TFW so many gaps in my knowledge but don't know what to start or what books to read

Yeah, but the more I read the more gaps in my knowledge I realise I have.

ignore this. start with the pre-socratics.

That's the point

Stop worrying about knowledge when you should be seeking wisdom.

Do not read because you want to be, or seem to be a smarter man. You should know that there is no quantity of knowledge that can make you into a good man. Only wisdom can make you what you desire to be. You can have all the knowledge and learning of a lifetime and be a fool.

Free yourself from the shackles of "knowledge". You have created this vast expanse of a world you call knowledge and lament that you will only ever know but a small part of it in your life. But why the lamentations? Do you think lovers and killers have different feelings on the other side of the world? Do you think that the sun rises and sets differently or more beautifully just past the next mountain if only you can get there. Do you not realize that everyone in thier place feels that way? Do you think men of different ages were motivated any differently than today? Do not seek facts and figures, dates and quotations. Your compendium of knowledge will be useless when you lay in your death bed of you have not lived well and sought wisdom instead.

Look about you. Look outside. Talk to the people you meet. Examine the stars in your own sky, examine the infinite beauty and complexity of the world that you inhabit. The air that rushes to your lungs, the sunlight that glistens and dazzles on a strangers skin, the song of a woman in a shadow of her window as you pass by, the sound, the touch, the feeling, the universality of being alive. Then after you have found yourself in that world, a small part but intimately connected to all other things then you can look inside yourself and discover the entire universe there. Every emotion that can be felt, every sound that can be heard, every color that can be seen, every sensation, every desire, every knowledge that is worth knowing.

There are no gaps in your knowledge. That's like saying there are gaps between the stars. A bit of an understatement that misses the point. No amount of books and reading will bridge that gap and connect you to everything else just as you cannot reach out and touch two stars. Only cultivation of wisdom can teach you what you seek.

Do not seek to be like the great men of the past, seek what they sought. Seek Wisdom.

Start with the Bible.

>They will pretend it's not the same as if they went on /mu/ and starting spouting how you don't deserve to have an opinion if you haven't had a crazy personal experience while listening to every piece J.S. Bach wrote or something, but it's not different at all.

to me it's more like fags who diss led zeppelin after having only heard like 2 songs on some classic rock station...until you've listened to their discog how can you really have an opinion? some kid shit talking zeppelin didn't even know john paul jones played synths on later albums, he was all

>led zeppelin
>synths
>hurr durr

and i'm like listen to the discog fool

>Start with the Greeks so I have somebody to circle-jerk with in the general threads I make.

>He still thinks the Greeks are a meme.

>for you

youtube.com/watch?v=34HCvwXPKVs#t=59

Proud never read a single book through my entire school days reporting in

Who else with me?

What a great post.

yah but whats wisdom doe

u talk about it n all, but you don't say what it is

seek el dorado! the fountain of youth resides in your soul! the holy grail lies just over the horizon!

but these things, these things mean nothing. as does your wisdom

Materialism really has destroyed civilization.

well I'd agree with you insofar as I think materialism has little to offer, either practically or spiritually, but i'm left with 4 questions: a) what in my post prompted this response; b) why exactly do you think materialism, and materialism alone, has destroyed civilization?; c) why do you think civilization has been destroyed?; and d) what is your definition of civilization?

>Tasmanian canoe crafting webzine
When did this meme start?

the presocratics were greek user

The answer to a. Is "yah but whats wisdom doe". Its as though you are still looking for a categorical definition of something that no one human can fully define. Rather than seek to discover for yourself what wisdom is you are asking me like its a piece of transmittable knowledge. But it isn't. Wisdom is something that you must seek for yourself and develop in your own mind. You can't just read about it in a book like its an ancient battle. You have to work at creating your own ontological understanding of the universe and your place in it and letting yourself define what the meanings of things are. Not just rely on strangers to value and define everything for you.

B. You equate a search for wisdom with "seek el dorado! the fountain of youth resides in your soul! the holy grail lies just over the horizon!" At best those quests you mention are figurative quests for an ideal. But I suspect you were equating them because you did not get the point I was making. There is nothing over the horizon that is not right next to you or all around you. There are no grails or fountains or specific pieces of knowledge that are anywhere else that cant be found near you and inside of you. You don't have to go anywhere to fill in the gaps of your mind and there is nobody that can do it for you no matter what book they right that includes all the bibles and all the scientific books. A quest for wisdom is to look for something that can be found only by you.

