Your go to literature when 20s existential crysis hits, name 3 books

your go to literature when 20s existential crysis hits, name 3 books

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The Recognitions
Life A User's Manual
Sorrows Of Young Werther

Is there really such a thing as an 20s existential crisis or is it more an existential crisis that drags on throughout one's whole life?

probably goes on and on, at least i hope that angst will end soon

>L'étranger
>Siddhartha
>The Divine Comedy

Stirner
Nietzsche
Camus

Patrician as fuck

For me it hit me when I finished college education, I knew it was gonna happen and thought I was prepared for it but nope, it hit me like a truck.

Anyway:

Nausea by Sartre.
Man in search of meaning by Frankl
The Antichrist by Nietzsche.

>Cosmos
>The ultimate hitchiker's guide for the galaxy
>(insert thing you want to be an expert in here) for dummies

same here, find a purpose in life and fulfilling job yet?

Elements of Algebraic Geometry
The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters
The Art of the Deal

What do you guys understand by "existential crisis"?

This, OP. It never ends because you'll never establish a self and be done growing. However you will eventually tucker yourself out and just change to keep it interesting.

Puberty

no purpose, no direction, skeptic about everything

Complete Works of Plato
Nicomachean Ethics
Meditations

Strike that, for some reason I thought I was responding to OP and not previous user.

>Goethe
>patrician

Damn right

dude its just like anxiety man and im like fuckin depressed and like im 19 you know and im just feelin so frikkkin EXISTENTIAL bro because its like nothing i've ever felt before, you know what i mean?

So basically someone as obnoxious as you're currently being

>purpose
>life
lmao
>fulfilling
>job
boy u r sick!

only need one - Tolstoy's A Confession

essays by montaigne
/thread

oh okay well since you got the correct answer we'll all stop you smug cunt.

Disconnection.

Meditations
On the Shortness of Life

Also Spinoza!

>theres no point to anything! the universe is an empty, uncaring place; truth is a lie; life is an accident; theres no purpose or reason!
>im in so much existential pain because i dont have a reason for anything

If you'd just realize you're mostly suffering from a massive cognitive dissonance when it comes to "why", then you'd probably be okay.

You don't have a purpose, either. Stop anchoring yourself in this idea that YOU should be doing some thing, living some way, that you aren't.

And stop reading centuries-dead philosophers. They didn't have all the answers anymore than we do, and we know everything they knew plus what we know. You're supposed to read them once to help you understand the logical path that human thought has developed upon, and then move on. If you spent more time in post-modernism beyond commercialized genre deconstruction--perhaps attempting to think something new on your own--then you wouldn't have this problem.

>They didn't have all the answers anymore than we do, and we know everything they knew plus what we know

How old are you? Please leave.

did 7 Elemental Masters get a sequel???

uh it was always 10

Please don't be a real human, please. I know captcha is supposed to block robots, so please be an fucking alien or something

The Repetition by Kierkegaard
And maybe the last Chapter from Brothers Karamazov

Death of ivan illytch

no
it's what used to be called "feeling a bit sad and mopey"
add in being a lonely squeamish millennial and being a bit of a pseud and there's your "existential crisis"

Any shit written by Cioran.

What a list. I don't know what to make of belonging to a culture where Grothedieck, Ulillillia, and Trump are all widely known meme people

>L'étranger
>Savage Detectives
>The Book of Five Rings

>Grothedieck
read that as gro the dick desu lad

>20
>Basically a Jew in my country, if I have any children outside my borders they wont be considered citizens, can't go out in public without some kind of implication that I don't belong here
>Zero close friends to spend time with
>Barely any friends at all, I'll maybe leave the house socially once a month at most
>All my free time I spend in my head
>Was bullied as a kid, have been homeless, poor, starving, etc. and generally feel pessimistic and bitter towards humanity
>Even /r9k/ has called me cynical and misogynistic at points
>Masturbate constantly
>Pretentious as fuck, and unwilling to hide how much contempt I have for the uncultured masses
>Live in a small town without any culture to speak of, nothing ever happens here, most people just do drugs to forget how miserable their life is
>Still live with my parents so I can save money for University, I think they resent me or something because not a day goes by without some passive aggressive insult from one or both of them
>Today I didn't have work so I've spent the last 8 hours refreshing Veeky Forums because there's nothing else to do in this town
>Genuinely hate my life but, at least till I go to Uni next year, have no way to escape it
>Wish I could join a street gang or something to at least add some excitement into my life. I miss being a drifter and at least having a threat of starvation, homelessness, and death looming over my head to keep me motivated
>None of my hobbies amount to anything but futile masturbation
>If you told me the rest of my life would be like it is now I wouldn't hesitate to kill myself

Anyone else feel choked by life? I've been reading Schopenhauer which helps a bit, and different historical biographies pertaining to Italian Modernism which are fun but they just make me feel depressed about how infertile modern life is.

