Why do you even read books? is it for escapism, do you genuinely think you are improving your knowledge or that reading some new obscure philosophy will fill in the "gaps", is it to use said knowledge to improve your real life? What's your motivation on spending so many hours reading instead of doing something else?
What's your motivation?
It makes me feel good and I enjoy life much more than I used to. Idc if it's hedonistic
Outside of reading, what else is there?
>>24761379Why does everyone assume reading is only taking in information? If I'm reading/HIS /PHI, /POL then I'm actively thinking if the info is right or wrong based on previous readings or personal experience and strengthening my own convictions by challenging myself. If it's fiction than I'm maxxxing out my attention span by holding ideas and concepts for longer amounts of time.
>>24761379I read sociology and history in order to understand how certain behaviors were upheld and others downplayed and the development of rights and responsibilities. My end goal is to explain how we got to a society which became ever so intolerant of sexually inexperienced men and started on the path towards turning them from "bios" to "zoe"
>>24761379What else is there to do?
>>24761415>>24761388Socializing, sex, drugs, sports, games, cooking, working, etc etc
>>24761379Lately, I've been reading a lot of Jung to try and understand and interpret my dreams, and also, I think it's interesting learning how my psyche works. I also really want to understand symbolism and archetypes.Also, I fell for the "start with the Greeks" meme, because I'm interested in philosophy and kinda hoping it will lead me down a path of enlightenment, so I am reading about ancient Greek history and some of the myths before I start on Homer and then Plato, I guess, there's a chart I'm following. I was reading about Gnosticism because I thought that might be a path to enlightenment but all it did was confuse me. I can't find any value in Gnosticism, it's all like Bible fanfiction or something. Basically, I read because I'm looking for some kinda understanding of my reality. I just feel like there is some kinda hidden, mystical understanding of reality that I can unlock. Maybe enlightenment isn't the right word, idk. I think there is a lot going on behind the scenes of the material world
>>24761379I havent read a book that isnt something i take in real life and use. Ive read dozens. Body language, rapport building, power dynamics, crime, politics, i learned from every one. I dont even read lit, this is just closest to a book board. I keep myself up at night, atleast a visualized reverse of myself i use to motivate myself. I guess in the past due to my competitive nature i was paranoid someone else in my position was surpassing me. "someones probably up now learning a new skill". "He's probably up now and you wanna sleep?". Anyway i annotated like 7 full books by now, i pretty much covered all i can think of. I've become that guy keeping others up.
>>24761503The most interesting stuff in the “Gnostic” tradition is not the cosmological stuff but rather the religio-philosophical primary texts. If you can parse the symbolic language Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Phillip and the Corpus Hermeticum are all valuable.
>>24761379entertainment and education
>>24761379I read for fun. Carroll, Shakespeare, Joyce and Pynchon all make me laugh. I like up be disorientated, taken for a ride with plenty of corkscrews, drops, rolls and loops. A nice and proper roller coaster ride, the author showing the reader all their narrative tricks.I don't really get the likes of Eliot and Tolstoy though. They feel like an incredibly slow ride with no loops, and the narrator constantly droning in your head how this particular turn is meant to symbolise the plight of the lower classes or someshit. I like Henry James with his slow but winding mazes much more. Though tbf I liked Anna's death scene and that one PoV change to Casaubon.
i hate all of my hobbies. it's simply a way to drown out the bad thoughts at this point.
I am a lit fag.
>>24761455Most of those things are scary
>>24761379To cut myself off from what has been already thought in the past is, in a sense, to willingly get back to a philosophical stone age, it is refusing to admit that humanity did not begin with me. I read because I read because I accept that others have preceded, have faced the same issues that I now face, and that there is a lesson to be drawn from their experience and wisdom. I should rather ask, what reason could there possibly be not to read books?
>>24761394Correct. An anon before you says it is hedonistic but reading and fully understanding things that is inaccessible to the average person is like a work out, but for your brain instead of your body (don't be fooled though, both are important.)
>>24761889are*Fuck my illiterate ESL-cel freak life
>>24761455All that shit is gay as fuck
Reading and writing is the only thing in life that I connect with in a visceral way. I 100% would of killed myself if literature didn't exist.
>>24761379you obviously start reading philosophy because you want to know how things really work... you continue until you realize that nobody knows how things really work... then you stop reading any further as you realize that you should be theorizing by now instead of just reading... but you are no Newton or Kant
to go back in time
>Works are the quintessence of a mind; they will therefore be incomparably richer in content than his company, and will also essentially replace this – indeed, far exceed and leave it behind. Even the writings of an ordinary mind can be instructive, worth reading and entertaining, precisely because they are his quintessence, the result and fruit of all his thinking and studying – whereas his company cannot suffice for us. Therefore we can read books by people whose company would afford us no pleasure, and this is why elevated spiritual culture eventually brings us to the point where we find entertainment almost only in books, and no longer in other people.t. schopenhauer
>>24761379I read because otherwise I'd be bored.
because imagination is fun. creating detailed, original, internally contrasting at every level yet always cohesive worlds or works is what god does, and is where our aesthetic appreciation comes from. its an inherently worthwhile thing to do.
>>24761379All of those are true
>>24761379I find it enjoyable and think certain books offer valuable insights into the human condition.
I read books because:>it makes me a better writer >it improves my vocabulary >I enjoy it>the stories written by geniuses are amazing in their complexity and beauty >it teaches me about other cultures, older eras, and how based we once were >when I read I feel like I did something productive, and not just wasted my day on porn or politics
