File: existentialists.jpg (56KB, 1022x278px) Image search:
[Google]
56KB, 1022x278px
Hey /lit/ recently I've been getting interested in existentialism and I know a little bit but still need to read more.
First of all: What do all of these guys believe, what do they agree on, what do they disagree on, and is it possible for me to reconcile their philosophies?
Lastly, where do I start in terms of reading? Where do I go afterwards?
30 Posts / 3 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346876
Kierkegaard is the only existentialist in that group. Existentialists believe that we have a radical individuality/aloneness that we must take responsibility for despite the fact that the proper way to do so remains opaque.
>>
>Lastly, where do I start in terms of reading?
I would naturally say Neon Genesis Evangelion but Nier: Automata is now as equally good a place to start.
>>
>>9346892
-_-
File: anime-man-with-folded-paper.jpg (48KB, 640x800px) Image search:
[Google]
48KB, 640x800px
>According to a 2014 study by Baylor University in Waco, Texas, female students in America spend an average of 10 hours on their phone a day – for men it’s eight.
Are men reading for those extra two hours?
12 Posts / 1 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346843
Almost definitely not. Male students are most likely playing xbox and/or taking fat bong rips during that time.
>>
>>9346863
A fat bong rip takes 30 seconds, I am reading the other 1hr 59min and 30sec
>>
>>9346843
>female students in America spend an average of 10 hours on their phone a day – for men it’s eight.
Holy shit, is this real? How does somebody spend that much time staring at a screen without utterly frying their brain? If I'm at a computer for more than a few hours doing homework/studying, I can't sleep well that night or think properly.
File: Fernando-Pessoa.jpg (156KB, 919x959px) Image search:
[Google]
156KB, 919x959px
Who is you're favorite poet and why? My favorite poet is fernando pessoa, because frankly I try other poets and they don't really make sense to me. Pessoas work can be very profound and beautiful, and there's scarcely a work I've read by him which was overly laden with references I don't know. I wouldn't call his work simple by any stretch, but it's not something you need to have read various canonical works to understand.
23 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346774
>sad bourgeois that spilled rivers of ink about how much of a loser he was
Dreadful type of literature.
>>
>>9346774
Wallace Stevens
>>
Mine's haiku poster;
Maverick in his methods,
And doesn't afraid
File: this guy.jpg (21KB, 402x350px) Image search:
[Google]
21KB, 402x350px
Why do I find Bertrand Russell's writings so appealing and valid?
35 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346736
You're expecting me to say "because you're from Reddit", don't you?
>>
>>9346736
Because he's usually right
>>
>>9346736
his cuckery speaks to your inner faggot
File: quote-vladimir-nabokov-was-a-writer-who-cared-nothing-for-music-and-whose-favorite-sport-was-edward-abbey-65-3-0360.jpg (82KB, 850x400px) Image search:
[Google]
82KB, 850x400px
Do you agree, /lit/?
11 Posts / 1 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346630
>le lepidopterist maymay
>>
>>9346630
>Pynchon was a sailor
>This explains many things; for example, the fact that Pynchon's novels, for all their elegance and wit, resemble nothing so much as salty seawater: intense and stormy; beautiful but lacking any substance
>>
Abbey's writing is sentimental and full of cliches.
Ironically Nabokov's books are a lot more life affirming and fun to read because he was such a cynical writer.
File: jonsnow.jpg (59KB, 500x591px) Image search:
[Google]
59KB, 500x591px
who's ur favorite asoiaf character? pic related
14 Posts / 3 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346629
Bronn.
>>
Davos
>>
>>9346644
i really like where his story went in Feast, and the perspective it was written from
This book is a meme.
18 Posts / 1 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346549
Why?
>>
>>9346557
Because the author is David Foster Wallace bad. His writing is plain, his grammar is simple, he uses purple prose and the author likely has some sort of thought disorder to include over 400 characters and several erudite math terms. It's not an abstrusive dictionary like IJ is, it's just boring.
>>
>>9346570
>purple prose
When will this meme end? Literally every classic has what would be considered purple prose in it.
File: 6a00d83451da9669e201a511dddc53970c.jpg (81KB, 481x786px) Image search:
[Google]
81KB, 481x786px
Hey /lit/ Irish student here. I'm doing higher level English for LC this year and I thought I'd challenge myself with Finnegans Wake, which I was told was one of Joyce's best works. Needless to say I don''t get it, I went to my English teacher recently to see if he'd helped and of course he said "You're on your own". So if anyone's read it (or at least tried to) please share your thoughts.
17 Posts / 4 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346484
>"You're on your own"
>>
File: finwakeopening-720x544.jpg (90KB, 720x544px) Image search:
[Google]
90KB, 720x544px
>>9346484
http://fractiousfiction.com/finnegans_wake.html
>>
>>9346484
>"You're on your own"
Hah! Not bad advice, actually
But I can give you some ideas
The book is conceived to be a book of the night, the dream of the sleeping giant, the monomyth of the world, the narrative of the subconscious, the story of all stories embodied in words that can possess as many as five different kalaedescopic meanings at once. The rise and fall of human civilisation, Finn (end) egen (again) wake (begin). A funerall, a fun-fer-all celebration of the death, the absence of consciousness of the person as they sleep. The story of Here Comes Everybody and his wife Anna Livia Plurabell.
The way to enjoy the book is to read it aloud to yourself slowly, and forgoe any attempt to 'understand what is happening', and soon enough you'll discover that you have subtle intimations of what is occurring that are beyond your ability to express in words, but you feel it. Also its just a real pleasure to hear
File: IMG_2805.png (81KB, 249x500px) Image search:
[Google]
81KB, 249x500px
>read a short story I felt really good about writing
>it's shit
16 Posts / 1 Images
View this topic
>>
i figure this is how most writers feel about their own work
give it to someone else, let them decide
>>
>>9346433
What is it about?