B. and C. "but these things, these things mean nothing. as does your wisdom" if the word "wisdom" means nothing to you, then none of the things I would define as wisdom would have any meaning to you. And if "wisdom" means nothing to you then what else could possibly have meaning to you? And if nothing has meaning to you then why do you bother worrying about getting more knowledge? What were you hoping to gain by all that knowledge? Do you want to win a trivia game show? What is it that makes you worry you need to know more? Materialism, post modernism, whatever you want to call whatever it is that is convincing people that nothing means anything, nothing has value. I can define civilization however I like but it would be meaningless to you if you do not know what wisdom is. If you do not know what wisdom is, you cannot know what a civilization is, or why those things have meaning and value. There was a time when people could attempt to discuss these things and come to common understanding, even while still disagreeing but now that even the most basic words like wisdom do not have common understanding it is not possible. That does not mean that there is no wisdom that can be shared and understood and experienced by humans just because you cannot define it. We live in an age where defining an ideal is impossible and so it is up to you to search for the meaning.

START

wisdom is the combination of knowledge and experience that leads to an understanding

One thing that's helped me tremendously is the fact that even if you learned all of the collective human knowledge from all time, which is literally impossible, you still would know almost nothing about the universe as a whole. I think the best example of this, is that according to our current scientific models of physics, 95% of our universe is composed of matter and energy we cannot detect. 95%. Every single thing we have ever known and understood has existed in the other 5%. All of human history and knowledge. And that's scary as shit, but we can use this simple fact now to inductively prove something important. Since the sum total of all human knowledge doesn't properly explain huge parts of the universe, and the most a human could ever know is the sum of all human knowledge, no human knows everything. No one does.

Here's what I want you to realize. There is no shame in not knowing. And as you can see, from the above proof, ANYONE THAT SAYS OTHERWISE IS LYING. You are holding yourself to impossible standards, and it is crippling you, it would cripple everyone. I wasted my entire high school life being afraid of not knowing and afraid of myself. I'm getting better, and I know you can to.

So go out, go to a library, those vast halls of knowledge, and get a book, the first one to grab your eye. DON'T WORRY IF IT'S THE RIGHT BOOK, THERE IS NO RIGHT BOOK. If you enjoy it, builds toward your goals, or expands your knowledge and wisdom, THEN IT IS THE RIGHT BOOK. And if it isn't, if you read a bit and it's shitty book, return it. I know It'll be hard, but I know, that you know, it'll be worth it. This is a personal suggestion, but I suggest going to the psychology section, and grab any book that talks about emotional management and maturity, or specifically anxiety. Self help books like these get kind of a bad rap, I avoided them like the plague for years, but the good ones are worth it, and it's helps so much to get those other perspectives.

In summary, you've got this man, I believe in you!

why?

Reading will only make you more aware of the gaps in your knowledge. You'll need to make peace with that feeling if you're going to go down this road.

isn't this called ennui?

Start with "How To Read a Book" by Adler and Van Doren. You will then have the skills not only to identify and analyse what kinds of books you want to read, but also how to read them in such a manner as to learn as much as possible from them.

Don't be put-off by the 'how to' title, it's a very intelligently written book.

>AUTODIDACT CORE:
How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler
The Trivium - Sister Miriam Joseph
The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing - Thomas S. Kane

Basics of studying, the basics of thinking, and basics of the structures of ideas which you may think about. A strong studying method and a grasp of the basics of thinking/ideas will show you how to charitably tackle new ideas, help you develop an appreciation for the complexity of ideas, and teach you to reformulate ideas to express them in the clearest ways possible.

>AUTODIDACT CRITICAL THINKING:
Creative and Critical Thinking: W. Edgar Moore
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Basics of the "cognitive" aspects of thinking. What are you doing when you think? How do you take your thinking beyond the limits of your biology?

>AUTODIDACT SELF-IMPROVEMENT:
The Discourses - Epictetus
A Primer in Positive Psychology - Christopher Peterson

>AUTODIDACT LIBERAL ARTS:
The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
The Bible (KJV/NKJV)
Atlas of World History - Patrick O'Brien
The Interpretation of Cultures - Clifford Geertz
Western Philosophy: An Anthology - John Cottingham
Music In Theory And Practice - Bruce Benward
Pre-Calculus - C. Stitz & J. Zeager

An investigation into the essences of all different kinds of thinking, with the goal of understanding the purpose of a subject and the fundamentals that govern it (perhaps not quite the foundations, though you should be prepared to begin progressing towards them with hard work). This isn't the final goal, but just the stepping stones to either more sophisticated kinds of thinking in a field, or less fundamental subjects that combine multiple types of thinking, such as economics.

>AUTODIDACT SOCIAL SKILLS:
Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler
How to Speak, How to Listen -- Mortimer J. Adler
philosophy.hku.hk/think/

>Grammar Basics:
Rex Barks - Phyllis Davenport
Grammar by Diagram - Vitto
Practical English - Semmelmeyer
Drawing Sentences - Moutoux
Descriptive English Grammar 2e - House and Harman
Understanding English Grammar - Kolln
Revising Prose - Lanham
Analysing Prose - Lanham

>Logic Basics
A Rule for Arguments - Anthony Weston
An Introduction to Formal Logic - Peter Smith

>Rhetoric Basics:
Thank You For Arguing
Classic Rhetoric for the Modern Student