![suicide-hanging-rope[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/yS3PqxP.jpg "suicide-hanging-rope[1].jpg")
Will reading sad literature help me tune with my emotions or will it just push me off the edge and an hero?
I'm crushingly lonely and in a college without any future prospects.
I refer to books such as Sorrows of Young Werther or Stoner.
There is no way to know until you try.
Read Meditations, pussy.
It depends on your take of the books of course.
If you see light it will give it to you, if you see darkness you will read that too. Your mind poisons your reading.
Has anyone who made a thread like this ever actually turned their life around?I know I haven't
i only empathize and feel no better, but i sometimes get a sense of pleasure knowing that some other person felt and tried to write about his similar thoughts and feelings on a paper.
i also starting going to a psychiatrist last month, the drug i've been using is not helping either.
maybe there is nothing to fix after all.
>>7660297
You will feel alright while reading them, which is at least a few hours of relief.
>>7660451
I've been there before. What got me out was David Foster Wallace's speech "This is Water." An excellent speech by an excellent person.
>>7660471
i'll get it. thank you.
>>7660297
You need to understand that it is okay to be depressed. It's possible to have a consistent mental-contentedness whilst experiencing depression and sorrow.
It's a better coping tool than escapism.
>>7660471
That speech 'got you out'?
I can tell you one thing. You weren't deep down in the first place then.
I'd rather you read stuff more relevant to our current society and job market. Sadly there isn't really the Literature for that, but there are some in other mediums.
Like these:
http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Hataraki-Man
http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Yonensei
http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Gonensei
>>7660471
I'm pretty sure this is bait
Books ain't gonna save you anon. Only living, meditation, lifting, and relentless introspection will, bolstered by the insights you get from books. It's one thing to read Epictetus and nod along to his notion of what is and isn't up to you with a blank expression on your face, and another to actually and completely accept personal deficiencies you know you can never change AND be perfectly content with that fact. That's what makes a man.
Books are jack shit without life experience, but they're so invaluable otherwise I'd even say life experience is jack shit without the anchor of good philosophy of life
Read Dostoevsky
No. Nonono. You need to work on more foundational aspects of your life, things more important in the hierarchy of needs. Fix your health/ (diet/exercise), wealth (education/career), and social life (friends/family, after food and shelter this is the most critical area of focus), then and only then start focusing on recreation. You're asking about curtains when your house's foundation is crumbling.
This is not a meme. I've been there, and I know you can get out of it.
>>7662580
>relentless introspection
>>7662581
This, Crime and Punishment got me out of a spell that I was in during college. (Got arrested, was depressed boo hoo).
Fell back into depression this fall/ winter, read An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, and it helped too.
Basically I read stories about protagonists that I can relate to, but are in worse situations than myself in order to give me the perspective that it can always be worse.
Read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, and be glad for your miniscule life you ungrown ape.
I find pessimistic philosophy to be comforting.
>>7660297
Nothing wrong with killing yourself.
Suicide is s victimless crime.
>>7662593
points for wisdom.
>>7660471
>>7662580
>living, meditation, lifting, and relentless introspection
I do all of those and the final one is what usually gets me to bring myself together.
The way I look it at it 0.01% of the world commits suicide, I'm very unlikely to off myself so it's useless to fantasize about it unless I'm actually going to do it.
I used to just think about killing myself which has now stopped, still I do believe it's a good idea if my life keeps going on the path it is.
On the other hand I'm staying here because I believe that my current situation is bare-able and that there's an iota of hope for my future to be better.
Still, my future plans more or less always end up around suicide.
>>7662593
Yes that's what I'm trying to do, see above, I'm not completely doomed yet (with the likelihood of failure being not quite as low as it has to be for me to give up).
The way things are going, I don't think it will all work out though, sadly.
In any case, I'm not always working so I have free time I use for reading anyway.
I'm calling it quits after/"if" I get the dead end jobs I'm expecting though.
Thanks for the well put advice!
>>7660297
sorrows of young werther is not about an angsty teen killing himself over not being able to fuck some teen he has a crush on anymore than romeo and juliet is about that.
what did you interpret the book to be about?
