This is essentially a cry for help

Why no Jews?

>Please no religious texts.

But this is your problem. You're trying to find something to fill that God sized hole in your heart but only thing that will fit is God.

I think Spinoza could prove useful for you. It combines world-view, theology, philosophy but more importantly it deals directly with emotions or passions which I suspect are a large part of the problems you're having.

In the ethics his most famous works he does talk a lot about God but simulataneously it is not completely a theistic perspective. Spinoza leaves ample space in his views for varying belief, although he does himself believe in a god he has an extremely abstract view of god, one revolving around understanding and reason.

You may find the ethics off-putting or difficult at first, especially if you are averse to theism. It's important to remember that although he talks of god many of his opponents would consider his beliefs at the time heretical and atheistic.

Strongly recommend reading this, more than once, keeping an open but not too open mind. It can be a bit difficult in places especially because it is a translation, but if you are familiar with philosophy it is not difficult. If you are not enjoying the heavy god philsophy at the beggining skip to parts III, IV and V which I think offer a lot more immediate help and relief.

Spinoza himself struggled and wrote this likely as a guide intended for others which helped him and it has also helped me.

I found the Elwes translation to be pretty good. Good luck and I hope you read it.

The thing is that I've been in this position a bunch of times, but I guess I've never treated it seriously in a sense. I've lived an ironic life in a way, in that I don't experience much pleasure or satisfaction in life, that I am detached from most things, but that my body persists despite my mind having essentially "given up" already. I just feel like I'm in a situation now where I need to make a stand and just finish things for good rather than just subsisting like I am and treating everything as a joke at my expense and laughing along with myself against myself, if you get what I mean. I honestly am close to quitting my job and walking into the wilderness until I starve or freeze to death. I think about doing this several times a day for at least a month now. It's like I'm just hanging around until my will-to-die finally overwhelms my will-to-die.

>On_The_Juwes_and_Their_Lies.jpeg

more or less this

Either I'm getting old or I am highly sensitive but that jpeg is ... Do you really believe this? I am not asking to argue but to understand.

who what?

do a flip and so on

Get a therapist m8

Stfu, you stupid undergrad

I'm not undergrad, I'm 25 years old. Have a job so it's not NEEThod contributing to this (unemployment being one of the major contributors to depression)

I don't see what they could tell me that you guys can't.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets.

Are you exercising and meditating 30 minutes each a day? That's a good place to start.

>written by somebody who had their entire idealogical system and Will-To-Live collapse but who found a reason to live anyway.
altough i probably read some books like that, it simply cant help at all. we are fucked beyond comprehension.

i hope the best for you anyway.

This is a good one, but the first of the four is probably sufficient. The ones after that aren't really his best work.

OP here. I did let myself go last year and the year before, but for a while now I have been jogging every day etc. It's like I consist of a group of people and every one of them except one has their coats on and keep calling for me to hurry and go with them to kill myself, but there's this last one of the group who is just hanging on as if expecting things to change or trying to find contentment or some reason to stick around. But more than ever I feel like escaping the inertia and apathy that has completely dominated me in the only way that seems possible now, by ending my life.

Schopenhauer's "On Women" saved my life more than a few times.

Read Stoic texts.

Haha

How about you cut the reddit spacing or, even better, go back there?

You may as well just die.

Waiting for Godot may be what you are looking for. In a desolate, hostile, and uncaring world, the only thing that keeps us human is relations, and toughness. Beckett thought that existencialism was futile: yes, there is no meaning in this world, but man cannot possibly create meaning by and for himself. And yet, life goes on. It mustn't nor shouldn't, but it still goes on. This is a passage from the end of the play, which sumps up what I just wrote:

Estragon: Didi.
Vladimir: Yes.
E: I can't go on like this.
V: That's what you think.

It is bleak, indeed. And yet, it is strangely uplifting.

I agree that there is a decline in quality, but East Coker is still quite good. It is also the most relevant of the four to OP. The last two, especially Little Gidding, can be skipped.

more

That one voice is obviously stronger than the rest. Start playing to your strengths and not your weaknesses. Honestly for me the solution was a combination of Mirtazapine and fluoxetine. Better living thru chemistry is not a lie.

>Stfu, you stupid undergrad
Wait until you grow up. You might get a glimpse of what this person is going through and remember your own words. Undergraduate or not. You will see.

Where when why

Why are you not on Reddit? That's normally where creeps with no compassion and think they tough sh*t go. I bet you're 12.

...

Great post, it really is easier said than done however. But baby steps.

He sounds like a bitch.

you need things to make life worth living.
be honest with yourself. if you don't have any friends, you're jobless and/or spend all day shitposting then your answer is obvious.
don't read a fucking book.
pretty much all of the time people feel like shit because of obvious things that they don't want to confront.

just know that time isn't your friend and if you let time choose for you you'll have nobody but yourself to blame.

