What clicked and made you have a different mindset? How long did it take to start changing and how long was the transformation? Did it last or is it an ongoing back and forth between your old self? I want to know your transformation and success.
Any kind of change, big or small. Anything from weight loss, world view, personality shift, major life change, single change like stopped smoking or drinking soda to starting exercising or going back to school. I want to hear how people’s life were a bit or a lot better through reading and your progress.
TIA 🙏
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Discworld - Hogfather. In particular the speech of death about the little and big lies and how justice and mercy are simple human constructs and that in return we are basically responsible for our own happiness/misery. Since they made a movie, here exactly what I meant: Deaths speech
I was actually going to respond with the Discworld series in general, but Death’s dialogue there puts it in a nutshell. We’re not creatures of reason, but of narrative, fiction. I might not have come to that view if not for reading Terry Pratchett.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was the first dystopia that I ever read. I’d gotten so enamored with all of the various utopias in sci-fi, especially Star Trek, that the idea that the opposite might exist hadn’t previously occurred to me. While it didn’t change me in a day-to-day kind of way, it helped me make sense of the world around me. I have always loved Star Trek, but it never seemed like humanity was truly headed in that direction.
BNW, 1984, and others helped me understand the world around me, which I think made me a better person in the end. Am I going to be a party to the creation of these kinds of worlds, or am I going to try to help move humanity in the other direction?
Designing freedom, by Stafford Beer
I’d been a software engineer for 15 years. In that time, in all the jobs I’ve had, I’d never once worked on anything that actually made people’s lives better, nor did I ever hear anyone else in tech ever really dive into any sort of meaningful philosophical interrogation of what digital technology is for and how we should use it. I made a few cool websites or whatever, but surely there’s more we can do with code. Digital technology is so obviously useful, yet we use it mostly to surveil everyone to better serve them ads.
Then i found cybernetics, though the work of Beer and others. It’s that ontological grounding that tech is missing. It’s the path we didn’t take, choosing instead to follow the California ideology of startups and venture capital and so on that’s now hegemonic and indistinguishable from the digital technology itself.
Even beers harshest critic is surely forced to admit that he had a hell of a vision, whereas most modern tech is completely rudderless
Not a complete list, but maybe an amusing one —
- A Wrinkle in Time
- Emergence
- Revolt in 2100
- Aristoi
- Stranger in a Strange Land
- Illuminatus!
- The Left Hand of Darkness
- The Book of the Law
- The Journal Entries of Kennet R’yal Shardik
- Gödel, Escher, Bach
- That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
- Le Ton beau de Marot
- Slavery’s Constitution
- Negative Math
- Programming in Haskell
- Good and Real
Stranger in a Strange Land is so good.
Meanwhile, it’s the only book I actively hate. I feel like it stole a fantastic name with a story that was too “I’m 14 and I am smart”.
I probably would have loved it when I was 14.
Maybe I read it at age 17 and didn’t much care for it.
I thought the martians were genocidal self-righteous assholes who I hoped the earth would nuke. The whole idea of thinking right meant doing things right and magically didn’t sit with me for a second. You can just look around, all these really dumb animals and plants managing just fine. You don’t need to know hydrodynamics to be a fish. And if magical thinking worked no way evolution wouldn’t have exploited the hell out of it.
Still it was kinda cool to see a novel that merged sci-fi, the Gnostic Gospel of Judas, and Joseph Smith in one setting.
If anyone here liked that book go read the Gospel of Judas and have your mind blown.
great list. Liber AL vel Legis is pretty wild
Illuminatus is the most potent and interesting paradigm-shifting book I’ve ever read. It’s like an epistemological shotgun blast, guerilla ontology indeed. Anything by R. A. Wilson is advisable, but this one really shakes you loose of your preconceptions and opens the door to new perspectives.
Illuminatus! is the political weirdness of the post-JFK-assassination period; extrapolated into a psychedelic occult fantasy; as interpreted by two white male porno writers; who were on some combination of weed, acid, plastic nude martinis, and coke for most of it.
It is very much a product of a specific time period and social situation.
I’ve probably re-read it more than any other book.
Wilson went on to write some good stuff, and some utter bullshit, and he’s very clear on the fact that he’s not telling you which part is the good stuff and which part is the utter bullshit.
I’ve probably re-read it more than any other book.
I definitely have.
Honestly I don’t think he wrote any utter bullshit, as such. Anything that could be described as such, was basically intended as such, with the explicit purpose of making you a specific kind of confused. In that sense, the bullshit itself was deeply profound, in a sense.
Everything is true, and false, and meaningless. I think really grokking that, which requires the intermingling of nonsensical-sounding profundity with profound-sounding nonsense, underlies an elusive sort of dynamic enlightenment.
But what the fuck do I know?
Some people need to hear that everything is a little bit bullshit.
