What do I need to read to get where you're coming from?

That thing nobody understands about you. That book that explains it. Match me up.

65 points · 62 comments · view on lemmy.world

62 Comments

dohpaz42@lemmy.world · 56 pts · 300d (2 replies)

DSM-V

DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works · 22 pts · 300d (1 reply)

💀

bluesheep@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 295d

Username checks out

gigastasio@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 300d
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DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 12 pts · 300d (6 replies)

Iceberg Slim [aka Robert Beck] was widely read in the Black community and almost completely unknown outside of it. He inspired many Black artists, and both Ice-T and Ice Cube named themselves in his honor.

datavoid@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 300d (5 replies)

Such a wonderful inspiration to his community - gotta keep them hoes in line!

DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 1 pts · 300d (4 replies)

At least he wasn't a slave owner like Washington and Jefferson.

datavoid@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 299d (3 replies)

I would personally suggest using none of the three as role models

DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 0 pts · 299d (2 replies)

I got a huge laugh out of the idea of you actually having the nerve to say that you Ice-T or Ice Cube, or saying anything bad about Washington to one of the people who worship him.

Actually imagining you outside, touching grass was pretty funny.

datavoid@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 299d (1 reply)

You do you pimp guy

DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 1 pts · 299d

And you keep on amusing me by pretending to be an adult.

Adderbox76@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 299d

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR)

johnny_deadeyes@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 300d

Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle might not explain it, but could add valuable context.

Asafum@feddit.nl · 9 pts · 300d

"They're not rocks Marie!!"

...ok, maybe some of them are, but they're really cool!

Taco2112@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 300d

All volumes of the Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers. My brain is mostly just useless trivia.

nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 300d (1 reply)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series and the John Dies at the End series

both 10/10s mixing gut wrenching existentialism and laugh out loud comedy

tbh I probably wouldn't say I'm into comedy writing in general but those two and Terry Pratchett are the only writers to ever make me bust out laughing in response to words on a page

zerodawn@leaf.dance · 4 pts · 300d

I've lost count of the number of times and number of formats in which i've consumed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and i've loved it every time.

YoFrodo@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 300d
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NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 7 pts · 300d
MisterNeon@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 300d

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain, and The Codex Borgia.

JoshuaBrusque@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 300d (4 replies)

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camut. Absurdism/it philosophically examines whether one should commit suicide.

Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 300d (3 replies)

I started reading The Myth of Sisyphus because I'm interested in absurdism but haven't read much other philosophy apart from some of the classic Stoic books. I found it very dense and hard to get through the first parts with references to philosophers I hadn't read, does it get easier to read?

mayorchid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 299d

Not OP but yes, if you can get through the dialogue with Kierkegaard the rest is pretty digestible. That said, you might get more out of it if you’ve got a basic foundation in existentialism and nihilism first. A lot of what makes absurdism interesting and important is its contrasts with other philosophies.

JoshuaBrusque@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 299d

It does. Would recommend just skimming the first section as far as when you hit a reference to a philosopher you don't care about. Once past that it's a beautiful book.

TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 297d

No.

Also that book is extremely easy to read for philosophy. It is not very dense at all. You are in for a world of hurt if you try any legit philosophy. Camus is like the YA version of philosophy.

Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 300d

The anarchist-faq will get you most of the way there, and the K-On manga will fill in the gaps.

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 5 pts · 300d

Every single comment shown in my profile.

DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 300d (2 replies)

My life is so complicated, you'd need an entire "wikipedia-styled" article of me.

If I had one, it'd probably be one of the craziest stories... well like not like any acheivements or anything, but more like depression and trauma. I'm gonna seem so broken that you'd not wanna be friends. People are gonna be like: "oh that's that person, wow" then walk away since nobody want to hang out since nobody want to get afflicted/infected with my sadness.

I mean, I reflect on my past and I visualize the scene in "3rd person" and I look like a scared kitten hiding in the corner, except I'm not a cute kitten, but rather looks like a mini-tiger. That was what I was like in school.

I'm kinda just deciding on leaving an autobiography/journal, in case I kms in the future. I wonder how my parentd would react. Maybe leaving something behind would finally get them to understand what I've been through from my PoV. Maybe they'd live a better life without me being around. Idk.

underreacting@literature.cafe · 4 pts · 300d

I look like a scared kitten hiding in the corner, except I'm not a cute kitten, but rather looks like a mini-tiger. That was what I was like in school.

You should write that autobiography. I think you have a way with words.

