I am a philosophy student, will get my degree next year (maybe). I suffer from depression and social anxiety, been on meds for almost 10 years.
Tomorrow I will start reading St. Augustine Confessions, I won't be reading this work for philosophical reasons, but for existential ones. My question to you is: will my life be changed?
I'm not a christian btw.
Other urls found in this thread:
www2.d125.org
youtube.com
twitter.com
Take the redpill instead, retard. Books are for fags and philosophy for numales
Covert to catholicism you faggot.
No, but do report back later
honestly, if you're looking to get 'practical' illumination from a book, just read pic related. Confessions is a beautiful book, but if you are just looking for something that magically clicks within your soul that's gonna change your life forever, you're deluding yourself and wasting your time. epiphanies, as we commonly know them are rare, user.
>I am a philosophy student
lol
Probably not. And I don't mean to be dismissive, as I admire St. Augustine, but the book isn't meant to be life-changing.
It's true that in the book, Augustine describes a mystical experience he had, but you can't really experience mystical conversions by reading about them in books. It's not how he converted, anyways. The book is simply the story of his life and conversion, with a bit of theology and neoplatonic philosophy at the end. It was unique at the time for how honest he was about his innermost thoughts and the details of his life, but that's because it was the first real autobiographical book in the Western world.
Why are you on every thread pretending to be a /pol/tards for fucks sake, you're more annoying than them
>anyone who utters a different opinion than my brainwashed idiocy, must surely be joking or pretending
Nice try. Your on Veeky Forums. This isn't you're hugbox
This more or less, but it is a good read.
E M M A
M
M
A
If I were in your shoes, I'd read a book on the LSATs.
OP might be changed by Augustine's consistent expression of his overwhelming love for God. I might say that this love, this pure joy at contemplating the divine, is a very Christian thing, and when expressed in its fullest extent can be pretty moving.
Get ready to read non-stop shitposting about an ancient gnostic religion that made zero sense
convert to greek orthodoxy you heretic
>this pure joy at contemplating the divine
Could you expand more on this point. Also, can this pure joy be achieved secularly?
Thanks for your attention.
Nah, but your life will change if you read the Interior Castle
>Augustine
>Not Philosophical Investigations
No your life will not be changed. And if you want a scholastic read Aquinas instead you sad excuse for a philosophy student
t.Phil Grad
You find it in Augustine, the mystics, and many of the great Christian writers. It's a kind of effusive happiness at the idea that God is so great and powerful, but at the same time loves and cares for them so intimately. I say it's particularly Christian because the feeling flows particularly from the idea of a personal God that a human can relate to on the individual level, and in Christianity this takes the form of Jesus Christ and a Christian's unique relationship with Him. It's a kind of unique blend of grandeur and intimacy, with an overall feeling of genuine love pervading.
I'd say in the secular world, the closest approximation would be love between two people who are really in love and not merely physically attracted. And yet you don't get the grandeur I described in a merely person-to-person relationship. I'm not sure there's anything that quite replicates the feeling in the secular sphere. There may be some sort of psychotropic drug that can artificially create it, though.
>I am a philosophy student, will get my degree next year (maybe)
you're way over qualified to be asking questions here.
what the actual fuck are you doing?
Literally the first section of the Philosophical Investigations is a reading of Augustine..
If you really were a philosophy major would you apply it to your life, not be an emo faggot
This.
Truth
Which is used to show that Augustine was wrong.
Plus Analytic Thomists like Sellars and Anscombe are much more interesting
>it's yours, user
>no baby, it's ours.
>y-you too
>depression and social anxiety
Pfffff get that bullshit off of here
Read some Tolstoy and other bread-pilled Russians.
Existentialists are depressing and once you realise how wrong they are, your depression will go away.
>YWN
Read this book about 6 years ago. I was a complete anxious fedora cringelord back then, and it changed me. Through delving in buddhism, I started getting interested in philosophy. But philosophy actually made me believe this stuff less, and made me lean toward christianism a lot more.
Op already has good knowledge of philosophy so I doubt this book will give him what he needs. Read Confession by Tolstoy too, I read it when dealing with nihilist thoughts (from buddhism) and it hit me really hard
The only cure for you is to leave university. Not memeing
>I suffer from depression and social anxiety, been on meds for almost 10 years.
