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> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. Look inward for contentment. Try therapy if your shitty childhood and shitty parents made inward a hard place t

> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. Look inward for contentment. Try therapy if your shitty childhood and shitty parents made inward a hard place to look. I'd recommend the following: 1. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson 3. Letters from a self made merchant - John Graham

hckr_news 7y ago
After my working life had induced anxiety, panic attacks, and a host of other issues which really started to rear their ugly head I’ve become a much more religious person. On top of the professional help I’ve sought out for these issues, it has also helped a lot in my case when you internalize deep that work/money/material success really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and there’s a greater goal to work towards.
- whitebread 7y ago
  What is this greater goal you speak of?
  - edraferi 7y ago
    In my experience, religions are happy to hand out pre-baked sets of objectives. Live a life like X. Stay away from Y. Put your money in Z. If you have trouble deciding what direction you want to go, religion can point you somewhere and surround you with a community that will encourage you to keep moving that way. For some people, that’s really valuable. You see this especially with people who’s prior independent experience didn’t work out very well. Maybe they grew up in an abusive home and want instructions on breaking the cycle and raising their family better. Maybe there was criminal behavior, substance abuse, relationship or career stagnation. For many people, a pre-packaged world view from Religion X can be a big step up from their prior experience, ESPECIALLY when it comes with a supportive community. The problem, of course, is two fold. First, life isn’t one-size-fits-all. Eventually the pre-packaged beliefs will be sub-optimal for your personal situation. The better religious communities are flexible enough to accommodate this. The uglier ones lock you down or cut you out. Second, the pre-packaged beliefs usually assert their own universal and exclusive validity. Even if the one you pick happens to be correct about this, it encourages toxic behaviors that will isolate you from non-community members. And of course the claim is preposterous on its face; The interchangeability of religions undercuts their claims to universal truth. So, to summarize: Religion is a reasonable place to get a default world view and community, especially if you’re existing beliefs/community aren’t serving you well. Long term they are suboptimal because they don’t adapt to your personal circumstances very well.
    - kaitai 7y ago
      I've actually taken an essentially opposite view, interestingly enough. As a younger person I read widely, rebelled in a very thoughtful way against my religion (in my opinion! haha!), took things very seriously, tried to really understand both atheism and other religions, etc. I think all of that was important. Through life experiences I've come to appreciate, strangely, the rituals of religion and the not-making-sense-ness of it. So I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously. The concrete actions do something on a primordial level, as they're what my ancestors have done for oh about eight generations. The actual pre-packaged beliefs? Meh. I'm less interested than I ever was in arguing the particulars of Paul with anyone. So, to summarize, for me religion is a reasonable place to get a default set of rituals and perhaps community, and long term that's the useful part because the rituals can continue even as my beliefs and circumstances change. This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :)
      - edraferi 7y ago
        Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I’m glad you’ve found a fulfilling spiritual practice and community. I hope they are supporting you in this difficult time. > I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously. That’s pretty interesting to me. I certainly agree that the rituals and community are the best part of organized religion. I’ve enjoyed them in the past and I miss them now. I actually considered returning to the church when I had a young family for exactly these reasons. I just can’t untangle the practical from the philosophical. The community is great in and of itself, but it exists explicitly to advance a particular set of beliefs. It’s hard to take the community without the beliefs. At least, I haven’t been able to do it successfully. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I could have, but I would have felt like a fraud. I think that would limit my ability to integrate. > This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :) Absolutely. The principal applies to many places. Employers, even. Many start ups want you to drink the kool-ade, own the vision, play ping pong... you can opt out of that and just do the engineering and paycheck!
loughnane 7y ago
On par w/ Meditations I'd also add Self-Reliance, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
askdfjng 7y ago
JBP's 12 Rules for Life is dangerous advice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc
- DanielLihaciu 7y ago