>>7663245
>it's useless to fantasize about suicide
its great fun. you must be doing it wrong. may as well an hero if your imagination sucks that much.
just pretend its a game OP. look at all the cool special effects and smell-o-vision and haptics and shit. pretty awesome. I guess if you get bored of it you can always rage quit. but maybe you're just not really understanding the game. it's an open ended choose your own adventure. the main quest sure is to become donald trump but there are so many side quests. just think of all the feels you could have being a junky or a bored intellectual or some kind of burger flipper. if you get bored you can just touch the hot plate for a pick me up.
>>7663270
>just think of all the feels you could have being a junky or a bored intellectual or some kind of burger flipper
I'd probably be sadder due to (1) that's just horrible, heroine addictions are no joke, anyone that goes down that rabbit hole (and a lot of them do) experience life much worst, having tasted something amazing they can never un-taste (2) as you described it (bored) it's boring at least when you aren't reading books (3) well that's worst than a job as an office slave, I get more hours to work and not read, get looked at like I'm worthless by everyone and earn less money on top of it all, what a terrible game that would be.
There's a difference between say, enjoying reading Stoner and being the character in the book you know?
How old are you? Or sheltered?
I recommend reading The Book of Disquiet to at least see an example who transcended his suffering by means of detaching himself completely from life.
>>7663520
>there is a difference between VR and IRL
>le edgy matrix meme
not really. perhaps you should look into weber's concepts of verstehen and einfuhlung.
or zizek's conceptualization of wisdom.
you realize that when you build your character sheet you're not meant to use cheats and just plug in 10 for all of your special? you're meant to add a stats penalty for every buff to balance the character.
my point is that if you want to an hero, what do you have to lose? try one last thing before you go. blow your brains out over a kindergarten. shoot up smack. so what if your arm falls off? you're going to an hero anyway? you're already going to be thought of like a stupid wanker. just think, everyone will look down on you and feel sorry for you for the rest of their lives. you'll be worse than anything. a reminder of what they dont want to be.
>>7660297
If you want to feel better about feeling shitty, you could check out Mindfulness in Plain English. It's available for free online.
Many will be thinking that it's new-age bullshit by charlatans and about as ridiculous as The Secret or some other esoteric self-help drivel, and I understand the scepticism. Mindfulness has been advocated by a lot of faggots.
But it's being slowly but surely scientifically verified that it has potential against a whole heap of ailments, depression being one of them. One study found it equally effective at preventing relapse in minor to moderate depression as antidepressants.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/04April/Pages/Mindfulness-as-good-as-drugs-for-preventing-depression-relapse.aspx
Anecdotally, it also seems to treat depression outright. This hasn't been as vigorously researched, but there's reason to believe it.
>>7660314
The understanding of Meditations changes irrevocably once you learn Aurelius was an opium addict. It's no effort whatsoever to be stoic when you're high off your tits on opiates.
>>7663525
I'll second this, came here to recommend it. Then again, in some people it will have the effect of actually motivating you to get out and meeting people. Not the bullshit pseudomotivation some people claim to get from self-help books, but a profound disquiet in the depths of your soul that forces you to change your ways lest you end up like Bernardo Soares.
To be quite honest, it's not certain that anyone can learn how to deal with things like Soares either. He's a textbook schizoid.
>>7663525
>repeating meme commentary
Thanks for all the recommendations/advice guys!
>>7663525
Pessoa didn't transcend his suffering. All he did was whine, rationalize his shitty job, and complain about the futility of dreaming.
>>7660297
literature cant be "sad" actually, there is always some heart-warming conclusion at the end
read Hunger by Hamsun, protagonist is in very bad physical and mental shape, but he constantly meet peoples who are will to help him. His worst enemy is himself
>>7660297
>ctrl+catharsis
>no results
Somebody didn't start with the Greeks.
>>7660297
try Nietzsche
>>7664257
He also had moments of transcendent beauty and rapture, tbqh.
>>7664518
patently untrue
