Be in late teens

Perhaps. Or perhaps I never had a good therapist. They all seemed to be parroting the same silly speculative texts while charging outrageous fees for daring to listen. Their services seem to work if one is inclined to needing structure and imposed guidelines, but I'll pass.

>Their services seem to work if one is inclined to needing structure and imposed guidelines, but I'll pass.
If structure is not what you need, structure is not what you'll be given. Not by a worthy therapist, anyway. You'd be surprised how helpful it is to have someone who is willing to devote good time to simply talking with you and listening to you.

Great question. I reflected on it quite a lot, and though I'm not absolutely certain, I think when I became more invested in academic studies and pursuing a graduate degree I started reading more often. Literature came to be the pinnacle of intelligent, thoughtful art to me, and I wanted to be associated with it. I went headlong into everything and, I think, loved that others knew I was literary. I had assignments and requirements to test my knowledge and engagement, and I had obligations due to funded research to produce and share my work. After I left that environment, I realized, I think, that I was performing more than engaging. When I no longer had to hold myself accountable—to prove that I was literary—the passion drifted away.

Good point. to be fair. That's why I created this thread, right? Perhaps I should give it another shot. Have you had any good experiences with them?

Has literature added anything to your life and helped you grow as a person, or has it simply been a kind of "lifestyle" that you adopted?

Have you ever read The Oversoul by Emerson? It’s a positive perspective on the fact that authors all imitate each other.

I'm sure it has, but I'm at pains to dredge up any concrete examples. I've had friendships thrive on engagement with experimental fiction—discussion and composition. I've felt, I think as Dickinson wrote, the top of my head come off with good poetry, and I still crave clever phrases and witty twists of language in lit. and film. If literature were a shock of cold water that left me breathless, it's since dried up and become part of my fabric, but I think, along the line, it helped a lot.

Sorry, but there is absolutely no way you learned Latin, Greek, and Japanese while your best memories are getting drunk and reading Southern Gothic literature.

I've read a bit of Emerson but not The Oversoul. Do you recommend it?

None of those things describe any actual changes or development of you as a person. How has literature, say, affected your sense of morality, or your view of the universe?

Didn't start drinking until I stopped reading and studying, but you're right that reading Southern Gothic lit. is one of my best memories.

Sounds like you need to read more philosophy and live a little bit more. Clever phrases and "witty twists of language" should only be auxiliary to the content of the work.

Oh wow person with romantic notions of art becomes dissilussioned, what a shocker. You’re concerned about being naive and overly optimistic because you originally started off with romantic notions which are naive and overly optimistic. Only someone overly concerned with romantic notions of uniqueness and individualism would become upset at learning that artists converse with the art that inspired them. Go back to Aristotle. Then go read Irving Babbitt’s Roussau and Romanticism to see that what your describing is a common symptom of modernity

I don't think it's really affected my view of the universe, though it's been the main vehicle for my ideas about the world. But I could have absorbed the same ideas through other media.

Regarding morality, I'm not sure. I think at one point it did, but I have trouble engaging with moral discussions now. I used to have sincere, well-reasoned positions on a number of issues—many of them pilfered from texts—but I have trouble now if someone asks me, for example, why I don't eat meat. Things have become habitual, and lit., despite being an engine for ideological renewal, hasn't shifted my perspective all that much recently.

Has it affected your sense of morality or views of the universe?

The worst part is that I know this yet can't overcome the feelings. They feel like stitches I never removed. So, yeah, wow, but the feelings still sting. Thanks for suggestions, and what of Aristotle do you think I should read?

I've lived a bit, I think, but what do you recommend?

Literature has been essential to forming my views on morality and the universe, but we'll set that aside since we're talking about you.

If I had to guess I'd say that you worked so hard to form yourself into the "perfect man of letters" that when the rewards of that hard work turned out to be rather drab and dull, you generalised that frustration to all of literature. Instead of thinking "I'm just a pseud, a faker, a phony", you think "they all were pseuds, and fakers, and phonies".

The cure is to make yourself the genuine article, and to believe it.

r/iamverysmart

How should I go about that?

r/hethinksitsclever

I would say read better literature, but that's probably not helpful. Basically you need to (re)discover "beauty" in literature that is overwhelmingly superior to your self. Try re-reading Homer or something.

Back

>revisiting someone else's thread to see how they respond to your one-off dismissal

I've considered "starting over" in a sense. I mentioned rereading the KJV. Revisiting Homer and others might be good since their stories are inescapable myths which would be a lot of fun to read in context.

>since their stories are inescapable myths

I'm not sure if you should immediately think of them in that manner. First admire the work as a piece of art, and then secondly dive into the technical aspects of why it is art. Otherwise you'll end up with nothing but bitter criticism.

The Nichomechean Ethics, though it is long and you will not find the majority of it immediately relevant. Basically, romanticism is a form of pride. Treat writing as a craft in the Aristotelian sense and you will find humility, and then an ethical mode of living which will hopefully put the positive aspects of your romantic imagination into positive use.

I might be wrong about all this but... seems like you wanted to be a man of letters because you wanted to be superior to others. Disregarding sincerity is again an attempt to assert superiority. Then the classics are beneath you. Finally you fall for the self loathing trap.

I'll keep that in mind while I'm reading.

I think you're right about wanting to feel superior. I don't think that was my intention originally—I was actually amazed when I was younger at what could be accomplished with language—but proving myself and wanting to be a well-regarded scholar were driving factors. Why do you think disregarding sincerity is an attempt to assert superiority, though?

