Looking for literature that helps you as a person

>suffered some extreme traumas at a young age
>when I say extreme, it's fiction-level shit, Batman doesn't even compare
>resulted in huge self-esteem issues, never fit in anywhere, autism in daily life
>always had huge, ambitious goals for myself
>thought i could still achieve my insanely big goals, but now I'm 21.5 y/o and I feel like my self-esteem issues are not going to let me achieve what I want as I'm not likable enough for people for them to trust me, get close to me or form a connection of mutual like

I've decided to completely stop giving a shit, but it's difficult to implement that in life. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I care about what people think I automatically become an autist, I don't care what they think, I become likable.
But still subconsciously, I give a shit about what other people think/do or think of me.

Reading my favorite stoics, and implementing parts of their philosophy that I deem useful, helps me, but only for a week or two or maybe a few months at best. In such times, I'm extremely confident/have a high self-esteem, and feel in control. But eventually, I sometimes feel like it's not the level of confidence I would like to achieve where I absolutely trust myself and believe in myself with whatever I choose to do, and I eventually end up going back to my "former self," which I sometimes feel like is my "real" self. I want to master myself, be in control of myself and not give a fuck about other things.

Has anyone passed through such a time? Did you read some certain philosophy that helped to kill the boy within you and become a man? Looking for reading advice, thanks.

...

Faust
The Bhagavad Gita
Candide
To Live
Sorrows of Young Werther

In no particular order. The Gita is shortest, though.

Why Faust and Werther? How are they helpful?

No

>Reading my favorite stoics, and implementing parts of their philosophy that I deem useful, helps me, but only for a week or two or maybe a few months at best.
Maybe you just need to re-read them a lot. And think about them too. Absorb them into your psyche. Alternatively you can just write a book of all of this (in re-iterated, elaborate ways, kind of like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, actually) absorb the desires you express here into your psyche. That was the purpose of Marcus' little notes anyway, basically an attempt to wholly indoctrinate himself into certain ideas/principles, resulting in genuine faith.

Max. Stirner.

This is a good suggestion.

Unironicly nietzsche

I'd give the opposite advice OP, you should be writing for yourself. I went through a lot of similar things in my life, and I'm also 21 and a bit. I've found that writing is a lot more therapeutic than reading, even if I'm trash at it.
The number one thing to keep in mind is to not explicitly write about your problems or self-insert, rather you should be taking these tropes of your life and turning them into questions you want to ask about either yourself or the world. Characters are place in that world to explore this idea, the story is about the internal experience and the plot is about the external experience.
The overall reason why I'm suggesting writing over reading is because you need to solve your own problems, and they're specific to you alone. That absolutely doesn't mean you shouldn't read, because you might find something that's relevant to you. I find that books addressing reason why we fight (spoiler, it's love) are ideals that are relevant to my life, and that no matter -- I'll stop here before this turns into Oprah.

Don't you ever feel like your attention is sometimes devoted too much to writing, then? And that you're losing perspective of a larger goal?

Yes. And no, besides going to work and maintaining a social life, there isn't that goal of ambition anymore. I used to want the ability to change things at will, but I think creating things is a better way to express yourself, through that you learn to change things for yourself.

If nothing else his life was an example.

The problem is that stoicism doesn't present a framework for living that is compatible with modern life, because the tenets just can't be applied without hampering your social success in some way. People expect you to be a petty little fuck just like they are. When they discover you're not a petty little fuck, they'll regard you as some sort of weird holier-than-thou asshole and they will avoid you and abandon you. That'll just feed your self-doubt and widen the existential gyre.The blame lies more on society than on stoicism but the end result is the same.

The good news is you're still way too young to give up. You can work it out, OP, but there's not any magical tomes that will transform you into a man. I'm 35 and have finally accepted that I will always be a scared sad hurt little boy on the inside. Life is a struggle from beginning to end and it only gets worse; you can't master it, tame it, or reason with it, and it will drive you mad to try. Best to distract from it and avoid it rather than confronting head-on.

That's only if you fall to the pressures of society and have a relatively weaker character, as I think you do.