>It's another white male complaining that he's become too aware and will kill himself as a reaction to the emptiness of existence that society has given him episode'

>white male
>as if that were intrinsically something to make fun of
back to tumblr, ho

>implying there is not a huge problem with predominately white males offing themselves

Why

There is a boom that's killing you, and you know it not. A narrative with a cruel narrator narrating cruel narrations. It's the book of you right life. Close it. Take it to furnace and burn it. Begin again, this time more confidently uncertain, more willingly flexible and capable of incorrections, and more open to the abundance of love love that surrounds you. See how these things have nothing to do with words but with a stance, a movement, and an attitude. You are no longer who you were who wanted to die, but someone awoken to the possibility of your possibilities. Go now, you are free.

read the traditionalists
>Please no religious texts.
there's no other way

I would advise doing thirty, slow prostrations, and saying the Jesus Prayer after each one. What do you have to lose? You will find new will to live in that, I assure you.

As for a text, I don't think that can help you. But Shakespeare and mathematics have both always invigorated me with a new excitement for life when I was disenchanted, so I can reccomend those on that count.

Please don't kill yourself. You are a wondrous mystery and it often takes your fall to your lowest to discover the depth and fulfillment of that mystery

Mere Christianity

Stop resisting the truth just because it's not the truth you want to believe.

I can make a Pro and Con list for you. It is very brave of you to ask anonymous people for help. (Pro: Fearless Communication Skills) (Pro: Faith in Community) and I am assuming that is because you, yourself would give a compassionate and well thought out opinion if someone else were in your position. (Pro: Compassion & Empathy). You posted in Literature because there is inspiration (Pro: Seeking Help) out there and obviously you are a reader (Pro: Educated; Scholar) There is always magic in words (Pro: Hope). Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will feed of your weakness because they themselves are weaker than you (Con: Naivety). Your choice of forums is not the greatest. You need to go on Quora (Con: Not equipped with the right rescources). The 2 Con's on my list will only come with experience and that you will gain if you live. Stop being so hard on yourself. Don't listen to everyone. YOU ARE A SURVIVOR! YOU ARE MEANT TO BE HERE! (Pro: You are alive.)

Yes, everybody believes to heart that hell exists, but for some edgy reason, they rather ignore it. It is like when the sun hits you hard with its heat yet you are wearing jersey

Beautifully said

what the fuck is this post

...

heaven and hell are reserved for the stupid and it's in the same place

Only a bitch would know the sound of a bitch.

IVE GOT A CONFESSION TO MAKE

The kind of post that you can't understand. Go lay down, it's nap time

Talk to a therapist in combination with some antidepressants, saved my life!

wat

learn how to read

Okay, suicide is always an option. But don't do that until you've tried intermittent fasting. There's a version of it dressed up for the public in a book called the 5:2 diet. Fasting literally provides physiological rebirth akin to a new perspective on life itself. By eating everyday you're literally denying your body certain process that provide moods and sensations entirely natural but seldom experienced in modern culture. If you experience what fasting has to offer, and still wish to die, then die, by all means. I'm only suggesting you unturn a stone that nearly everyone misses because it's right under their noses.

>Pro: Educated; Scholar
>You need to go on Quora

I am on Quora. Go back to Imgur

I see we have a little battle going on. Maybe you're my soulmate.

Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl
Feeling Good, Burns
therapy (particularly DBT)
medication

>No jews please

Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl
Feeling Good, Burns
therapy (particularly DBT)
medication

To all those here who aren't Orthodox: reading a book generally doesn't make you religious, Augustine is an exception. Religion requires receptivity plus personal experience. The Christian religion is a relationship with a person, not an ideology or philosophy in the conventional sense. It's like telling someone they need to fall in love, and then saying, "Here is a bunch of literature on love, because that is what you need. " No, they need lock eyes and talk to a person. They won't even truly understand works on love without knowing it

What? Who said I have no compassion? And I never said I'm tough or anything of the sort. It's incredible how many false shit a person can tqke out of one simple sentence.

...

There are people who live on a rock, and there are people who live to throw rocks around, OP. You can imbue your life howsoever you want with whichever Will - but you must see that everything moves deathward irrespective of your Will. In any case, there's nothing wrong with a temporary directionlessness in life, what matters is that you're in motion: taking action against it. That's really why you're given a life, to simply *do*. You'll figure out *what* to do, eventually - you cannot ask for these things, you cannot ask for whom to love and you cannot ask for the world to pave you ways through the birch wood.

You may love God that you would kamikaze into Hell for him.
And you may be infatuated with something that you'll give your eyes in for it.

