the last time I felt something reading anything post-WWII was about a year and a half ago when I picked this up. didn't make it past the first few hundred pages because of personal reasons and I never really got back to it. not Houellebecq, not no Knausgård or Beckett, not even Bernhard whom I consider to be a true titan of 20th c. literature, one I absolutely regret not being able to read in the original German, made as immediate an impression on me as Gaddis' condensed, surchargé, relentless prose. In fact, of all the authors mentioned above and their underlying projects that served as both the means and ends of their respective œuvres, Gaddis' encyclopedic approach, while not as interesting as Beckett's linguistic fragmentation as catharsis or the political predictor/provocateur whoremonger Houellebecq, seems to me the most efficient. Knausgård, just to say a few words on him and authors of the same strain en passant, the yuppie, stream-of-consciousness, refuses-to -acknowledge-they-read, or maybe even unironically chooses to not read any classics for fear of losing "voice", or some similar effeminate notion, is just that: effeminate. I don't see how the novel as a form can progress beyond encyclopedic doorstoppers.
>>24848518>encyclopedic doorstopperkill yourself
>>24850240what's your credit score
>>24848506>>24849951>>24850191>>24850243a blight on this board. all of you (but most likely a single poster) posturing as cynical og 4channers, adding nothing to the conversation and chimping out for (You)s. >it's givingyou know you don't HAVE to comment, right?it was a nice effortpost from what seems to me a fairly intelligent reader, who has his own opinions and points of reference. the observation about leading the reader to Christ being the intention of the author was illuminating.
>>24850431>waaahh waaahhh why won't the other kids play nice wahhhh
>>24850431worry not. that's my son. my cruelty and negativity has all but murked up this board for days. those are the consequences of my actions made flesh. love you for defending me, though. very kind.
where are all the contemporary conservative philosophers?
Conservatives spend all their time in a futile attempt to make the clock run backwards and blaming the other for their various spiritual and sexual failimgs.
>>24847254>philosophy without epistemic humilityNow that's a fucking disaster waiting to happen.I bet these people are Act-Utilitarians too.
>>24849075this
>>24847231first philosopher death to make me genuinely very sad >where are theyconservatives are liberals still so they aren't significantly different from left wing onesfew are brave enough to deny the concept of rights and human dignity in toto like mactinyre. Charles taylor is the other one, hubert dreyfus might fall under this but he seems to mostly not talk about potlics apart from random asides in his book that point to "yeah my views might allow a hitler to take power". The traditionalist/view of man as autochthonous seems like a view lots of people do point to, however one of the natural conclusions of that is universities as such and academia as it exists now is basically evil. (As earlier existentialists like nieztsche/heidegger pointed to) The ones who go down that path ala heidegger come to the conclusion our culture situation is so fucking bad doing philosophy is basically pointless, so mcluhan & heidegger would recommend people do art instead and that's where you get people like Terrence Malick. There's the whole Catholic philosophy sphere and they are doing some interesting stuff but I would largely say they aren't being very good "philosophers" they are more just refining very particular issues and avoiding difficult ones.(how to respond to the machine, things like race/ethnicity, language, etc.) There are some more obscure ones. https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-about-Veritas-James-Madden/dp/1666754188I quite liked this one, which was basically entirely ignored when it came out. He has gotten some popularity because he has made an effort to apply someone of the philosophy of mind stuff to ufology as a way to shill his ideas. Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>24849032embarrassing post
>read 30 chapters>still sucks ballsWhen does it get good?
>>24848471(2/2)"If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world . . ."And the man breaks."He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them . . . but he should pity them as well."When Meribald was finished a profound silence fell upon their little band. Brienne could hear the wind rustling through a clump of pussywillows, and farther off the faint cry of a loon. She could hear Dog panting softly as he loped along beside the septon and his donkey, tongue lolling from his mouth. The quiet stretched and stretched, until finally she said, "How old were you when they marched you off to war?""Why, no older than your boy," Meribald replied. "Too young for such, in truth, but my brothers were all going, and I would not be left behind. Willam said I could be his squire, though Will was no knight, only a potboy armed with a kitchen knife he'd stolen from the inn. He died upon the Stepstones, and never struck a blow. It was fever did for him, and for my brother Robin. Owen died from a mace that split his head apart, and his friend Jon Pox was hanged for rape.""The War of the Ninepenny Kings?" asked Hyle Hunt.Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>read 2 words of Moby Dick>still sucks ballsWhen does this book stop being gay?