I have a genetic predisposition towards anxiety and depression from both of my grandfathers. One spent a year in a sanatorium and the other did electroshock therapy to try to cure his depression. I relate to what you’re saying. I have a melancholy that has been a constant companion to me my whole life. The only real thing has helped me has been stoicism along with a couple of other more modern authors.

>Heraclitus’ Fragments
>Letters from a Stoic by Seneca
>Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
>Discourses by Epictetus
>On the Good Life by Cicero
>Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans by Plutarch
>Montaigne’s Complete Essays
>The Sickness Unti Death and Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard
>The Bible, in multiple translations, KJV, NRSV, And ESV.

The way you put it makes it sound like you go completely balls-to-the-wall for one week, then burn yourself out and lose energy the next, and repeat the cycle. It's happened long enough that this self that lacks confidence is what you call your "true" self, and this ultra-confident man that you want to be is your "ideal" self, and you've convinced yourself, because of these patterns, that it is exhausting and tiresome to become your ideal self, but it is toxic and lazy to be your "true" self.

First, get rid of this habit altogether. You won't go anywhere by dilly-dallying around like this.

The trick is perseverance. Baby steps. Make small modifications to your life one bit at a time. Keep a journal, and in it, don't pedantically write down every little thing that happened that day, but write down your thoughts and how you felt during certain events, what you could have done differently, or what you were proud of.

The point of the journal is to step back and get an objective view of how your emotions work when you react to certain events. It will be your most important tool in self-improvement.

Spend a few minutes writing in your journal. More if you want, but don't spend too much time in it that you set arbitrary limits or minimums so that it becomes a chore. Write what you think, nothing more, nothing less. Get to the point but don't leave out any important detail. Keep this going as long as you can, as often as you can. It will take some time, but Rome was not built in a day.

You will become more aware of your feelings, your thoughts, your actions. Through this, you will subconsciously make gradual improvements towards the person that you want to be. You won't have to worry about actively making steps, so long as you keep the journal, whether you see it or not, you will gain a viewpoint that is further and further from your former subjective view. Your vices, the thoughts that deem everyone else's perception of you as important, will become irrelevant.

Practically speaking, it's totally fine to give a shit what other people think of you. Any good man should consider this, and especially in today's society, it's inevitable. But any good man should recognize that he can only control so much, and other's opinions of him, in the end, are out of his control, and any good man should never let others' perceptions dictate the values he holds to be true, just, and self-evident.

OP here. I've only read the first 2 sentences until now and you're spot on. You understood me more than anyone I have ever met, user.

Now reading the rest of it.

glad I could help. Sorry that last sentence is kind of weird, haha im tired, I meant to say mainly that any good man shouldn't let others dictate that man's character.

the decisions you make and the actions that follow are a reflection of who you are.

and also the whole point of the journal is so you can gain an objective view, but also because you will be making gradual steps towards improving your character, you won't have to be "sprinting" through your ideal persona or need any energy to do so, you will eventually BECOME the man you want to be through your daily habits, and it won't be exhausting at that point at all, because it will be be who you are. character and habit is one and the same.

I can't help you, OP. The only thing that I have to offer are my thoughts:

Decide if greatness or your life is more important. As someone that's forgone having three meals a day, passing up watching a single TV show for the past 8 months, or cutting out anything that isn't an obligation or skiffing by on the bare minimum of socialization that keeps me from morose depression in pursuit of being an author, I am not someone to be envied. The people whom we idolize in society are ALL workaholics and they are not noble nor are their positions worth striving for. The staistics don't work out in the ambitious' favors. From one "Caesar or nothing" to another, re-evaluate your goals, remiss with us at the bottom, or meet me at the top where we'll both be empty.

Bump

Nietzsche is good, also absurdism is good. Try to do things for yourself but don’t be ab asshole about it
> story of past?

The Magic Mountain
was the book that helped me with this.

It's time.

unironically.

you're both too morose. there is no emptiness at the top -- merely a multiplication of problems produced from your increase in power (mastery). certainly not to be envied if you want cherry-coloured happiness, but if you really want that flavor exclusively you'd be better off doing drugs. energy expenditure and self-actualization is the prime pleasure of life -- welcome the struggle.