Some people need to hear that some things are a lot more bullshit than others.
RAW was a lot better at the first than the second.
Some people huff their own farts, metaphysically speaking.
The second is a pit stop on the way the the first, which itself is a pit stop to yet higher realizations. Some people need to figure things out for themselves, they just haven’t started asking the right questions yet. RAW excelled at assaulting you with more questions than you were really prepared to answer, and giving you the opportunity to try to figure out what he was really trying to say, without ever really giving you a solid answer. That’s why re-reads are so satisfying: every time you read it, you’ve changed enough to dramatically redefine which parts are bullshit.
If you need to be told which things are more bullshit than others, you’re not quite there yet. But it can still get you there, with enough iterations.
How did you like godel Escher Bach? Have it on my bookshelf, intending to read it eventually after my current stack.
Very, very worth a read or ten.
It’s dated, but it’s still essential in connecting math & CS with art & literature. Hofstadter was in a great place to connect disparate fields that touch on related patterns.
His AI theories seem to have come out mostly as dead ends, but that might still change.
‘Thich Nhat Hanh - Heart of the Buddah’s Teachings’. I didn’t become a Buddhist, but it gave me some really useful mental tools to be happier.
I had a bit of a fucked up childhood, left home at 15, was really angry & bitter for a while. I was already many years into a general attempt to let go and be happier, I believe the knowledge from that book has made me happier and more resilient.
Adding this to my bookwyrm!
Username definitely checks out :)
Haha. I’ve had this username for several years now, you’re the first one to comment on it across a bunch of different accounts. I love my username. Haha.
I’m always a bit fascinated by why people choose their usernames. I usually go with one of my music production aliases, but on a whim I decided to go for Bleeping Lobster. Am I a lobster with a bomb in it? Am I a lobster who swears on daytime TV? Am I a lobster with a watch who slept through their alarm? It’s a mystery.
Why did you choose yours, is it as obvious as I assumed or a deeper meaning?
For what it’s worth, I assumed you were a lobster on Maury swearing up a storm about how you are not the father.
Around 5 years ago I started investigating my faith. I’ve always been sort of… Eclectic in that regard, but once I discovered the Dharmic faiths, it made a big difference in my life. Non dualism specifically. I chose the username because I made a new reddit account specifically for that sort of content. I was still really new to it at the time, and associated the branching out from my Christian roots with the same type of exploration people do when they’re beginning to explore their sexuality. So it’s a play on bi-curious. I wasn’t Dharmic at the time, I was just Dharma-curious. Haha.
That’s interesting, so how did you journey work out? Are you still Dharma-curious today, or do you feel you’ve gotten enough from it? I keep meaning to re-read the book I suggested, I’ve read it three times which is twice more than any other book I’ve read… but I reckon the lessons are difficult enough to make a key part of our personality that it takes a bunch of reads. I guess, that’s why it’s called a practice!
At this point, I’d say I am definitely a nondualist. I was raised Christian, so that flavors my outlook in major ways. I’m some weird mix of Hindu and Christian, and recently I’ve become very interested in Buddhism as well. I really enjoy the writings of Swamiji Vivekananda and Rama Krishna. A sort of universal view of religion, with many paths that lead us to God.
What about yourself? Do you subscribe to a particular religion or philosophy?
Also, related, do you recommend any Lemmy communities for this sort of stuff? I haven’t found my esoteric and spiritual people on lemmy yet.
The Stranger by Albert Camus had a big impact on me as an adolescent, expressing feelings of absurdism that I previously had no words for. Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari changed the course of my life by drawing me to Japan.
Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive - By. Kevin Horsley
This single book has affected my life and improved my day to day life. Although not all useful, it has some very useful tactics.
I don’t forget stuff as easily, I can recall better for work, notes are minimal and if I do take notes its one or two word per item. Truly life changing especially while I was a student.
The seven habits of highly effective people. Sounds like a get rich quick book but it’s actually a very profound book about what it means to be authentic to yourself and in your interactions with others. This book completely changed my life.
Thinking fast and slow. This book will give you insights into your own mind that are science based and actually explain so much of what we observe in the behaviour of ourselves and others.
I read The Power of Habit - Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
Not sure if it changed my life but when you mentioned your book about the seven habits of effective people I thought about this.
I think every once in a while about this habit self manipulation for your own advantage. Quite an interesting read for some though inspiration
Thinking Fast and Slow has a lot of really good info but man does it go on.
You might also like Behave by neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky if you haven’t already read it. It’s another book which explains a lot of why we are the way we are. Very interesting read; lengthy but still compelling.
Ok, so I have since passionately disavowed her ideas, but I did read the ENTIRE works of Ayn Rand at one point when I was right wing for a couple of years.