>>24849847>>24849850>war is ... le bad
>>24848471Walk with me, my sweet summer child, and hear the tale of fat pink masts jutting into sopping wet myrish swamps and black nipples brushing against silk until her cunt became the world while in the privy the princess guzzled arbor gold and shat but the more she drank the more she shat until she was shitting brown water and around her the planks of the ship groaned like a fat man taking a shit while she cursed the gods and nuncle smiled as he broke his fast on black bread, bacon burned black, and mulled wine while capon-grease dribbled down his chin and onto the boiled leather of his jerkin for she was wet with love and did she not know words are wind and dark wings bring dark words and a lannister always pays her debts and mayhaps this is nothing but a mummers farce and useless as nipples on a breastplate and the princess has been fucking lancel and moonboy for all nuncle knows and he is the blood of the dragon for the night is dark and full of terrors but where do whores go and jon snow knows nothing and near enough makes no matter so nuncle smiled and dipped the heel of his bread into clam chowder and prayed for half a hundred more heh har HODOR
>>24848542>human metal
"Next Generation" editionPrevious: >>24845792/wg/ AUTHORS & FLASH FICTION: https://pastebin.com/ruwQj7xQRESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS: https://pastebin.com/nFxdiQvCPlease limit excerpts to one post.Give advice as much as you receive it to the best of your ability.Follow prompts made below and discuss written works for practice; contribute and you shall receive.If you have not performed a cursory proofread, do not expect to be treated kindly. Edit your work for spelling and grammar before posting.Violent shills, relentless shill-spammers, and grounds keeping prose, should be ignored and reported.(And maybe double-space your WIPs to allow edits if you want 'em.)Simple guides on writing:Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>24848643What rhetoric and tactics would earth women use to protest something like picrel?I was thinking>They would call earth men who date alien women losers, small-dicked, say they wouldn't want to date a guy like him anyway >They would praise men who date earth women as good guys >They'd spout extremely racist shit about alien women and laugh at any negative dating experience a man has with aliens I wanted the more liberal political party to support working with the alien women, while the more conservative political party wants to restrict it. Would women suddenly flip and become conservative to protect access to partners?
>>24850582
>>24850582Just because a villain has no moral struggle does not mean he faces no struggles at all. Usually the villain occupies the antagonist role in a story so he is presented as powerful and usually in control of some large organization. The heroic protagonist's struggle is in large part due to the evil antagonist being so powerful while he has little or no power at all, except what he can muster up from personal courage and inspiring others. But if you reverse the situation, you can have the villain as an underdog attempting to bring about an evil plot, but is continuously set back by the efforts of do-gooders and meddling moral authorities who stand in his way. Underdog stories have an inherent appeal to them. People like seeing the smaller, weaker party triumph against the larger one who seems inevitable to succeed. David and Goliath being a primordial example of it, but there are endless others. Make the villain an underdog. Make his evil plan very unlikely to succeed. Make him suffer setbacks, have him seemingly lose everything once or twice, only to miraculously find a way forward. All the usual storybeats that typically accompany an underdog hero. Except his plan is to nuke the earth or whatever.
>>24850582>>24850593I won't read a book with an evil protagonist. Throughout all of history, protagonists tend to be good people for a reason.Enjoy your twisted fantasy where you get to vent your sociopathic urges vicariously, I guess, but I hate that shit and most of society does as well. WILL NOT READ!
>>24850654nta but have you read Les Mis? Javert is a compelling villain who you could argue is the protagonist of sorts.
When you read a book, do you visualize the landscape and the people, like a movie scene flowing through your mind?
This thread actually makes me wonder if some people don't enjoy reading plays or even fiction in general just because they can't imagine what's happening.
>>24847693This is exactly how I operate. I've had running stories or 'scenes' that I day dream or think about before bed. I add little bits or change bits, I don't write it down though. I just remember it all.
>>24842322I can't see or hear anything at all. For me, the main part of the enjoyment I get from reading is how the author is using language, as well as the concepts he's coming up with. I don't like film adaptations of books I've liked, because they're so slow compared to my reading speed and they (by necessity) miss out the myriad of small details and prose quirks of the author. It's just a film and I know the actors are just actors and everything is fake. With text, it feels as real as any of my memories are, because I have no ability to visualise those either. When I think back to things that have happened to me in the past, I'm essentially describing those events to myself in prose. My pet theory of aphantasia is that it's a fundamentally different "operating system" that a certain percentage of people are running.