You'd think after a solid decade without improvement you'd wisen the fuck up and drop the meds
i hope you do, man
i threw confessions in the trash where it belonged after finishing reading it. it's fucking gay as fuck. your life won't be changed unless you're a faggot
I literally cannot live my life without taking meds, I'll take them to my grave.
I did read Tolstoy's Confession, I resonated a lot with it, but it's not what I'm looking for, which I guess is redemption.
this, university is useless and corrupt
nice blog
You want secular redemption? It doesn't exist. All existence is useless suffering. Try reading the Myth of Sisyphus, which acknowledges the meaninglessness of the suffering but says the only way to live your life that way without killing yourself is to convince yourself that the meaningless suffering is meaningful. Something about the way you go about your meaningless life has to be meaningful.
>Try reading the Myth of Sisyphus
I already did, absurdism is fine I guess, but I want something more, something that is not of this earth...
Maybe I'm just asking too much, for I want to satisfy the deepest needs of my spirit while my intellect remains intact and prideful.
Hopefully I'll die soon
>enter the thread
>first thing I read is "secular redemption"
>leave the thread
>I literally cannot live my life without taking meds, I'll take them to my grave.
That's called addiction. You need help, and not the kind your quackdoctors have been giving you. How do you suppose people like you survived in the 5000 years before modern medicine? That is absolutely pathetic.
Do you think commom people in the time of the gods had diseases of the soul?
Also, I'm happy to call my predicament an addiction, if you call your need for oxygen an addiction, for to renounce it is to renounce all my functionallity as a human being.
>existence is
Gonna need you to prove that one sport
Very interesting, but there are more appropiate boards out there for discussing your own life.
Now, fuck off. Veeky Forums - Literature
How would you know? You haven't tried to live without your medication for ten years. By this point you've probably been emotionally sterilized for life, but it's still pathetic. If I were half as much a coward as you I'd hang myself.
Underrated post
I have dropped my meds at least 2 times, the results? Hell on earth.
I'm curious about something, what is your goal in insulting me? Do you expect to raise in my soul something other than indifference?
Do you want to hurt me? For what reason? What do I represent to you?
I'd really appreciate if you could answer all these questions, it would be a kindness I could not repay, that is of course if you respond truthfully.
I will be back in 4 hours, I have class.
I agree with him, but you make good points, like the one about disease of the soul in modern times... Never thought about it that way. But I guess the best way is to try and live the old fashioned way. How did you handle before you started taking meds? Physical work and simple joys without technology my friend. Only physical work helps me when I'm depressed.
OP i have been there, let me give you some advice and forgive me for my bad english.
- If your have a chemical depression (your brain dont produce enouth dopamine) Stick to the meds, if you have a depression driven by nihilism i can give you a hand.
1) Yes, the world dont have any sense, meaning or purpose.
2) If the world dont have those kind of quality then you cant change that. You have to change yourself.
3) you want the world to be' something It isnt , you want something that doesnt exist. The problem is within you, not in within the world.
4) Nihilism is not the end, It s the starting point.
5) If Life have no meaning then Life is pure experience. But you Will Say to me: if my experience of Life is full of suffering, loneliness why should i live?
6) that is the starting point. You have to learn how to change that. And i dont mean that you have to go to the Gym, make Friends find a girl ... That help but is not the point.
7) You have to change your attitude. You Need to recognize that your mental attitude is wrong , that it is the product of a schyzofrenic society.
8) you Need to elevate your sensibility, look at the world beauty with new eyes, live the present without judging , stop desiring things, learn how to contemplate your existence for what It is.
9)Your are alive, soon you Will die. Experience life for what It is, a beautifull Movie you can Watch, a beautifull and magical videogame that you can play.
10) Start focusing on the Little things , dont loose yourself in thoughts.
11) One last thing, your ego is not a stabile things. There are techniques that Can give you mystical ego-loss experience. They are what religion is at his core. Seek for them when you are ready.
- If you find this hard to do in practice i suggest you meditation. And Remember this is the only fight you have to fight if u want a illusion free authentic Life.
