Reddit reviews The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)

Hey

Don't think of yourself as a depressive college student with problems. You are still (and will always be) a human being and you are as normal as everyone else. No need to put these problems before yourself.

Accept them! Don't ignore them, but be careful that you don't define yourself by these problems.

Edit: To clarify: a stupid example: Image you have flu...

(Take flu as a metaphor for your problems. I don't want to say you these are not big problems for you nor that they are not important, Oh noe, I feel with you: Beeing depressive is not funny)

...if you say to yourself: "I am the flu-guy/gal" You make this stuff part of your self-esteem (If you like or not) Try to think of it more this way: "I'm a nice guy/gal and I have currently the flu, therefore my brain hurts a little but things are going to get better soon. "

You are not crazy. You are OK.

Feeling alone is a shitty feeling, but If you would be brave and go out and try to meet other poeple you will realize that everyone feels alone from time to time (a lot of poeple feel that that way very often if not always).

You are not alone beeing alone :)

And: Your brain is not fucked up! It just thinks that way because of certain chemicals or certain psychological things make you believe your brain is fucked up. Its actually not. You are browsing reddit and asking questions - this a is definitly not fucked up. So calm down, relax, take a deep breath. Love yourself! Accept your problems. Don't use them as an excuse.

Its hard and it hurts but if you feel lonely go outside! Join a club, go in the park, exercise - I would rather not attend too much parties (That don't means you should miss them, just well - only 3 a week maybe :) they are often a bad place for getting really in touch with poeple. Better do some activites: sports, chess, linux-user-group, learning a new language, whatever... you know what I mean!

I'm quite fucked-up for myself too (well another story) but the only thing I can tell you for sure: Don't be afraid really: Don't be afraid of poeple! If you are surrounded by idiots whose only mock you: Fuck them and look for some real friends.

College is good place to find cool poeple easily - They are there! There will be lots of morons, too but also a fair share of good, great poeple. If you are feeling really wrong: Take - as others pointed out - a break - its better to take a break earlier than later (look at me - I skipped it for various reasons and things just got worse)

So: Don't be afraid of doing whatever your gut says in all honesty to you. Sometimes you are simply in the wrong place for the wrong reasons or for the right reasons in the wrong place so make yourself clear what you want, not what others want from you.

What works for me in regard to feeling-better is beeing at least a little bit organised and able to understand the lectures and beeing good at it. This will give you a feeling of security and if you are a good student you'll earn easier respect from others. Well - But from my experience a depression is also the best way to not be a good student... So avoid falling into that trap and make some basic organising and learning and understandig a habit, its critical for survival - And I can guerantee you in almost every discipline is stuff that is somehow "awesome" if you only digg deep enough.

If you're first thought is something along the lines of "I will never understood that shite" but you put some effort into it anyway and finally have enough understanding you will be start to become addicted to learn new stuff and things will be much smoother and you'll have this heuraka feeling! I struggle with exactly this point and I'm sure its the reasons for a lot of headaches. So be wiser and get your shit sorted out. Don't try to rely on others, all the pills and doctors won't help you - you have to help yourself they will support you - maybe or yes but its on you to feel happy :)

And: Even it feels stupid/emberrassing it will go away for sure. So don't be afraid.

ps: don't buy self-help books, get those from the library if you really need to read them. most of them are useless :/ - so don't waste your money on this shit

ps2: read the book of disquiet from fernando pessoa its basically a wonderful book about beeing lonely, its so lovely written that you'll enjoy it, its more like poems in a book, its sad but wonderful at the same time

Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet has a lot to say about renunciation of (and absolute boredom with) sensual pleasure and preoccupation with introspection, which informs certain aspects of my understanding of Buddhism.