>>24842322I don't tend to visualise as I'm reading, I just read and remember the words. When I'm thinking about certain scenes afterwards they'll manifest visually without needing to think of the words.
>>24847078>I usually imagine the characters as actors I’ve seen in movies or people I’ve known.exactly the same for me, sometimes when a new character is introduced i need to stop for a few minutes in order to find the right match so the movie in my head can go on
>writes a juvenile book with simple black and white morality for children>filled with plotholes>bad guys are all cartoonishly evil and have no redeeming features>80 years later manchildren still think he's a geniusIs he the biggest hack to ever hack? Being an adult fan of Tolkien is the easiest way to tell someone is low IQ.
Shut up, bitch.
>>24846292I agree that the fanbase is terrible. Tolkien isn't a hack writer and LotR is not a bad book, but it's a good book for children and adults enjoying it is a red flag.I read LotR at age 8 and I liked it at the time. That's probably the appropriate age for it.Adult fans of LotR, more broadly high fantasy in general, are something I'll never understand.
>>24849844you sound like an insecure faggot. go read the silmarillion and then tell me if it's supposed to be read by grade schoolers.
>>24849376/lit/ (and 4chan as a whole) is full of pseudo-intellectuals who think hating popular things makes them cool. GRRM isn't a hack, but you can't see the real genius of his work unless you have 160+ IQ and high-functioning autism like Preston Jacobs. he tells a parallel story in the history of the noble houses, and their relation to the story requires reading between the lines and careful study, which the pseuds of /lit/ can't pick up on, so they call GRRM a "hack"
>>24849459Top kek.Gurmtrannies completely destroyed.
I need an electornic word processor that>cannot EVER connect to the internet>can manage, import, and export text files via usb>has little to no other functionThere's too much shit on my laptop to distract me from writing. I realize there's pen and paper but I don't want to have to rewrite everything I've already written. Any recommendations?
Nigga just get a typerwriter and fax it if you need to nothings going to be as good as that.You’re just hyperfixating on some retard issues so you have an excuse to not write. Typewriters are fairly cheap and u can fax em if you need to or whatever tf
>>24842178>>24842191Holy shit this is hilarious, lazy retards will do anything except sit down and actually write lmao
>>24850358Yep. They externalize their flaws. Such people will never be successful.
>>24842178honestly at this point just use this setup as a virtual machine. SInce it has no GUI it wont need much resources and you wont have to reboot when you'll need to do research.
>>24850473the whole point of the setup is to avoid being able to simply open a web browser to avoid distraction.>>24850358>>24850364lol stop being a pathetic samefag.. we get it, you're better than us and have superior discipline and attention spans and we're all very impressed.
The most badass kid's book in the world.
Who is your bookfu?For me it's Dorothea from Middlemarch
>>24850630Based puritan-esque enjoyer
I assume that, to better understand greek literature, its historical background must be studied first. What is the list of major events that shaped ancient Greece in this context?
~1200 BC: the late bronze age collapse. Total civilization reset in the entire Greek cultural sphere. The old dominant Mycenaean culture, as well as what remnants of Minoans existed, all vanished violently in the chaos of the collapse. The old cultures of Greece would only be recalled through myths and legends recorded in later centuries. ~1200 BC - 750 BC: the Greek dark ages. So-called because there is very little written evidence from this period, it is "dark" in the historical record, not because people were more primitive (except perhaps in the faculty of literacy). There's archeological evidence of what went on here, and it suggests small (less than 1000 people) settlements scattered throughout the Peloponnese which saw people gradually re-urbanizing toward the end of the period. Again, not much written down here, but its thought to be when the original versions of myths like the Iliad were formed.~750-500 BC: the Archaic Age. This is where a lot of the persistent cultural identities and myths were created. New writing systems emerge in the 8th century BC and this is also when Homer himself is thought to have lived. The Iliad is believed to be a mythologized record of a real war in the late bronze age collapse, with the historical city of Troy now known to have stood in western Anatolia being destroyed (several times) during that time period. This is also the time period that we first see the "Dorian Invasion" be mentioned by Greek sources, which is thought to be how the Greeks explained the massive cultural shift that occurred in the wake of the bronze age collapse. Modern scholars now doubt any such invasion occurred, but regardless it is what the Greeks believed to have happened so we must talk about it with regard to Ancient Greek culture and literature. City states like Sparta, for example, based their entire cultural identity on the Doric myth. 500-323 BC: Classical period of ancient Greece, so called because many of the great classical works which we associated with Greece date from this period, like Plato himself. The big breakthroughs in mathematics and philosophy occurred in this period, and it was also when Greece was breaking free of the grip of Persia at the start of it, around 500 BC. After shrugging off Persia, Athens and Sparta proceeded to contend with one another in the Peloponnesian War, whose conflict left them so mauled in the 4th century that the whole region was ripe for conquest by the Macedonians from the northwest. Alexander's conquest marks the end of the Classical era. 324-31 BC: post-Alexander Greece, known as Hellenic Greece, which lasted until the Roman annexation. This saw the absolute peak of Greekification of the Mediterranean and even the middle east and Egypt, and a lot of the later Greek philosophers and mathematicians emerged. Stoicism originated from this period, this was the age of geniuses like Archimedes and Euclid.