You can write something for yourself and for other people to understand you through, without the intention of leaving it behind. Leave it alive instead. You can do it and carry on. You can know their reactions instead of wonder, if you decide to show them. And you can work through your experiences through writing. Preferably while being in contact with a support group or therapist, because writing it will for sure drag it up.

adhd_traco@piefed.social · 1 pts · 300d
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DrSleepless@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 300d

The Stranger - Albert Camus

dil@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 299d

Realm of the elderlings, I mess my own life up through anxiety and overthinking, reading about fitz doing it makes me feel better about myself

Gentleman bastards, spurts of false confidence carry me through my days lol

underreacting@literature.cafe · 3 pts · 300d

As a kid one of my favourite passages to read was about a girl who saw her twin get ran over by a car and killed. I don't remember anything else about that book... but I would devour anything sad and traumatic and upsetting. I would absorb those emotions and live those lives, and it would be like a daily catharsis to read something horrifying and cry it out.

BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 300d
  • The Green Futures of Tycho
  • When The Tripods Came
  • The Girl From Isis
  • Kindred Spirits by Mark Anthony

Books I read in school that spoke to me.

Eq0@literature.cafe · 3 pts · 300d

To scrap the surface: Babel.

The description of what it means to be an expat, away from your culture, cut much deeper than it had reasons to. And it’s a great action/fantasy book

HubertManne@piefed.social · 3 pts · 300d

listen to all jethro tull till you can recognize every song and figure out the two bad albums.

jordanlund@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 300d (5 replies)

The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, Volume 1: The Earth Will Shake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historical_Illuminatus_Chronicles

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 300d (4 replies)

Anything else by Wilson would probably be a more productive starting place.

jordanlund@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 300d (3 replies)

All of Wilson is fantastic, but this is probably the most accessible of his fiction.

His non-fiction though, man, throw a dart. 😉

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 300d (2 replies)

I compulsively buy copies of Prometheus Rising so I have them on hand to distribute to interesting people.

jordanlund@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 300d (1 reply)

Yeah, that's a good one. I like the Illuminati Papers and Right Where You Are Sitting Now as well!

agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 300d

The only book I've ever reread was The Illuminatus Trilogy, and I've reread it twice. I give out copies of that one too.

sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 300d

The State and Revolution by V. I. Lenin. It honestly isn't a long read

muxika@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 300d
  • The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
  • The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian

I have PTSD and a dark sense of humor about it.

lemmy_acct_id_8647@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 299d (2 replies)

Not as much a book, but the documentary Dominion. If someone can watch that and not understand reasons for going vegan if not choosing to do so themselves, I seriously question their moral compass.

Fleur_@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 297d (1 reply)

The best part about being vegan is I'll never have to watch that doco lol

lemmy_acct_id_8647@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 297d

Same. I went vegan before watching it. Tried doing so and only made it about 15 min in. So hard to watch.

thesohoriots@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 300d

Adorno’s Negative Dialectics

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 299d (2 replies)

"Crime and Punishment". Doing something amoral only to find out I have morals.

TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 297d (1 reply)

Brothers Karamazov is way better.

melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 296d

It's all subjective. I really liked that one too but C&P hit me harder.

Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 299d (1 reply)
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Fleur_@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 297d

I know everything I need to know just from the titles mate

TriangleSpecialist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 300d

Anna Karenina and Promise at Dawn

shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 300d

Maybe these don't explain me, but they hit hard at forming my views of my fellow apes:

American politics

How Half Of America Lost Its F**king Mind

Which is also explained, among a shitload of other behavior, in

What is the Monkeysphere?

So MUCH of what we see around us is explained in those two articles. I've had responses that neither is a complete view, not all behavior, bla, bla, bla. Yeah, I know. But if you want to understand humans, especially why so many seem bugfuck evil, there's a lot of bang for the buck in there. (Be patient with the Monkeysphere article, old and the formatting is hosed, but I trust you'll get it.)

vateso5074@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 300d
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aim_at_me@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 299d

Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall.

Norin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 300d

Martin Buber: I and Thou

It’s a masterpiece of philosophy, and honestly accounts for maybe 3/4ths of my worldview.

GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 299d (2 replies)

Gustave Doré- Illustrations for the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Read the Divine Comedy at like 12, and loved it. What I liked the most were the illustrations, they made a profound impact in me; and are probably the first artistic work I came to by myself that truly shaped me as a person.

https://archive.org/details/the-dore-illustrations-for-dantes-divine-comedy-pdfdrive

case_when@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 298d (1 reply)

These are beautiful. They're what I want to draw when I grow up.

GrantUsEyes@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 298d

Same, still a work in progress

Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 299d

Codex Seraphinianus.

Some pages may take two-three reads before understanding fully.

Fleur_@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 297d (2 replies)

Incy wincy spider

case_when@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 297d (1 reply)

It's the Myth of Sisyphus for the under-fives.

Fleur_@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 297d

One must imagine incy, not wincy

Objection@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 299d

Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti will go a long way towards understanding my politics.

TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 297d

The Critique of Pure Reason.