A few days ago I stumbled onto T. Tokieda's lecture 'Science à partir d'une feuille de papier', which has been getting me into origami, but even that feels bland. Mathematics isn't fun when I've got no one to bounce ideas off of.

I just want to be rich and spend all my time fucking and discussing philosophy, but that's never going to happen and I'm kind of at a loss as to where to go from here.

Terry Callier is nice.

God I'm lonely.

for me it is getting the notion of the absurd

I saw someone going out of a convenience store and it struck me that it was just an evolved chimp wearing cotton clothes exiting a giant place made of bricks after trading pieces of paper for food and that everything else is just meaningless human abstraction

Where do you live user?

When you manage to move to uni you'll have more opportunities to experience. Drop the pretension, laugh at yourself and be more easy going. Stop masturbating so much its no longer enjoyable. Get exercise, eat right, read good literature and make your own fun. Good luck

recently, i drank a decent amount of cough syrup, 450mg or so, a bit past the middle of the 2nd plateau for someone my size. i had quite an intense experience.

when i woke up, i felt pretty decent. i drank 2 cups of coffee and read siddhartha in one sitting.

i wish i could experience that reading every day of my life. it was eye opening and exhilarating. truly enjoyed it.

anyway
>siddhartha
>catch 22
>l'etranger

>meaningless

You adding that in is the whole root of your problems. You have no right to assert that someone else's ongoings are meaningless.

Coastal BC. If any of you guys want to have a meet-up sometime I'd be down.

And I know things will be better when I get out of here, I've traveled plenty. I've experienced plenty. Its the fact that I'm stuck here for a year that gets to me.

I'm already pretty autistic about eating and working out. It doesn't make me happy though, just fills my time. Same with literature.

I wake up in the morning I think to myself that I've still got another 10 or 11 months of total loneliness before I can go to university. It's horrible.

Dubliners
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ulysses

>being over 30 and on this website
>yelling about the millennials being wussies
go back to bed grandpa

250 here, where you at?

Really? I've lived out there and loved it. Trying to head back to Victoria once I'm done school.

Do you have any other hobbies? When I was there I made sure I would either snowboard or cycle everyday. Maybe it's your small town but everyone I met there was very out going and friendly

>20s existential crisis
>Ulysses
funny stuff kid

it's hard to relate to this idea of existential crisis in my college era (which i am now) when i discovered Veeky Forums when i wasn't old enough to be considered a teenager. i became a nihilist in middle school.

604 dude.

I'm probably going to just run away from home and find some slum in vancouver to live in though. I don't think I can take living with my parents that much longer.

I've got an accent and last name that guarantees white Anglos giving me shit like "where are you from?" "you [dont have the same shitty rural drawl I do] so you can't possibly be from around here" and so on. Asians and browns don't give a shit about me and the constant feeling of being an outsider in the town I grew up in wears down on me.
Besides, everyone here is so fucking polite it drives me crazy. They think they're friendly but really they're just pricks that mask their douchyness under "Canadian niceness".

I cycle and jog every day. Play piano. I already taught myself calculus and today I started working on learning real analysis. I read a lot and lately I've been reading books in Spanish and French to improve my language abilities. Sometimes I watch TV but most series/movies don't grab me that much. I listen to a lot of experimental and classical music, but at the end of the day its all just a way to distract myself from the constant boredom and misery that comes back every time I'm not occupying myself. Some days I'll spend the entire day wandering aimlessly. It doesn't satisfy me. Eventually people need friends

Is there any sort of community organization run by your ethic group?

I know what you mean about the dickish nature of the polite people; but I wouldn't worry about that. I hate to sound like one of those hippie/alternative people but going out with a more positive disposition will attract people to you and engage with you. I'm not suggesting dive right into personal business but the rule I live by is to at least speak with seven people a day. Even if it's the postman, clerk at grocery store or a lady walking a dog. It does alter your outlook.


Good luck user I hope you make it.


Sincerely a Anglo/Frenchie with a Scottish accent living in Quebec

I don't have an ethnic group. I'm half psuedojew half Italian, but like I said, I've drifted around a lot in my life so I've kind of picked up a weird implacable accent. I used to work for Jews and I didn't get any points with them because no one in my family is a practicing jew. On my part I walked away feeling like they where even worse (more xenophobic and uptight) than any white people I've ever met and not completely undeserving of the stereotypes that get lumped on them.
I've never really cared either way about Italians, but I hate self styled "latinos" and I'm not going to suck up to some Italian organization or community. I've always kind of felt that people who adhere of that kind of thing are either useful idiots or just idiots, and I've always felt that the only people worthy of respect are individuals who overcome whatever group they where born into.
Not that I like those spineless white apologists either, there's nothing wrong with having pride in your bloodline, but for me ethnicity goes as far as my last name.
I talk to at least 20 people a day when I'm at work. I'm actually fairly outgoing, but (at risk of sounding narcissistic) it''s rare for me to actually take an interest in somebody other than myself.