Congratulations.
You have realized intellectualism is no good and must be cast aside.
When you were little you were smart enough to automatically bypass the fitness cult and it's mundane nature and
now you have to realize spirituality hasn't solved anything either and it's a waste of time because people won't follow.
So you reach the next level. Only action matters, how much can you let go of and how much can you get done in this miserable hypocritical life? That's where I'm at at least. Maybe there's yet another plateau for us to reach.
PD: I read philosophy as fiction and ironically, like a professor of mine who used to read history books like they were fictional novels

Its*
Phoneposting is no good

>Why do you think disregarding sincerity is an attempt to assert superiority, though?

Disregarding sincerity means disregarding emotions. You get to sneer at them for being bound by such pathetic and fleeting things, fell beings that do not seek the ultimate goal of literature, but mere mortals scribbling away at their putrid thoughts. It's that sort of thinking. It's not too uncommon among STEM majors and edgy children to think that having human feelings and not singlemindedly striving towards a higher ideal is the only true way for a person to behave.

I wouldn't say that I sneer and spit and consider the sincere thoughts of others putrid, though I get what you're saying about general attitudes and the toxic environments in which they manifest themselves. When I wrote that I can't take sincerity seriously, I'm thinking about what is saying: that the filters and illusions with and about which people compose their narratives don't get me off anymore. They aren't relevant to my experiences, and I'm not anchored to God, the state, family, etc., though I think I have residuals of beliefs about (as you wrote) "striving towards a higher ideal is the only true way for a person to behave." There might be cognitive dissonance there.

Romanticism has a tendency to descend into irony and sneering at sincerity. Cynicism always comes from an assumed throne of superiority because the cynic used to be a romantic dreamer but has now been disillusioned. Rather than throw out the origin of the dream — wanting to be superior — the cynic instead sneers at those who still have the dream in some form. In this way they attempt to cling to the original desire to be superior. So first you loved literature that was sincere, then you became disillusioned. Rather than use this to inspect yourself, you threw out sincerity.

There is a wholesome type of cynicism found within Aristotle which is basically sober expectations and an assumption that people are weak and tragic. This cynicism is a starting point, whereas the cynicism in your op was an end point.

>I'm not anchored to God, the state, family, etc.

You've got to be anchored to something. Otherwise nothing has any flavour.

I think you have a point, and I can see how my actions and attitudes mirror that fall. Where in Aristotle should I start? I genuinely curious now. Thanks, user.

I'm honestly not sure. When I moved away from my home country, I became anchored to experimental art, especially live music: researching it, supporting it financially, and even dabbling in creating some. That's fallen away. Started cooking, and became quite good at it, but then that fell away. Film was my biggest passion after literature, but I haven't watched a movie in three weeks. I'm not sure, user.

None of those are spiritual anchors.

N. Ethics is Aristotle’s masterwork and most relevant to the ideas I’ve discussed here, though again it’s long and dense and large parts of it won’t seem relevant. Luckily the relevant parts are the first 50 or so pages.

Again, also consider reading a book called Roussaue and Romanticism by Irving Babbitt, a 19th century humanities professor at Harvard. This is out of print but can probably be found online for free. Babbitt was heavily influenced by Aristotle and that book is a look at the philosophical sources of romanticism as an artistic movement, and how it differs from the Aristotelian world view.

I don't think I'm capable of committing myself to spiritual anchors. I'm not even sure what they are.

Thanks for the recommendations and chiming in, user. I appreciate it. I'll start the Ethics soon.

Basically you need a stable foundation upon which you can build your identity as a person. Things like film, cooking, and literature are more like dressing, which is why you feel so utterly lost when you lose them. A spiritual anchor is basically a cohesive and robust worldview, which reading philosophy might help you to attain.

And we've come full circle. I'll just have to push through my reservations and biases and make reading and critical engagement a habit again.

>be in early teens
>stop reading shit-tier books and comics and pick up books to impress Veeky Forums qt
>read a lot in university
>as soon as life starts getting serious grow disillusioned about literature, work, the possible worth of the humanities and life in general
>spend one very shitty year stucked in my home town living with my parents writing my MA thesis
>grow borderline suicidal, extreme difficulty in proceeding with my university work, completely lost faith in academia or the humanities in general
>pick up novels as a distraction from academic work
>discover the pleasure to read literature for the fun of it
>for the first time read with absolute, disinterested sheer pleasure, without the aim of doing something productive, nor to learn anything
>engage with the great classics without any concern for the actual meaning of the book, only asking for some personal revelation they never fail to provide
>pleasure in reading increases even more
>finish my thesis
>prepare PhD project and get taken in
>separate completely between reading for personal pleasure and academic work
>regarding reading for pleasure as my main activity
>keep feeling good after every reading
>now more or less a functional human being able to cope with the fact that most practical shit you have to do in life has nothing to do with your individual development

This did the trick for me user. Stop thinking about humanities as a mission, or as something that has any importance beyond yourself. I know it sounds like Stirner's meme philosophy, but it really makes life easier to just read for the pleasure of it. Take it for something that doesn't go beyond yourself: read for yourself, if you end up learning something from a book, don't take it as a general message to share with others, nor as a "truth" contained in the book: take it as a personal prophecy, a message for yourself.

Become a savage detective, user. Reading, much like seeing new places or having sex, is about living "more" life. Not about having missions, political messages, improving the world, or impressing qts.

Thanks, user. I hope I'll get to the point where reading is pleasurable again. Just gotta shake and move.

Why don't you write about that disillusionment?

/imunironicallyverysmart/

>I know it sounds like Stirner's meme philosophy

This is supposed to be a bad thing? Sounds like you've embraced voluntary egoism to me.

The cause of dissatisfaction is craving and addiction.

This is the second truth of the nobles.

Interesting. I suspected this, but I didn't know it worked.