>>
>>9346443
I don't know
File: 1488551753247.jpg (212KB, 869x920px) Image search:
[Google]
212KB, 869x920px
I'm just not convinced that "show don't tell" is actually good advice.
11 Posts / 5 Images
View this topic
>>
The opposite is usually true. I don't care how something happened, I just want to know how it happened.
>>
writing by dumb rules is dumb and for genre fiction
>>
>>9346461
what are you saying
File: molasses-books-brooklyn.jpg (132KB, 1280x766px) Image search:
[Google]
132KB, 1280x766px
What is the coziest book and who is the coziest author to read while having a pint in the pub?
17 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>reading in a pub
Get some friends, autismo.
>>
>>9346367
Friendship is a social construct.
>>
>>9346361
Jack London
File: 97472088.jpg (116KB, 650x506px) Image search:
[Google]
116KB, 650x506px
What is the nature of desire in Buddhism?
I don’t even think that “desire” is the correct word to translate the concept:
1. “Dukkha, "incapable of satisfying,"[web 2] painful.[4][5] Life in this "mundane world,"[web 3] with its craving and clinging to impermanent states and things,[4] is dukkha,[3] unsatisfactory and painful;[web 2][4][5][6][18][web 3]
2. Samudaya, the origination or arising of dukkha. Dukkha, and repeated life in this world, arises with taṇhā, "thirst," craving for and clinging to these impermanent states and things. This craving and clinging produces karma which leads to renewed becoming, keeping us trapped in rebirth and renewed dissatisfaction;[note 4]
3. Nirodha, the cessation of dukkha. By stopping this craving and clinging nirvana is attained,[25] no more karma is produced, and rebirth and dissatisfaction will no longer arise again;[note 5]
4. Magga, the path to the cessation of, or liberation from dukkha. By following the Noble Eightfold Path, restraining oneself, cultivating discipline, and practicing mindfulness and meditation, craving and clinging will be stopped, and rebirth and dissatisfaction are ended.*
The word would be something like “thirst” then.
I ask this because it is inconceivable to me that Buddhism would really preach the extinction of all desires. You need to desire to achieve enlightenment; you need to desire the good of others; you need to desire to help others and make meaningful actions; you need to desire to better yourself as a person. You even need desire to move your body, to exercise, to do any day ordinary activity.
It seems to me that to work as physicist or mathematician or painter or writer can’t be seen as a bad life choice, as a choice that is filled with poisonous “desire”. As long as you don’t get attached to it, as long as you know that this too will fade away, as long as you do it for the sake of improving yourself, not simply to achieve fame and recognition, I don’t think that such professions are bad.
It seems to me that one can achieve enlightenment even by living an ordinary life, with a job, a wife, and living in an urban environment.
I would like to know the thoughts of people more learned in Buddhism about these questions.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
21 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>>9346301
Read Bhikkhu Bodhi's The Noble Eightfold Path.
>>
File: sitting buddha high releif.jpg (91KB, 498x682px) Image search:
[Google]
91KB, 498x682px
>>9346312
thanks for the suggestion
>>
>>you need to desire the good of others;
>>you need to desire to help others and make meaningful actions
Wrong http://www.buddhasutra.com/files/ubhatobhaga_sutta.htm
Anonymous
What's the shortest poetry you know? 2017-04-06 07:43:48 Post No.9346292
[Report] Image search: [Google]
What's the shortest poetry you know? 2017-04-06 07:43:48 Post No.9346292
[Report] Image search: [Google]
File: images.duckduasdfckgo.com.jpg (41KB, 650x463px) Image search:
[Google]
41KB, 650x463px
What's the shortest poetry you know?
Anonymous
2017-04-06 07:43:48
Post No. 9346292
[Report]
[View this topic]
What's the shortest poetry you know?
I think the shortest poetry I know is "Mattina" by Giuseppe Ungaretti:
"M'illumino d'immenso."
That means "I illuminate (myself) with immensity".
91 Posts / 5 Images
View this topic
>>
File: muhammad-ali-4-752x501.jpg (105KB, 752x501px) Image search:
[Google]
105KB, 752x501px
me, oui
>>
In terms of syllables yes, that's the shortest poem I know. But in terms of lines this one is shorter:
D'altri diluvi una colomba ascolto.
It's also one of my favorite poems ever. Ungaretti was great.
>>
>>9346326
Yeah, those poems are cathartic
File: Confederacy_of_dunces_cover.jpg (85KB, 295x453px) Image search:
[Google]
85KB, 295x453px
Should I read it?
14 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
The first couple of chapters are hilerious but it runs out of steam quickly. I'd say give it a shot but if you find yourself bored with it at some point you might as well drop it.
>>
>>9346188
dont listen to other anon. If you actually connect with it it will be an easy, fun, and rewarding read. Enjoy OP
>>
its ok for being a rip off of yurope
File: 1491101936723.jpg (690KB, 1361x2007px) Image search:
[Google]
690KB, 1361x2007px
Thoughts on french as a language from non-native speakers? What peeves or irks you?
63 Posts / 6 Images
View this topic
>>
It makes my dick hard.
>omelette du fromage
>>
File: 1477791203332.jpg (65KB, 390x390px) Image search:
[Google]
65KB, 390x390px
>tfw no French gf
>>
>>9345974
I like French. It's a nice language, except when they pronounce their Rs.
Also, I really hate
>tu me manques