The fact of the matter is that there are people with a Will-to-live who want out of it, envy works both ways, OP. Take the world as an optimist would and make the best out of your indecisiveness in this hour.

I have distanced myself from anybody I might have called a friend. I have reacted to the flirtation and conspicuous displays of romantic interest from several girls by acting cold and often callously indifferent to them. The relationship with my remaining family members is now one of growing detachment and their open concern for my wellbeing. I work a job which is unfulfilling and which leads to no promotion or "career ladder". From being an athletic, handsome and intensely curious and conscientious young man I have allowed myself to become a weary, bloated, bitter recluse and have genuinely convinced myself that I have somehow "transcended" the desire for a romantic partner, for children, for a stable career, for exciting and varied life experiences when really I have simply allowed my apathy and detachment to become so overwhelming that I now exist as little more than an observer of external phenomena and the sole pathetic guardian of a rotten, stunted inner persona whose principles and aspirations have been shed and discarded. I rent room after room for a month or so at a time, telling myself that this will be the month I "do something" with my life, or, as more lately, "kill myself". Right now I'm a week into yet another month-long tenancy in an apartment full of immigrants and yet again I simply wake alone, travel to work along, perform my nine hours of dull and thought-numbing labour, travel home alone, and spend the remaining hours jogging, attempting to find the focus to read, or posting online about things I really don't care about all that much. And then I sleep and feel somewhat relieved when I experience a dream where I am suddenly energetic and excited as I've always tended to be in dreams. For a long time I spent my free hours simply thinking about and reliving second-hand the experiences of my youth, imagining what could have gone better, interpreting what went so wrong, and clinging to the notion that I was once a good-hearted and loveable kid. But now I'm too sickened to think too much about my past, and I feel guilty for letting down my childhood self. I have exhausted my capacity for nostalgia at this point, and now all I have is the depressing present and a future which, I am forced to concede, is realistically going to be underwhelming, ridden with despair and comprised largely of responsibility and the pressure to maintain my image as a mature and reliable adult. Self-pity is present in my despair, I accept that. As is defeatism and lingering on complaints we all make at some point or other. But what I am lacking is any consistent sense that this life, objectively meaningless as it is, subjectively tenuous as it has become to me, is worth living if it is to be essentially defined by how much suffering I can endure without "breaking down" or "snapping". I am filled to the brim with self-disgust, anger, frustration and the desire to die. Yet I live, and the cowardice inherent in that fact only makes me want to die more.

Lol, it's the other way arround dude
You know, names, anonimity?

You sound very unlikable.

OP here. I relate to some of this, especially regarding my family.

I will try eating less for a while. I do feel like clearing my system may help clear my thoughts or something. Thank you.

I am very reluctant to take anti-depressants as I suspect I will become reliant on them. I've heard a lot of bad stuff, is all. Which one(s) do you take?

You have some book suggestions here that are good to lookinto. Aside from that, this website is probably the last place ni the world that's going to help you

Don't try eating less. Read about and try fasting, it's a specific process. Honestly.

you should take them. there is a reason why medication exists. at the moment, your options are suicide, or a possible, long term chemical dependence; and medicine can always be adjusted by dosage and chemical compound to prohibit pure 'dependence' on one drug. simple choice imho

Just make sure you dont crush any snowflakes user :^)

FPBP
That book LITERALLY kept me from killing myself last year during a severely dark period. It focuses how your thinking is not your reality. Read the updated condensed version.

A must read for any desperate person.

>Please no Bible

Why not allow yourself to read it? Why?

Follow the despair and don't kill yourself (physically). Life will flow through you at the end. Be strong, search for nothing outside out of yourself.
The solution will come. Good luck

Stop being retarded

What exaclty is troubling you? We could give better advice if we knew your problems, but from what I've gathered so far, you sound depressed and should see a therapist. Even if he proscribes medication and you drink them, what have you to lose?
As for the book, I recommend the Four Gospels and St. Augustin, since religion saved me from a dark period in my own life. I don't know if you're religious but I'll pray for you user.

Become a taoist monk.

wut, that's Veeky Forums, reddit is if anything too saccharine.

Stop trying to find "a system", that is your problem, they never stand up to scrutiny. Find joy in actually living and doing things you care about.

This, this, this

That's a nice system you've got there.

the count of monte cristo

THE DOCTOR AND THE SOUL by Viktor Frankl.

I really hope you read this post and take it seriously, user. This is what you need.

>No jews please.
Oh, sorry for my offering help in the above post. Just saw this. Go ahead and kys.