>>24850177You can find a nice introduction to all things greek in H.D.F Kitto's "The Greeks". It serves as a great introduction to Greek life, thought, history, and so on. From there on out you can go after whatever particular authors you find appealing, but if I may recommend you some:>Greek myths.A huge chunk of their literature and values stem from the myths. There's two major Mythologies you can go for.>Edith HamiltonNarrative oriented, with the poets, playwrights and historians of Rome and Greece. Very enjoyable, albeit not that complete.>Robert GravesMore academically oriented, and somewhat dull. Graves doesn't care much for a compelling narrative as he does for stating the facts. What makes Graves' version so important, is that half of the work is entirely quotes and sources that try to explain the historical setting of certain myths (Such as the rape of Europa).One thing to note however, his sources are all over the place, and certain details like Orpheus being a kiddy diddler are thrown in without a fully reliable source.From there on out, you have the classical historians.>Herodotus' HistoriesA mix of myth and history. Herodotus writes about a lot of characters that are reminiscent of old folk-tales, and you should see them as such. His comments on egypt highlight certain aspects of Greek life.>Thucydides, history of the Peloponnesian warComment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>peak>mid>slop>crash out>unaliveWhat the hell is up with modern speech turning into newspeak straight out of 1984? The word "ungood" genuinely wouldn't look too out of place with all the neologisms I just listed.
What's even worse are corporate shills trying to push the "uh actually it's a leetspeak revival, they're just sticking it to the man bro", when the actual solution is to leave the platforms that censor speech
>unaliveCringe.>sewer slideBased.
>>24850549too many syllables man it will always be rope to me and that reminds me i haven't thought about roping in like 24 hours but tomorrow is another day.
>>24850309>The word "ungood" genuinely wouldn't look too out of placeThat's what 'cringe' is
>>24850309>Capital>Fairish>Flimflam>Run mad>Pass beyondWhat in Heaven’s name is become of our language, that it should dwindle into this new projected speech, as foretold by Swift? Soon enough we’ll be saying ill good in earnest, as it'd be good company among these new coinages.
The rules are simple. Rewrite the following story in a different style. Don’t repeat what other anons have already written. I’ll start with three variations.I was in the McDonald’s on King street. The guy at the front of the line had a bowl cut and a pencil mustache. He accused the guy behind him of breathing on the back of his neck. Then he grabbed his nuggets and fries and quickly left the restaurant.An hour later I saw him outside the bus station on first avenue. His friend was telling him that his zipper was undone.
>All these posts using —what's the point? baiting for (you)s without effort?
>>24847054I said it was growing in still, i wont shave, women love a 'stache man, stop saying it looks like your grandma's, where's she from anyway? All the women got mustaches there dont they. Once it grows in itll fit the cut. Stop saying i look like a peasant does your grandma have a bowlcut too or something? Its gonna be like an 80s thing its gonna be based. Lets see how you talk once i get my license and youre stuck here riding the same shitty busline up and down to work forever while im cruisin' in through the drive-thru, windows rolled down, hot chick on my side, chicken nuggets in the bag, fries on the side too, no lowlifes breathing down my neck, always too close, catching up to me, i dont want it, happened again at the Mac, they always get too close. I want to be alone, behind the steering wheel, the world an asphalt plain of rolling under my feet forever, she there too, finally, not talking, just listening to m- ow oops youre right its open.
