Life Lessons

Brother's Karamazov, Brave New World, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and Myth of Sisyphus for me

>>8959210
Peanuts.

Mein kampf

Manufacturing consent and Machiavelli.

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>age 11, dont remember story

>>8959210
1984
Brave New World
War and Peace
The Metamorphosis
Crime and Punishment

>>8959348
>Can a mythical bear help someone beyond human reach?
I don't know bucko, gonna have to say no

The Art of War

I know it's not really a single book, but the collected stories of Flannery O'Connor made me think a lot about my own pride and vanity. I've taken a lot of extra care to consider other people's perspectives as well as my own motivation for doing things since reading it

>WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE

The Remains of the Day
Siddhartha
Steppenwolf
Infinite Jest

Meditations by Marcus oralsex

>>8959348
>beat shit out of nerd
>get sent to island alone
>get mauled by bear
>eat worms
>life comes into perspective
>become friends with nerd you almost killed

>>8959210
>Which books do you perceive to have given you the most life lessons excluding religious texts?
>excluding religious texts

Not even trying to be unpleasant or contrarian, but most religious texts are actually quite unpleasant, filled with old grudges, prejudices and uncultured worldviews. Most religious texts are a blend of false myths and promises made to make us feel that we (oh! We, we that are so important) and the ones we love will never actually disappear. Of course, this blend of promises and myths is also spiced up with many codes of law that generally give an specific class of a society power to decide upon the fate of others.

The best books I have ever read with life lessons are the oldest suttas of Buddha, way back, when Buddhism was not a religion, but a philosophy, a way of seeing the world. One example is the Kalama Sutta, where we find such lessons as:

The Kalama Sutta states (Pali expression in parentheses):[4]
• Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing (anussava),
• nor upon tradition (paramparā),
• nor upon rumor (itikirā),
• nor upon what is in a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna)
• nor upon surmise (takka-hetu),
• nor upon an axiom (naya-hetu),
• nor upon specious reasoning (ākāra-parivitakka),
• nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over (diṭṭhi-nijjhān-akkh-antiyā),
• nor upon another's seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya),
• nor upon the consideration, The monk is our teacher (samaṇo no garū)
• Kalamas, when you yourselves know: "These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness," enter on and abide in them.'

In this same sutta Buddha openly admits that he doesn’t know if there is another life, that rebirth might simply not be real, yet he says:

'Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him.
'Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him.”

>>8960196


Apart from the old lessons of the Buddha (like I said, back when he was a teacher, a human being, and not a god) I have also enjoyed a lot the teachings of Montaigne and the perception of the human life that the Reading of Chekhov short-stories have given me.