HONK HONK HERSCHEL

>I am very close to ending my life
The "end" (at lest as we know) is always closer than one could imagine (and a world dies with every moment). As someone wwith a above average intellegence you should be able to understand game theory well enough to know it's a stupid bet. Also it's intellectualy dishonest, those who think it's an act of ultimative power and fall for the metaphor of refusing to play the game by just turning the table, are in reality just to immature to understand turning the table means, being a magican and creating your own universe by manifesting it. The common (pleb) lives in the world of others and is happy (he mostly doesn't know it at all). It's not the "one" book or thought it's the journey of your transformation. Reading Heidegger gave me a first glimps of how i could let the "world" speak to me and also Withehead, but you will have your own way. Being underemployed can be a gift or a course depending on how you want to see it. Many are fools in the machine working 9 hours a day in a Job that gives them no intellectual or physical pleasure. You should try to find something that really fits your intrest and maybe someday you will with a decent chance even be able to earn a living or more. Also i know the meme is so old, but look at successful people (those who didn't get all their shit from their parents and/of their conections) their Biographies are full of mistakes and failure, before they made it. Look at many famous writters often their glory never occured while they were still living. So the sisyphus thing has also truth to it. The greatest task in our modern world seems to be finding the simple truth that people often were aware of, but were forgotten. Being able to find your way in a world like today is the great "Game" of our time (while it often was just physicaly surive for our ancestors until fairly recently). Of course you can't "reinvent" yourself or start all over again, but you can find deeper layers and other sides of yourself and world you have to just listen, if they talk to you. Also very important find nature and you will find yourself. Some need to live in the woods for some month others just need some weeks of hiking, but you should make this it also cost little moeny if you want it. Value the moment and focus on the from time to time modern people eat, but don't taste, read but don't live in the words, hear but don't listen. Many are just sad and apathetic, because they don't really live and just exist. Reading (especially Aristotle or Platoon, or maybe even great classics, i suggest German romantisism if you are more stable) and doing Maths are great ways for getting a good feeling and growing your potential.

Notes From Underground
Confessions by Augustine
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
All generally built around the question of finding meaning, real motivation for living that goes deeper than day to day subsistence.
Hope you get through this tough period, value people who reach out to you and remember you are loved and the world would be worse without you.

What's so good about The Moviegoer?

It's like a French novel to me in that there seems to be something symbolic about it but I can't put my finger on it. Am I right in saying that the protagonist is unhappy because he doesn't feel like he is the star of the show, or the protagonist of his own story, and that he can only get by if he pretends otherwise?

My friend, please read Wittgenstein's Nephew or The Loser by Thomas Bernhard. I find when I am feeling very low, when I am feeling as you are feeling now, Bernhard refreshes me like nothing else.

>As someone wwith a above average intellegence you should be able to understand game theory well enough to know it's a stupid bet
explain

Pablo de Rokha. Dude commited suicide at 74 yo, and one of his earlier poems predicted his death at 73 yo.

Charlie Sheen and Johnny Depp to the rescue

Not a read but I have a stupid story that moved me in some way. I too hate a lot of this world.

I went to the supermarket the other day and saw my cashier who looked somewhat disabled in the face. He carried an awkwardness that was almost recognizable but incomplete from my point of view behind the customer before me. When it was my turn to be rung up, I noticed he clearly had cerebral palsy affecting his left arm, not severely, but enough that it was obvious then.

I had bought some ginger root and when he saw it his face lit up like child's the night before his birthday, with a sense of impeding joy that cannot, and should not, be kept hidden.

He asked the simple question of a cashier, "What is this?" in regards to the produce that he had to ring up.

"It's ginger root," I told him as a smile grew on his face.

"I love the smell of ginger," he grinned as he brought the sealed bag to his nose to smell. "My mother has these candles with a ginger scent. It reminds me of Christmas," he admitted, all smiles.

"Yeah like gingerbread right?" I replied as he nodded his head in agreement. I explained how to make a nice ginger tea, that's also good for the stomach, or just to boil sliced ginger root in a pot and let the aroma fill his house up in the absence of a candle.

He told me he would try that out, and asked if I would pay with a card. I absentmindedly told him cash, to which he said that was fine, although he slightly struggled to retrieve it from me. I offered to pay with my card but he replied to me, "No it's fine," and with a smile on his face stated, " when I first started working here cash was much harder for me to work with. But I've gotten better at it and like the practice anyways," as he was twitching his left hand and trying to find the right angle of his wrist to complete the simple task of making my change.

Enjoy the little things in life user. Focus on them. I know it sounds stupid but this kid was so happy for the smell of ginger, despite the disability he was born with. And he wanted to overcome his state by working with cash instead of a card, again simple and perhaps stupid, but powerful. It reminds me of when my brother was on zombie pills for bipolar, something his shrinks said he would never get off (which he did and better now). He was in this zombie state and I saw him run his hand through the leaves of a tree in the sunshine and just appreciate what he could in that state. However it can help you, I hope you can understand it and see the small beauty life has to offer.