I list it as most influential because, one, it allowed me to understand what right wing philosophy was heavily influenced by during the late 20th century (and why), and two, when those philosophies proved to be egregiously wrong, it forced me to reevaluate my entire identity and belief structure which turned me into the particularly left leaning/socialist I am today.
In terms of books I’m still a big fan of, I love Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, BUT only when read alongside his “sequel” Island, which was his last book. It briefly articulates what Huxley believed a utopian society would look like (before said society is tragically ended by Nuclear Armageddon at the end of a hypothetical World War 3).
My view of her is basically
Even when I find something me and her agree on she words it in a way that I sorta don’t want to.
Maybe integrity, that was the only thing that me and her sorta but not really shared. I try my best to show integrity in my work, to put thought and effort into stuff, but at the end of the day customers are going to demand stupid things sometimes.
Two texts by Seneca: “On the shortness of life” and “On Providence”. The first one made me rethink the idea of “productivity” and the second one made me better at handling bad situations. But at the time I still felt crushed below the weight of a meaningless world, and then I read “The myth of Sisyphus” by Camus and my mind was blown. It was such an inovative way to deal with a world that doesn’t answer back.
Also “Discourses” of Epictetus. If there ever was a book that was simple, elegant, and usable right away for a better life, this is it. I’d recommend this to everyone.
It’s hard to single out specific works of Plato to stand on their own, I find the most value to be gained by having an overview of his whole philosophy, but “Protagoras” is my favourite dialogue, as it introduces some essential questions as to why are we so careless when taking care of our minds, and how nobody does bad things willingly (which is often repeated by Epictetus). Also the “Apology” is essential because it shows the basic thoughts that guided the greatest philosopher in the west.
This Is Vegan Propaganda: (And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You) by Ed Winters. I think it’s tough to read this book and not be vegan before it’s finished, it’s an extremely well considered and compelling book for for anyone who likes having their views challenged.
It changed my life profoundly in both outlook and actions, as it did everybody in my life who I suggested read it.
“Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer, which argues against speciesism and the ethical treatment of animals, as well as “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Foer, which delves into the moral complexities of eating animals and factory farming. Both these books have convinced me to go vegan. I’ve been vegan for a decade now and don’t regret it one bit.
As a side effect, I’ve also become more health conscious, because a strict vegan diet doesn’t provide everything, so I did a lot of research into what I’m eating, what my body needs (and doesn’t need) etc. As a result I feel like my health has improved a lot - my hairloss has mostly stopped, my complexion has improved, also I used to have a skin condition which is now under control, no depression episodes, and I rarely fall sick.
It’s been an ongoing process of learning though. Most recently I’ve found out about Choline, which has a critical role in neurotransmitter function and affects your mood, and thankfully I found that my diet already has enough Choline in it, so it wasn’t a worry or anything. But it’s always interesting knowing what’s in what your eating, things your body needs etc.
When I read Infinite Jest the first time I was in college I was dealing with a lot of “life’s crossroads” type issues, some of which I didn’t even know about until I looked back on them. The book helped me understand that I needed to stop relying on my “innate” talents and privileges and actually start putting in work for the things I wanted if I was ever going to have a hope of a good life. It also put into perspective a lot of substance use/abuse stuff in a really subtle way that ended up being very beneficial to me.
2 years ago I read Divergent Mind by Jennara Nerenberg and it completely changed my perspective on the mental care industry and revealed, with studies and statistics, how women are systematically underserved when it comes to medical issues (both physical and mental). After reading that book it was like a big empathy door was kicked open in my brain that had been shut my whole life, and I suddenly started understanding some of the deep context behind the experiences of women in my life that I was previously never aware of.
Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig
I love this book, warts and all. The rereads get harder as I see more flaws in both the text and Persig himself.
Regardless, I can’t deny the huge impact it had on my worldview. It helped me refine and improve the analytical mindset I take to the world around me and made me think routinely and deeply about what I value in the world and why.
I could see myself easily being obsessed with money and status at the point in my life where I am, and I’m grateful, in no short part to this book, that I’m not.
What is good? and what is bad? And who can tell us these things?
Persig does his best with these questions and gives you enough to put you on the same journey even if truly answering these questions is ultimately unachievable
“Lying” by Sam Harris made me commit to not ever lying again
I have told one lie ever since and even that was a slip-up; a person came to me on the street asking for money and instead of saying no I said I didn’t have any cash which was untrue. I still keep secrets and I will lie if refusing to answer reveals the truth. I will still not tell the whole truth and sometimes I simply omit things I don’t want to reveal but what I don’t do is say things that are untrue and this applies to while lies aswell.
Only after I started paying attention to this mysef I realized how often we lie unecessarily and how damaging it can be to our relationships even when your intentions may be good. You’re basically treating people as if they’re so vunerable that they can’t handle the truth so you lie.