FaulknerThe McDonalds sat squat and motionless on king street, as though having been erected over the concrete, it now owned the territory and every man that passed it must acknowledge it, in equal parts disdain and surrender. I entered the joint and stood in the line. Two men were already ahead in the line, one with a ghastly bowlcut, and the other afflicted with a constant slackness of the jaw that left the lips parted for whistling exhalations. Suddenly, the man at the forefront of the line turned around and drowned the succeeding mouthbreather in invective, as though he were a young military upstart and the man with bowlcut a longserving, nuisancehardened colonel. Then he grabbed his package of fries and nuggets and vacated the restaurant hastily.Sometime later I would see the same man standing outside the bus station. His arms were folded and his mouth chewing, and his brows made him look as though he was meditating on the annoying trifle that he was subjected to an hour ago. Standing beside him, his friend apparent, was asking him to zip up his pants.
Hemingway:To get: a portion of abandoned nuggets & fries for free between King street and first avenue - may or may not contain frustralingly nutted nut juice.
>>24847054"African-American Vernacular English"ayo hol up nigga listen ta dis shih listlisten so ya boi pull up ta Mickey D on MLK righ and dis fuggin geekass poindexta lugginass wy boi frunuhda lie wid he bo cut n he lil tinyass moustache nigga luggin fruity as fuck righ he turna roun n luguhda nigga behine im n tell dis nigga he breavin onda bagga he neg den he grab he lil nuggies n he fries n nigga run ow da stow den I see he ass sittin adda bus station on Firs n dis nigga fren tellinum he zippa down
This is the only genre that makes money and the money train isn't stopping any time soon. Short of a puritanical John Carpenter style government, there will always be demand for this shit.The question is, can a dude write successful girlporn? This is the literary question.I'm going to read this milking farm thing and see if I can't get a knack for how women write. I'm suspecting it's a bit like this:>Minimal attention to details and the world, emphasis on personal impressions and feelings; the world as a set of things that make you feel different ways.>Braindead, 12-15 year old brain simplicity. Imagine a Middle School girl trying to "speed download" social gossip updates to a friend.>Vanity, ego, zero accountability, petty delusions, cliches. This will require a bit of research and marketing savvy just to collect up what today's cliches are. Fortunately, women are dead simple and just go on TikTok/Twitter and see what buzzwords come up a lot.>Sultry language.This one's tough. From what I understand explicit, gross language is what sells this shit and is the female equivalent of visually seeing porn. On the other hand, I have a feeling that I could write porn that is vastly more detailed and explicit than what women read and would alienate them. I have a feeling it's just stuff like, "sweaty" "bulge" "heaving" "cock!" "pulsing". Words that sound distinctly naughty but remain vague. It's not about visualizing, even through text, sexual mechanics. It's about breaking social taboos so women feel "naughty" and liberated from their neurotic sexual restraints.>Female attractionThis is tough. How far do you go with "big muscles, ripped body"? How much do women want to read that, and when is it too much? Women like being dominated but they like to feel it was their choice to be dominated. As a man who understands women very well, I don't want to tap into their sexual triggers too accurately because that might lead to a sense of "revealing too much" about female sexuality which women don't like. They like most of it to remain implicit and simple.Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>24850577Im 70% convinced that these books use ai. Even the covers look ai generated
>>24850577>office romanceToo complicated and requiring the development of plot structures. Instead, office romance TROPES, where simple everyday scenarios are textured with STUPID CLICHES so they elevate to a woman's conception of drama. You don't have to actually write drama, you just have to give the experience of "my life is a story and I'm the main character". Trappings and decorations are how that is achieved, and competition over these where the protagonist is never wrong about or punished for anything is how women want to experience drama.Otherwise, I need to research the right tonality.>size-difference ecstasyHow do you write this? >"His probiscus was long and throbbing, with a hard knuckle like knob at the top which pulsated."vs.>"He had a cock-like appendage that was bigger than anything her ex boyfriends could produce."Or>"When his pulsing knob pushed between her legs she could feel it stretch out every inch of her inner flesh, with resin-hard veins dancing around, tickling her opening. The knob throbbed against her cervix, creating waves of discomfort followed by immediate, unprecedented ecstasy."vs>"She felt him inside of her. He was hard, throbbing. Pleasure rippled throughout her body. The sultry passion of a hundred nights with human men flitted out of her mind as she discovered a new depth of ecstasy, she tingled, the love was sweeter even than the warm honey waiting to burst from her lover."
>>24850587That means there's room for a market niche. A touch of human panache, a unique voice, a little bit of descriptive color both women and robots can't achieve.I just have to figure out how to not overdue it, while also hitting on important cliches.