From a review:

>If there is a common thread, it is that of unsparing introspection. Over and over, Pessoa asks of himself and of the living mirrors which he has created, 'Who am I?', 'What makes me write?', 'To whom shall I turn?' The metaphysical sharpness, the wealth of self-scrutiny are, in modern literature, matched only by Valery or Musil or, in a register often uncannily similar, by Wittgenstein. 'Solitude devastates me; company oppresses me. The presence of another person derails my thoughts; I dream of the other's presence with a strange absent-mindedness that no amount of my analytical scrutiny can define.' This very scrutiny, moreover, is fraught with danger: 'To understand, I destroyed myself. To understand is to forget about loving.' These findings arise out of a uniquely spectral yet memorable landscape: 'A firefly flashes forward at regular intervals. Around me the dark countryside is a huge lack of sound that almost smells pleasant.'

When I am depressed, I read The Book of Disquiet. When I'm ready to pull out of it, I read The Consolation of Philosophy. These are my ying & yang.

Good question, I'd go to [etsy] (http://www.etsy.com/) and buy a few things from there. But since I'm from a country that not a lot of people on the internet are from (South Africa) I'd also put a lot of typically South African things in too, but nothing cliché and gimmicky. I'd also put in my favourite book, [The Book of Disquiet] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Classics/dp/0141183047).

Not exactly a short story, but a collection of 1-2 page diary entries, but I would definitely recommend Pessoa's Book of Disquiet.

Other great short story authors are Poe, Kafka, Flannery O'Connor, and Ivan Bunin(Dark Avenues).

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

Who knew a Portuguese poet and a 15 year old Asian girl studying for her SATs could think the same way?

But in all honesty, it reads almost like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but a bit more grittier. Like a story with no plot, just an insider perspective and a lot of emotions. Lots of existentialism themes.

Well now you see what happens when you just assume I'll be conversational... In all seriousness, I really had nothing else to argue or bring up about the education thing... Also what do you mean by teh tecknawlahgees (the technologies)? Do you mean advancement? Or just the ability to learn stuff using the internet? Speaking of technology, not sure if you've seen After Earth yet, if you haven't then I won't spoil it don't worry. But the technology they use in the film is all like Bio-Tech, like a seamless fusion of tech and humanity. It's pretty cool, and where I think technology should be heading towards.

Well first-off the African Wars have nothing to do with Northern/Mid Africa. Well not in this context anyway. Sorry I didn't make it clearer, but the African Wars I was refering to was the Anglo-Boer War, which I assume you know something about? If you don't it was when the Afrikaaners and the British got into a little bit of an argument, and by argument I mean war. Which the British lost. The reason I call if the African Wars is that there was a third party involved and those were the Native peoples in South Africa, they too played a part in the War. And so that part of history has been renamed the African Wars. Much like the American War of Independence, had Patriots, British and the Native Americans all fighting one another. Or have I got that wrong? Please enlighten.

As for the rest of Africa affecting us, they most certainly do. Firstly we have an open door policy when it comes to refugees and so we take on a lot of refugees. Not a bad thing because they have really good work ethics and often start working immediately. I suppose it is a bad thing for South Africans seeking similar employment (factory worker, farm labour and domestic workers) who can't find work because they are considered lazy in comparison (have to agree). Side note, North African doctors, aren't welcome here if they are refugees because they are needed more in the country they come from. But literally any other skilled worker is a God send because they will do the same job for less.

But African instability affects us in other ways too, like South Africa is constantly trying to push for an AU but keeps getting either shot down by dictators, or the whole system is abused by dictators. Hosni Mubarak, Kony, Muammar Gaddafi and so on had huge pull in the African Political Circle, and used the old African Union as their personal power houses, causing the whole thing to lack meaning and come apart. Now though, the idea of reinstalling an African Union is on the cards again with South Africa at the helm. Former President Thabo Mbeki (who is blamed for never doing anything and was actually impeached [unjustly] to allow the cards to fall in just the right way to get our current President Jacob Zuma his seat in power), is heading up the whole operation, and has been for the last 7 years.

