest (Raf is meme-y)
>>7932426
I never cared about the trends and stuff. I care more about those art-heavy guys like Alexander McQueen, Viviene Westwood and Commes De Garcon.
So you could say I can write fashion and yet I have no interest in like 80% of the industry.
>>7932369
it would be nice if you were concise.
Why doesn't this suffice? It doesn't cost you.
>>7932437
people consider fashion as quite banal and a shitty, consumerist hobby. however I've seen others defend it as an art with aesthetics and beauty.
where do you stand on this?
>>7932438
Did you just read that comment only?
>>7932446
no.
I wrote the American Psycho line.
And I also thought that the text was to long and too much from above for the purpose of carrying over this idea of how and why it's hard to enter this higher class. At least that's what I think your point was.
I can never tell when people here write for their own entertainment only, or also to help people. Why not adopt a helping position?
>>7932437
>JS and Dior
>trends
Jil Sander shaped minimalist back in the 90's to the point you can't talk about minimal aesthetics in the fashion world without citing her brand. Can't even start with Dior.
CdG is great too, but I feel like their recent shows -- aside from Ganryu, Ganryu is great -- have been lackluster, Craig Green is more CdG than GdG these days.
>>7932444
Its only half a shitty consumerist hobby.It's also ego armor. To link it up to the self-help guys above, Confucius said that it was important to tailor your outer standard in accordance with your inner standard. If you're not doing it out of insecurity, and if you're someone as self-sufficent as Serge Gainsbourg, who just wore expensive shit around the house all day, then it acts as a self-perfecting ritual that allows you engagement with the world.
As for the aesthetics side. It's aesthetics and beauty, but it can rarely be intellectual art unless its subsumed by something like a higher medium, like film. An Alexander McQueen dress can be starkly beautiful but it rarely communicates anything intellectually. Still, I like that stark beauty.
>>7932458
Now see this is why I'm never going to work at a place like Vogue or WWD or any other highly regarded print magazine. I wouldn't be interested enough to care about that kind of detail.
My method of writing is Google power + observation + imagination + press release information. It works very well for online content where constant quantity is more important than pointing this kind of thing out.
This is also why I don't plan to do that kind of writing long term, because I just care about things that look starkly beautiful or bizarre and nothing else.
It feels good to be a high generalist.
>>7932389
That was not me.
Also, nigger I will give you so much money if you can even define the word "justify" with an example.
>>7932026
MFW the first book for self-improvement is how to kill yourself.
>>7932026
You should become the best version of yourself by self-actualizing your bio-energetic potential through the use of crystals, DMT, yogalates, spontaneous hedonism, pick-up artistry, Alan Watts, quantum physics and eastern mysticism.
>>7932615
i like this post!
Any good books on intelligence in general?
Can be on how to become a better learner, how to approach things, etc. Books about geniuses themselves would be cool too.
I don't know, what are your thoughts /lit/? Do you think being a genius is taught or are you born one?
>>7932026
Epictectus and a good practical book on cognitive behavioural therapy. There isn't a single person the planet who wouldn't benefit from CBT.
The key to self improvement is to be able to control your emotions. If you are able to inspire your own emotions at will, you can improve in any and all aspects of your life. This is possible just by thinking; no need for drugs or external guidance.
To put it simply, you can decide to feel joyous or excited rather than bored or nervous when taking part in certain activities, or in general. I can elaborate on this if anyone wants it.
>>7932702
This is exactly what stoicism and CBT are about. The first principle of both is "what you think is how you feel".
It's your interpretation of events outside yourself that elicits an internal emotional response.
Implementing this into daily life is difficult, however.
>>7932733
You're right. The problem is that most people aren't willing or able to take that principle all the way. Simply coping with particular situations isn't enough. One must positively reassign emotions at will. Rather than just eliminating negative emotions, one can actively inspire positive emotions in any given situation. Taken all the way, this results in near-constant joy and makes being productive and achieving goals extremely easy.
>>7932702
>>7932733
Emotions are merely a symptom of the way we perceive the world around us. To gain real insight on how we can change our inner functions takes both great patience and practice. To manage this sort of change needd to be approached methodically to apply an inner peace to distance your thoughts from emotions.
>>7932675
>Do you think being a genius is taught or are you born one?
Are you delusional? You're obviously born one.
Have you read the life stories of any geniuses? They were literally brilliant since birth (Einstein is the exception that proves the rule, it's not that he wasn't brilliant though, just couldn't give a toss).
IQs are stable across age, this is true.
Also, Ray Monk's Duty of Genius is about Wittgenstein and it's good.
this ugly sonofabitch is my inspiration
>>7932851
>IQs are stable across age, this is true
Not on the individual level. IQ varies throughout your life and doesn't stay the same. Your IQ can be higher in your 40s and than in their 20s.
>>7932026
For years, my self-help trinity has been...
1. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
2. The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell
3. Beyond Success and Failure by Willard and Marguerite Beecher
So, what's a good book on CBT?
>>7933126
If you haven't learned CBT intuitively through the cleansing fire of suffering then you aren't doing it right.
>>7932949
What do you mean individual level?
IQ is meant to be standardized with people you're age, it is based of your percentile IQ score compared to people your age, there are not many specific tests for the elderly but if there were you would be sure to see their IQ be the same.
If you scored on the 50th percentile on an IQ tests meant for adults when you were say 13 and as such got a 100 IQ chances are you would not be doing your intelligence justice as you are likely to score much higher in percentile on a test meant for people your age.
Your performance on an IQ test in terms of crude score (nunber of answers correct) will obviously vary with age but in terms of percentile as compared to people your age, it will stay the same.
>>7933219
http://www.livescience.com/36143-iq-change-time.html
>>7932068
I would too.