>>24850035The woman who wrote this book has been writing smut for a decade, she churns out 4-5 smut books a year
>>24850627I am perfectly content to write 10 of these if I can make at least $20k. Lol, I could write 10 in about 6 months with grammarly, no need for AI.
Oracular edition>τὸ πρότερον νῆμα·>>24816688>Μέγα τὸ Ἑλληνιστί/Ῥωμαϊστί·https://mega dot nz/folder/FHdXFZ4A#mWgaKv4SeG-2Rx7iMZ6EKw>Mέγα τὸ ANE·https://mega dot nz/folder/YfsmFRxA#pz58Q6aTDkwn9Ot6G68NRg>Work in progress FAQhttps://rentry dot co/n8nrkoAll Classical languages are welcome.
>>24849407What which why whenever whoever however whysoever whichsoever…
>>24849407Skill issue
greek would be better with the locative
I want to go into translation targeting untranslated latin works. What are the chances of some computer science guy blowing up this entire field? I've heard computers struggle with Latin right now
>>24850556I figure if you have the text digitized an AI could dramatically reduce the workload but there’s a lot of human thought that goes into nuanced translation so most of the work would be like correcting a lesser Latinist’s work than like translating from scratch.
Is Buddhism the most pessimistic of all the sacred traditions in existence?>no explanation for 'samsara'/contingent existence to begin with, if you try to ponder or believe in a cosmogonic account you're insane and trapped in delusion>this samsara is meaningless and our lives are always caught in suffering no matter what, dukkha is the sole enduring truth of this world>transient existence caught between different modes of being, continuity between gods/devas, humans, animals, etc>Mahayana tries to make Buddhas into the equivalent of deities/benevolent gods I guess>you have absolute free will to escape samsara if you wish, but that may take many lifetimes. or you're born into a society without buddhist teaching, and if you can't find one elsewhere, you're screwed>even beauty, goodness and the wonder inherent in existence is a trap. it makes you temporarily forget dukkha and then you expend your good karmic 'points' and go to hell on the rebound, like if you're reborn as a deva >the Good is just one side of the duality, Nirvana is beyond bothMeanwhile, Neoplatonism or Tantric Shaivism or Advaita Vedanta have a similar totally transcendent dimension to their practice, but they revere the world and believe it to be inherently good and a ladder to be climbed via appreciation/love/gratitude and ultimately knowledge of the divine author (not separated from self) behind it. The world IS to be left behind but it isn't some Gnostic-tier nightmare trap or as dark as Buddhism says Samsara to be. Am I in delusion as Buddhists would believe? I used to be quite hostile to Buddhism on account of dogmatic metaphysical principles but don't view it the same way anymore. The actual ascetic practice is heroic. But this particular attitude toward the cosmos is a significant hurdle
>>24850379>yet none of these losers have any superpowers besides accepting things as they are.Which is unfortunately a very hard thing to come by. Its quite the irony that the ends of deep introspection is often a base attunement to causality and those attuned to more basic causal things get distracted by abstractions.
>>24850393this is why I think Buddhism actually gets the way to transcendence more or less correct. because Buddhist meditative states somehow align with the experiences of Christian or Islamic mystics, and there's no good reason why besides the possibility that they're all converging onto the same thing.
>>24850329>humans have managed to answer many smaller 'why' questionsThat's the problem. We think that because we can have answers to these other "why's" we can have answers to questions for which there are no answers (that will please us). This is a matter of evolution and the way we are designed to work by Nature. It's a question of optimization of energies. Why am I tilling this field? So I can grow the crops. Why am I moving this rock? To make a path. We are NOT wired to do things for no reason, and so we ask why are we even here in the first place? This question, as you can see, is just a side effect of evolving to survive as human beings on this planet and the necessity of managing our labors.The real insight is to stop asking this question, to recognize it for what it is.Buddha did not speculate on cosmology because he knew it was beyond our ability to ever actually know. If he was around today, he would say the same thing to the question of what was there before the Big Bang or why the Big Bang happened. And he would have completely accepted evolution and natural selection (and cosmology as scientifically laid out since the Big Bang). Nothing he taught would have changed.
from what i've read on it (all by thich nhat hanh) it doesn't come across as pessimistic to me. but if i'm understanding correctly his schooling of it is the hybrid one that involves some of the chinese stuff
>>24850128You take the view that's Buddhism is allegorical psychology?>The message of the Five Aggregates is that there is nothing to go on after death.That's a fucking good thing, frankly; man's finitude may be precisely the thing that prevents us from ever having to experience a thing like Hell