I kinda want to be frozen till 2700, to see how the world will be like. But also to hear the final notes of Longplayer ring out. I think it would be cool to go to one of the sites and just listen as the last ring is played and the whole room just drops into silence. Do you think people will just clap endlessly as that happens? Would be cool.

>if anything about you posting that upsets me it's that you screwed up the formatting.

Well for YOUR information it wasn't me that screwed up the formatting, but rather RES/Reddit editing that did it. I posted it as He wrote it, but RES had different ideas and 'corrected' it to the format you saw it in. I tried to correct it but to was to no avail. So please do be kind as to fuck off (read sarcastically), because it's not my fault. As for finding a poem that might annoy you, I have taken on that challenge. With an entire styl (on purpose) it's called [MNMLST poetry] (http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm) and is possibly one of my favorites! (as you've guessed). On that link you'll find the thing I was actually after which is the i with a thumbprint as the dot. Love that poem [(which it is)] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poem). On the topic of things which are short (unlike this reply), here is the world shortest [novel] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn) comprised by Ernest Hemingway. Thought you might like something just a little different.

And from the topic of literature we dive straight into book recommendations--getting the hang of segueing--though maybe not this whole business of extra information in between dashes.-- Where was I? Oh right! Well I just picked up on of Pratchett's new books; [Dodger] (http://www.amazon.com/Dodger-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062009494). There is another cover other than the one in the link. Very much enjoying the Steampunk/Victorian setting. Something I do suggest you maybe pick up for a fun read would be [Poison an Illistrated History] (http://www.amazon.com/Poison-Illustrated-History-Joel-Levy/dp/0762770562/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372521410&sr=1-2&keywords=history+of+poison), an interesting read if you're interested I guess. Plus wow your friends when you can recite all the people killed by poison! Moving on to the book I most highly reccomend, it sits in with my favorite literary technique of narrative. And is all about, and written by, the famous writer [Fernando Pessoa] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa). It's called [The Book of Disquiet] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Disquiet-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141183047). I put the Amazon pages for all the book recommendations as to not tempt you into reading spoilers from their respective Wiki pages. You're welcome to if you so wish, but I don't want to be held responsible for that. However [here] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Disquiet) is the Wiki page for The Book of Disquiet; it hasn't got any spoilers, but rather valuable information you need to know before reading the book so check that out if you want.

Also [Cloud Atlas] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)). Because it's pretty good and you should probably give it a read.
As for things to recommend back, please do! Sure my taste might be expansive (if you say so) but that means I am just more willing to take on whatever you suggest. Oh and do like Sci-Fi, but only certain authors and certain sci-fi. Please I'm not some neckbeard.

As for other things you should do, this Collegehumor [video] (http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6898570/kim-jong-un-launches-a-nuke) is pretty funny, and the rest of the series.

Don't really have much music to suggest, so we'll skip that this time round, plus this message is getting pretty long...

Okay so my favorite tea... it's a three way tie between Rooibos (Uniquely South African thing as far as I'm aware?), the Vanilla Chai tea from [Woolworths] (http://livingincheapluxury.wordpress.com/tag/woolworths-vanilla-chai-tea/) (their official site is down for maintainence). And this special Chai tea that I have no idea the name, only that I buy it from this guy who makes it himself and sells it for R100 for a 1kg burlap bag, which is a huge bargain! There is also a really nice tea cafe near to where I live that I really enjoy going to called [O'ways] (http://www.oways.co.za/), run by an asain couple who know be name now.

Right I think thats it for answering all your questions... That just leaves me with a question to ask back to you (without tradition what do we have?) <--- Not the question but feel free to elaborate. No what I want to know from you is; have you ever made a terrible decision, but stubbornly stuck with it to prove a point? If yes what was it and what was the outcome? (had to add the second part, because I foresaw you being a dick and just answering with a yes and leaving it [and if you just say no and leave it then I'll be upset, and will throw a massive tantrum]).

Dit het dankie vir die vraag! Ook beteken dit totsiens in Afrikaans.