  I would be the devil's advocate and disagree with you. There are more dangerous self help books like The Secret who took the Bible quote about praying and it will come true out of context, and many other THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK, LAW OF ATTRACTION....
- Reedx 7y ago
  To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules. Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient) Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t Rule 10: Be precise in your speech Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jordan-petersons-12-rules-life.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jo...
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
    Rule 12 caveat 1: If it lets you.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Rule 12 caveat 2: And wash or disinfect your hands immediately afterwards, because Lord only knows what that cat is carrying on its fur.
adamsea 7y ago
Dunno about Jordan Peterson. Some of his advice may be OK but he's also profoundly weird / not very self-reflective .... only eats meat? Meat cures all? IMHO the Socratic Dialogues, as basically the foundational text of all Western Philosophy, and being pretty friendly and approachable, are the right place to begin. Helps you figure out how to figure it out for yourself. You can make your own calls from there.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  > Meat cures all? When did he say that?
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Come on, all you have to do is google "jordan peterson meat" and you get pages and pages of when-he-said-thats.
    - burntoutfire 6y ago
      I've listened to probably hundreds of hours of JP and he never said that. He only said that, in his particular case, a lot of the terrible ailments he had went away after he switched to a meat-only diet. He doesn't say that meat is a cure for anything - his main theory is that he just has a ton of strong food alergies and, by eating only one thing he's not allergic to, he avoids them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - adamsea 6y ago
    I’m making a point, not quoting the man.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- friendlybus 7y ago
lovegoblin 7y ago
> 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson yikes
- worik 7y ago
  Well some people need to be told. In. Simple. Ideas.
  - lamby 7y ago
    Go tidy your room.
wwweston 7y ago
> 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson A note on this, since mentioning Peterson tends to spark controversy: I think I think the people who get the best out of Peterson don't treat him as a guru issuing rules written in stone tablets (in spite of the implication of the book title) but as a provoker of attention/reflection. This is probably generally true of anyone, but especially worth considering here. I also tend to recommend his university course lectures over his public-directed material; I'm not sure why it seems more moderated, but I'd guess that professional accountability and contextual habits developed before fame have something to do with it.
- akurzon 7y ago
  > I also tend to recommend his university course lectures over his public-directed material; I'm not sure why it seems more moderated, but I'd guess that professional accountability and contextual habits developed before fame have something to do with it. I've noticed the same thing. I think he's gotten into bad habits commenting on subjects outside of his area of expertise, but I did enjoy his YouTube lectures for the reasons you mentioned
  - gonzo41 7y ago
    Cut him some slack. When he's on JRE his conversations should be thought of as some guy talking about how he feels about events. Just like you or I. He's smart and thinks. That guy also just happens to be an expert in an area of knowledge.
  - lamby 7y ago
    Whilst we're speaking philosophy... I think Pliny's "sutor, ne ultra crepidam" ("shoemaker, not beyond the shoe") might be the quip to match your comment.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  He was always like that. His work with the UN and legal work had rough edges. The fame has made him bigger not different. His lectures go more in depth and are not trying to hit a peak of condensed information. As much as Peterson likes nietschze, he can’t write like nietschze, with highly condensed sentences. Peterson has always been better in the long form.
ska 7y ago
Without opinion on the particular value of this list, I'll advise that if you are exploring philosophy (even of the pop kind), especially if this is new for you, you'll probably get the best results out of reading contradicting and contrasting results. Be it foundational or just currently popular, following up a work by reading it's most talented detractors can multiply it's value to you. Learning about an entirely different philosophical approach will often be more useful to you than reading another book on similar ideas. Oh, and really good popularizors are rare. Usually the original sources are far better - but by nature much less accessible. So you have a trade off to make.
miguelmota 7y ago
I've read 12 Rules for Life and disliked that Peterson uses a lot of Disney movie and bible references to support his claims. He makes some good points every once in a while but the book is unnecessarily verbose. I recommend reading the cliff notes to understand 90% of the book.
- FabHK 7y ago
  He uses Disney quotes to support his contention that there are profound, yet universal archetypes and myths that pop up everywhere - even in Disney movies.

