321–330 of 389 posts
It's a deeply introspective and, at least for me, borders on being a philosophical text. I would even go so far as describing it as a philosophical text disguised as fiction.
It will take effort to get through, but it's one of those things where you can immediately feel that the energy put into the book is worth it.
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew Crawford. I've often questioned if spending 8+ hours a day writing software was the right thing for me to do, when I get so much more gratification from physically manipulating something. It was a welcomed read.
I recently read and enjoyed the essay version. Would you recommend the book? Specifically, did you feel that the amount of depth in the book necessitated that format as opposed to an essay? I'm frequently disappointed by really good ideas that could be presented in a dozen pages being stretched to occupy 200 (e.g. Deep Work)
Now some introspective books:
* The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. If you're open to fantasy, this series delves deep into how to respond when one's worldview is shattered. Highly recommended. Elantris also covers some similar territory.
* The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. How do you reconcile the whims of capricious Fortune with your desire for peace in this world?
* Bonds That Make Us Free by Terry Warner. This book makes you take a brutal look at how you contribute to your own misery in life. It will be agonizing to read, but persevere and I believe you will find it insightful. Try not to be too turned off by the conservative religious viewpoint that occasionally peeks through.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you like Alan Watts you might enjoy Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice from Shunryu Suzuki. https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Informal-Meditatio...
If you like that, I'd further recommend the biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber. It's an interesting read.
I highly recommend 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. This book gave me the courage to take responsibility in my life and start working towards things which are important for myself. As the author once said, you don't get not to pay a price, you only get what price to pay. It actually gave me the courage to leave Berlin and go back to my country(Romania) which even though is more poor and low in quality of publ…
This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been - It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which 1. weren't necessary to make his point, 2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes/fiction I got suckered into to buying the book because the…
Peterson's thesis is something like the following: that the early biblical stories constitute a kind of dominant eigenvector of human cognition and experience, what you get when you iteratively retell a story over a hundred generations.
To dismiss this as anecdotes or fiction is very much to miss the point of what Peterson is trying to do.
Alan Watt's Wisdom of Insecurity book was enlightening for me. You can read it for free here: https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-of...
https://terebess.hu/english/AlanWatts-On%20The%20Taboo%20Aga...
Gig: Americans Talk about Their Jobs
The Tao of Pooh
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Tao Te Ching
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of My Own Stupidity
How the Mind Works
The Design of Everyday Things
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Fiction is harder to pin down. I think, overall, reading fiction has had a greater impact on my understanding of human nature than non-fiction has. But it's diffused over a larger number of books so it's hard to point to specific ones. I think simply reading a large volume of fiction helps me understand all the ways people can live and think.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also not the poster, but I'll put in my 2 cents. I believe in inerrancy, which sometimes means literalism, but sometimes doesn't, because it comes down to intent. The Bible isn't a science textbook, so there's room for allegory and hyperbole, but it can only go so far, so some issues, like "was there a real Adam and Eve", or "was there a flood that wiped out all of humanity except Noah and friends" would, in my view,…
I have a much more liberal style, I suppose. I don't really look at Adam and Eve or the Flood as stories which are literally historical events. A question for you: the Bible contains multiple, divergent descriptions of the same events in places (or at least that's how I would see them). How do you reconcile these? Or is that not a problem for the framework you're describing?
- subtleties in language that don't translate well
- not catching hyperbole or idioms (like know=sex or foot=penis)
- genre confusion (is revelation apocalyptic poetry or literal history)
- expecting too much precision from a text (is 40 days actually 40 days?)
- similar, bringing my cultural assumptions about the nature of the text... graphocentrism applied to an oral culture, reading into it guilt instead of seeing honor and shame, expecting word-for-word quotes, when in the ancient world historians had different standards, etc
- not paying close attention to the literary quality of the text (information is carefully chosen and presented by the author, not haphazardly thrown together, and to really understand the text you have to dig deep)
- one that's really hit home for me recently: there are typological dimensions to the text... events are shaped by what the author is trying to tell you. For example the beginning of John is full of temple imagery and language which is arguing for a deeper meaning to the purpose of the Old Testament and how its fulfilled in Christ. Events would likely look very different from how they're presented if you were a casual observer.
It might look like adding all these things together doesn't look an awful lot like inerrancy, but at least my goal is to try and find out what the text is really saying, and once I feel like I figured that out, then I'll take it quite seriously, even if its hard...
Did you have a particular story in mind?
I highly recommend 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. This book gave me the courage to take responsibility in my life and start working towards things which are important for myself. As the author once said, you don't get not to pay a price, you only get what price to pay. It actually gave me the courage to leave Berlin and go back to my country(Romania) which even though is more poor and low in quality of publ…
This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been - It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which 1. weren't necessary to make his point, 2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes/fiction I got suckered into to buying the book because the…