One last thing , love is a mental attitude.
Try this techniques that might show you how your mental attitude is what is wrong:
- When you walk in your city, whenever you see someone you look them with suspect, with judgement, even if you dont realize that. Try instead to Imagine yourself going to evryone you see hugging and smiling to that person. It looks like a stupid thing to do. Try It for One day. You Will see the resoults.
Just listen to Bach instead
He's just being honest. People who do heroin suffer for withdrawal too.
You're probably just LARPing but if you believe that anything other than you can provide you with purpose you're deluded. I find it incredible that you're a philosophy student because the entire point of the existential works is that only we can define our essence. I mean Kierkegaard who was a devout Christian said that only we can define our existence and Nietzsche goes as far as to say Christianity in itself is inherently nihilistic.
Even if God's essence i.e. purpose is the true eternal purpose, we are mortals and our essence is inherently mortal. Our essence as mortals isn't God's essence.
Christianity isn't going to save you. But I honestly don't understand why a nihilistic world is a sad thing. The world having no inherent meaning is free will. Much like in the theistic rendition of the Euthyphro dilemma, if what is morally good is commanded by God because it is morally good, then God lacks free will because he has to follow some "arbitrary" standard for what is morally good. On the other hand, if what is morally good is so because it is commanded by God, he is capable of free will. To you as a mortal human being, God's morals are as arbitrary as some standard that exists to govern God.
You should exercise your radical freedom as a human being,
Good on you OP. Anxiety is a bitch to deal with so I'm proud of you that you stuck through it all to get that degree.
I've only read excerpts from Augustine but I suggest that you have a bible (NSV), which is online, nearby and that you are familiar with Plato and a few other Classical philosophers, as Augustine was heavily influenced by them.
I wouldn't go into a work expecting it to change your life (especially if it's a religious text to a religion which you don't belong to).
Your life will never be changed.
By anything.
Ever.
I've been on antidepressants for 10 years too
I personally want to start my own religion. Hence, I spend my time reading philosophy so I can learn to conceive a coherent system of thought.
But some pretty patrician purposes are:
1)Doing research for immortality
2)Striving for purposeful perfection i.e. a perfect violinist e.g. Heifetz
3)Striving for perfection of civilization through completion, by pushing boundaries e.g. Stockhausen
>I am a philosophy student
jesus how horrifying. stopped reading there btw
>My question to you is: will my life be changed?
Yeah you'll go from studying to wagecucking.
What the fuck do you expect dude, and I say that as a Phil grad
>on every thread
lol what
Shit thread anyway. I don't get why people don't sage.
lol I love when complete basket cases think they have life advice for people
>studies philosophy - still dumb and naive as fuck
kys cunt
Probably not.
The path to faith is a long and confusing one. It starts off intellectually, but never stays that way.
Confessions is a damn good read though regardless.
there is actually tremendous difference between the two images. my sensibilities are offended; whoever made this is a barbarian.
...
I could write something long winded about how the efficacy of psychiatric medicine is dubious at best and how the field itself does not have much scientific rigor behind it, but I'm going to assume you've already heard those arguments before and have not been persuaded.
I'm insulting you because that's the one thing you're not likely to get from your doctors or therapists or family members: a heavy dose of contempt. The human mind is far more resilient than you give it credit for. Even a somewhat defective brain like yours has the capacity to correct and mend itself, given enough time and provided that you aren't continuously interfering with the process. How do you suppose people lived in times much harder than these without access to the kind of drugs we have today?
Nietzsche said the antidote to pessimism of the spirit is genuine suffering. You're afraid of it and would rather walk around half alive than confront whatever internal defectiveness or external difficulties exist in your life.
Indifference to life and general apathy are symptomatic of exhausted old age; they are also typical in young people who have been medicated who have been emotionally sterilized by medication.
Sedatives, anti-psychotics and anti-depressants have horrific withdrawal effects. That's in their chemical nature, but it's also in the best interests of the drug manufacturers. They know well enough that these drugs produce enough negative effects when discontinued that most people will try to take them for as long as they can. You're a drug addict, plain and simple. To the basic needs of life you have added extravagant ones. They are not making you better any more than a lobotomy would make you better.