hckr_news 7y ago

After my working life had induced anxiety, panic attacks, and a host of other issues which really started to rear their ugly head I’ve become a much more religious person. On top of the professional help I’ve sought out for these issues, it has also helped a lot in my case when you internalize deep that work/money/material success really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and there’s a greater goal to work towards.

whitebread 7y ago
What is this greater goal you speak of?
- edraferi 7y ago
  In my experience, religions are happy to hand out pre-baked sets of objectives. Live a life like X. Stay away from Y. Put your money in Z. If you have trouble deciding what direction you want to go, religion can point you somewhere and surround you with a community that will encourage you to keep moving that way. For some people, that’s really valuable. You see this especially with people who’s prior independent experience didn’t work out very well. Maybe they grew up in an abusive home and want instructions on breaking the cycle and raising their family better. Maybe there was criminal behavior, substance abuse, relationship or career stagnation. For many people, a pre-packaged world view from Religion X can be a big step up from their prior experience, ESPECIALLY when it comes with a supportive community. The problem, of course, is two fold. First, life isn’t one-size-fits-all. Eventually the pre-packaged beliefs will be sub-optimal for your personal situation. The better religious communities are flexible enough to accommodate this. The uglier ones lock you down or cut you out. Second, the pre-packaged beliefs usually assert their own universal and exclusive validity. Even if the one you pick happens to be correct about this, it encourages toxic behaviors that will isolate you from non-community members. And of course the claim is preposterous on its face; The interchangeability of religions undercuts their claims to universal truth. So, to summarize: Religion is a reasonable place to get a default world view and community, especially if you’re existing beliefs/community aren’t serving you well. Long term they are suboptimal because they don’t adapt to your personal circumstances very well.
  - kaitai 7y ago
    I've actually taken an essentially opposite view, interestingly enough. As a younger person I read widely, rebelled in a very thoughtful way against my religion (in my opinion! haha!), took things very seriously, tried to really understand both atheism and other religions, etc. I think all of that was important. Through life experiences I've come to appreciate, strangely, the rituals of religion and the not-making-sense-ness of it. So I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously. The concrete actions do something on a primordial level, as they're what my ancestors have done for oh about eight generations. The actual pre-packaged beliefs? Meh. I'm less interested than I ever was in arguing the particulars of Paul with anyone. So, to summarize, for me religion is a reasonable place to get a default set of rituals and perhaps community, and long term that's the useful part because the rituals can continue even as my beliefs and circumstances change. This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :)
    - edraferi 7y ago
      Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I’m glad you’ve found a fulfilling spiritual practice and community. I hope they are supporting you in this difficult time. > I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously. That’s pretty interesting to me. I certainly agree that the rituals and community are the best part of organized religion. I’ve enjoyed them in the past and I miss them now. I actually considered returning to the church when I had a young family for exactly these reasons. I just can’t untangle the practical from the philosophical. The community is great in and of itself, but it exists explicitly to advance a particular set of beliefs. It’s hard to take the community without the beliefs. At least, I haven’t been able to do it successfully. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I could have, but I would have felt like a fraud. I think that would limit my ability to integrate. > This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :) Absolutely. The principal applies to many places. Employers, even. Many start ups want you to drink the kool-ade, own the vision, play ping pong... you can opt out of that and just do the engineering and paycheck!

loughnane 7y ago

On par w/ Meditations I'd also add Self-Reliance, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

askdfjng 7y ago

JBP's 12 Rules for Life is dangerous advice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtwP6AbbAUc

DanielLihaciu 7y ago
I would be the devil's advocate and disagree with you. There are more dangerous self help books like The Secret who took the Bible quote about praying and it will come true out of context, and many other THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK, LAW OF ATTRACTION....
Reedx 7y ago
To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules. Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6: Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world Rule 7: Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient) Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don’t lie Rule 9: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t Rule 10: Be precise in your speech Rule 11: Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding Rule 12: Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jordan-petersons-12-rules-life.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/jo...
- bitxbitxbitcoin 7y ago
  Rule 12 caveat 1: If it lets you.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Rule 12 caveat 2: And wash or disinfect your hands immediately afterwards, because Lord only knows what that cat is carrying on its fur.