>Good luck user I hope you make it.
Thanks user. Being able to bitch about it is certainly helping.

would you be inclined to start playing an instrument? It takes a bit of discipline and patience with yourself, but it's rewarding being able to create your own sound and express your emotions. If you're interested take lessons from someone with credentials. I don't have many friends either, I moved out of my hometown last year and I haven't met anyone I can relate with but music helps me. I wouldn't suggest other hobbies because music is sort of a selfish pursuit.

it's difficult to be rich when you want to dedicate yourself to ideas. Many rich people have the mindset of doing whatever it takes to get rich, they have no other principles. if you don't have a spark of ingenuity, are you willing to center your life around money? I assume you're smart enough to get an advanced degree, you could make 6 figures if you try hard enough, maybe in an emerging field of technology, but you won't be filthy rich.

Existential crisis' are gay as fuck.

Only skinny ass micro brew drinking numales who think they're deep have 'le existential crysis'

You exist, there are things beyond what we know, others are dubious and conflicting and you will die.

Your latte with extra cum to go is ready now fuck off to the record store.

The Stranger
Crime & Punishment
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Thats how I got thru it senpai.

I already play piano. I took lessons for a few years when I was a kid but was always pretty bad at it. More recently I just sit around and play whatever but I can't read music or anything. It is a fun way to pass the time, but a day has 24 hours in it and that can't all be satisfyingly filled while slouched over a keyboard.

Maybe we should start having jam threads on lit. Having an audience of one just gets boring after a while
vocaroo.com/i/s0CFfGeBcKDc

I don't need to be filthy rich, just enough not to have to worry about earning money. My plan is to eventually marry into wealth or get into art forgery.

Either Montaigne messed my head up or I picked up the book at coincidentally the exact time my crises began.

Nothing works for me anymore. The other day I starved myself. I focus half my time on struggling to figure out some way to remove myself from this trap of a life and the other half distracting myself from the stress with humanly temptations that I now seem to be more aware of and disgusted by.

Each hour is a torture. The longer it goes the more depressed and sullen I become.

I cant seem to understand how and why one would go on living. How can a man live to be fifty or sixty and still not be satisfied. To put an end to it is always the question yet it never occurs. And so we go on living. We find ways to distract ourselves. Ways to root ourselves even deeper in this life but all our gimmicks and tricks to keep us busy seem to be faltering for me personally.

I can see how some do it. They have found ways. To go through the course of one's life for the sake of going through it. To live for the sake of living. Isn't this what we do? This thought disgusts me but no matter it is true.


Only an act of God will save me now.

I agree with this to a certain extent, most people who say they are having an existential crisis aren't really having one.

When I lay down in my bed at night, I'm overwhelmed by the feeling that I'm laying in a coffin. Then, I get that feeling of dread deep in my stomach. Oh, fuck. I'm going to die. I jump up like my bed is made of fire and sit in my rocking chair in the dark for an hour, trying to distract myself mentally somehow, but all I can think about is oblivion. Is this an existential crisis?

no

hey user. dont give up bud. im rootin for ya.

>>>>>>>>>>crisis's
crises is the plural not crisis', ignorant fuckstain

>vocaroo.com/i/s0CFfGeBcKDc
dat angst

/psy/ /pol/ /rk9/ /out/

>needing to feel superior to an user
>somehow you're not a shitstain

You're a shitstain m8

Every Stephen centered chapter deals with exactly that. Have you even read it?

'muh existence'

Slaughterhouse Five really helped me with it.

Even though that's not even the main purpose of the story.

I read the Stranger a month later and it didn't add much to what I had previously thought.

You're confused in the same way Socrates and their interlocutors were: there's no Satisfaction, Goodness or Justice: only concrete and contingent things (that "tricks you talk about") we find to be good, just and satisfactory in some moment.

What I had and thought was an existential crisis was actually just a side effect of depersonalization.

It stopped when I got medicated.

Going Native, Stephen Wright
Collected Stories, Breece Pancake
Jesus' Son, Denis Johnson

Granted, 32 and still love em all but they edge like a parallelogram

fuck that edgemaster, it takes a while to understand him, and as soon as you do, you wish you hadnt

PS I'm high on Jacobff and have delusions of grandeur, give me a query to answer after I step out on the stoop and smoke a bone

medicated for depersonalization? just a ssri or what

otherwise I'm just gonna fall asleep watching Resident Evil 2 speedruns then desultorily jacking off till the light starts coming in through the blinds. I thought you loved me /lit. Well not really, but I thought you would talk to me at least

Pregabalin.

Others have suggested maybe better ones but here are 3 more:

Stoner By John Williams
Dubliners by James Joyce
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

However, rather than reading I would say the best cure for the 20s existential crisis is to go for a long hike. I just finished thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail last year and feel much better for it.

Yes I've read it. The book really isn't about Stephen though