I've known a few people like you, long term users of these drugs. They insist they can't function without them, and I'm sure plenty of them believe that, but that doesn't make it true. You should look into tapering down your meds and trying to wean yourself off of them, but you need to make a pledge to yourself before then, to stick with the detox and not permit yourself any follies while you're going through it.
I happen to suffer from recurrent, debilitating depression as well, but I have always rebounded from it in due time. I have faith in my brain's ability to fix whatever has gone awry, and so I am able to weather the storm and stay on course.
You aren't going to find any answers in any books. This is between you and yourself. I would rather be dead than sleepwalk through life, insensate to the world and deaf to all music. It is cowardice to keep living in this way, and I would sooner counsel a quick and painless death. You're a corpse looking for a grave. That is not what life ought to be. We as a species did not pass through fire and night to bring forth such feeble, nihilistic heirs.
The only thing I experienced from reading confessions was jealousy at what a Chad Augustine was
please leave Veeky Forums
It is quite clear to me that you have a personal vendetta against medications of the soul, and you're seeing my case as a chance to express your cause and ideas. I find particularly funny how more than one time you stated the survival of ancient people as some sort of proof for the non necessity of soul drugs and yet fail to realize this is an informal fallacy, argumentum ad antiquitatem, look it up. Since you're a believer in the ability of the brain to mend itself, here is a heavy dose of contempt for you: go read a fucking book on fallacies you retarded faggot, or I will probably kill myself if I have to read "MUH ANCIENT PEOPLE" one more time.
Jokes aside, let's get something straight. I don't give a shit about your views on psychiatric medicine and the scientific rigor behind it. I know who I am, at least better than you. I have substantially more knowledge of what my life will be in the absence or presence of soul drugs than you do, so let me be the judge of what is getting in my body. Furthermore, you speak of me as if I am a walking corpse, incapable of emotions and feelings, which I guess is something you deduced from my decade of medications. All I can say is that I don't think this is the case, for I feel love and hatred, pain and well being, and all the vanities of men. Perhaps I feel it less, or antidepressants are different here in Brazil. Nevertheless, I am not guilty of the things you accuse me of, I have faced all the difficulties in my life with courage and honesty, speaking the truth and only the truth, never lying to myself.
And the last thing, I find in you a great faith in mankind, from how you speak and your quoting of existential philosophy. So let me tell what I think, your faith in the creativity of humanity, that somehow we, as a species that went trough fire and night, will be able to create new values out of YHWH's dead corpse, it's what I find trully pathetic.
If you've ever attempted sleeping through a hangover so bad that your eyelids are semi-involuntarily smashed shut to keep any light out and the horrors of renewed consciousness like that..I have compassion for her in that moment.
"Addiction" is a fiction. Chemically enhancing your life is the norm for humanity. Anyone LARPing against antidepressants is probably the ultimate AA cuck
>cucking yourself to the sky fairy to validate your weak, malformed, pathetic mediocre existence
>holding down your syphillitic boners and fanboying an Opera composer while strawmanning the experiences of millions to shoe-horn your personal butchering of Hegelian idealism until your sister sells your books to mass murderers and your legacy is to be the god of edgy teenagers
That totally invalidates anything he has written
Yeah, it does. I'm so sick of this line of reasoning. If the very mind that conceived of a philosophy can't even come close to implementing it, then the idea was dead on arrival.
dat eyes tho
wow thanks this paragraph helped me more than 3 years of therapy and meds
Convert and trust the gospel.
kys op
>tfw two days later this shit-thread is still up
Did you know that theres a fucking HUMANITIES BOARD SECTION?
Like why do you idiots philosophic students come here everyday? Same with /mu/pol/
Just kill yourself already, this is pathetic
>Brazil
If you're lucky some ape will save you the trouble.
Worst thread in months
schelling, holderlin
Jesus fucking christ where do people get off bashing depressed people who ask for help?
Follow my simple plan:
stop smoking weed
no fap
red pilll
exercise
play an instrument
You're anxiety will disappear. I swear it.
It may also be worth listening to this
what this user said, or just start taking Phenibut