adamsea 7y ago

Dunno about Jordan Peterson. Some of his advice may be OK but he's also profoundly weird / not very self-reflective .... only eats meat? Meat cures all? IMHO the Socratic Dialogues, as basically the foundational text of all Western Philosophy, and being pretty friendly and approachable, are the right place to begin. Helps you figure out how to figure it out for yourself. You can make your own calls from there.

burntoutfire 7y ago
> Meat cures all? When did he say that?
- rhizome 7y ago
  Come on, all you have to do is google "jordan peterson meat" and you get pages and pages of when-he-said-thats.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    I've listened to probably hundreds of hours of JP and he never said that. He only said that, in his particular case, a lot of the terrible ailments he had went away after he switched to a meat-only diet. He doesn't say that meat is a cure for anything - his main theory is that he just has a ton of strong food alergies and, by eating only one thing he's not allergic to, he avoids them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- adamsea 6y ago
  I’m making a point, not quoting the man.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
friendlybus 7y ago

lovegoblin 7y ago

> 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson yikes

worik 7y ago
Well some people need to be told. In. Simple. Ideas.
- lamby 7y ago
  Go tidy your room.

wwweston 7y ago

> 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson A note on this, since mentioning Peterson tends to spark controversy: I think I think the people who get the best out of Peterson don't treat him as a guru issuing rules written in stone tablets (in spite of the implication of the book title) but as a provoker of attention/reflection. This is probably generally true of anyone, but especially worth considering here. I also tend to recommend his university course lectures over his public-directed material; I'm not sure why it seems more moderated, but I'd guess that professional accountability and contextual habits developed before fame have something to do with it.

akurzon 7y ago
> I also tend to recommend his university course lectures over his public-directed material; I'm not sure why it seems more moderated, but I'd guess that professional accountability and contextual habits developed before fame have something to do with it. I've noticed the same thing. I think he's gotten into bad habits commenting on subjects outside of his area of expertise, but I did enjoy his YouTube lectures for the reasons you mentioned
- gonzo41 7y ago
  Cut him some slack. When he's on JRE his conversations should be thought of as some guy talking about how he feels about events. Just like you or I. He's smart and thinks. That guy also just happens to be an expert in an area of knowledge.
- lamby 7y ago
  Whilst we're speaking philosophy... I think Pliny's "sutor, ne ultra crepidam" ("shoemaker, not beyond the shoe") might be the quip to match your comment.
friendlybus 7y ago
He was always like that. His work with the UN and legal work had rough edges. The fame has made him bigger not different. His lectures go more in depth and are not trying to hit a peak of condensed information. As much as Peterson likes nietschze, he can’t write like nietschze, with highly condensed sentences. Peterson has always been better in the long form.

ska 7y ago

Without opinion on the particular value of this list, I'll advise that if you are exploring philosophy (even of the pop kind), especially if this is new for you, you'll probably get the best results out of reading contradicting and contrasting results. Be it foundational or just currently popular, following up a work by reading it's most talented detractors can multiply it's value to you. Learning about an entirely different philosophical approach will often be more useful to you than reading another book on similar ideas. Oh, and really good popularizors are rare. Usually the original sources are far better - but by nature much less accessible. So you have a trade off to make.

miguelmota 7y ago

I've read 12 Rules for Life and disliked that Peterson uses a lot of Disney movie and bible references to support his claims. He makes some good points every once in a while but the book is unnecessarily verbose. I recommend reading the cliff notes to understand 90% of the book.

FabHK 7y ago
He uses Disney quotes to support his contention that there are profound, yet universal archetypes and myths that pop up everywhere - even in Disney movies.