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Trifoilum

Trifoilum

find wisdom, build hope.
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  • yepunsarang
    Trifoilum! Thanks for the rep! :) We should talk sometime about this~~ I'd love to, since a lot of the pals I am used to talking about these kinds of things are oddly away from my life. I'm actually going to study abroad in Italy starting this Sunday. Although it's making me a bit nervous, I'm hoping it will help liberate me and perhaps get on a roll. :p Talk to you soon!
    KazeCraven
    Ah, it has gone okay. As usual, I guess, the classes seem a bit less interesting once we go from broad concepts to nitty gritty details, but nothing too terribly stressful. I've been thinking about the issue of what exactly people are doing when they engage in conversation, and why it is that I rarely have anything to say unless it is specifically about elaborating on concepts (though I do tend to have something).

    I have so far concluded that it is due, primarily, from a lack of forming opinions about little issues in life. For example, my friend in my Psychology of Thinking class comments on the issue of the professor's attire being much less ridiculous than last class, but of course I didn't notice (and if I had, I'd likely not make a comment about it). I wonder if people intentionally exaggerate their opinions and emotions to make social life more interesting.

    I thought of this, because I've started writing recently, and I've noticed in my writing class that what's important in the story isn't necessarily the truth, but rather the credibility and being able to catch the reader's attention with a story.
    KazeCraven
    Small Talk--Big Cure: Talking Your Way to A Better Life by David M. Shave

    And yeah, if I'm just skimming through the books, I often feel like I'm missing a lot of the subtleties that are supposed to be there. It's, I suppose, more of a cerebral humor (though I know plenty of T-types that would MUCH prefer a dirty joke, so I think there's more to it than that).
    KazeCraven
    That book was basically going over both why we should care about small talk (what problems it solves) and how it works. The guy, David Shave, is an MD and he talked about how people would get into the habit of talking to people (by his direction) and then come in one day, suddenly cured of their phobia or depression or whatever.

    I'd have to say my kind of humor would have to be the kind where someone uses a subtle double entendre (an insult disguised as a complement, for example). Actually in the Fountainhead, there were lots of these, as well as... I guess you'd call them paradoxical situations, where some character is expected to say something, but sticks to a rule of, say, being very obedient and polite which actually causes the person to be rather insulting.

    For example, Dominique married Peter Keating in order to punish herself (kinda hard to explain without getting into her philosophy), and she obeyed him exactly as he asked her to. She was the good wife and pleasant host, who never crossed her husband. However, Peter eventually decides that he has a problem with this because it's too... well, formal I guess. Like, you'd expect to have a few quarrels with anyone you're close to, but the politeness and obedience that Dominique gave him was actually a barrier. The conversation regarding this I found rather amusing.

    Oh, and I should add that I almost always skip to the first point where there's a lot of dialog, because I really don't care about the setting. This usually means I skip the first chapter.
    KazeCraven
    No problem on the blog, though I should point out that I've taken some pretty bad roads both by ignoring and by listening to my emotions. I try to stay realistic, but sometimes I go too far and emphasize something that might be less important than I thought.

    I wouldn't get your hopes up too high about philosophical novels. To the uninterested, they can be very dry and dull. I haven't read TVTropes, but I think I know where you're coming from. Really many of the types of novels I like have a kind of witty humor that most people (I think) roll their eyes to, or miss completely.

    Also, the small talk book basically goes over the fact that people when growing up find that they have all kinds of problems with the world (it's not perfect) and so they seek their mother for consolation. As they grow, they find their mother cannot meet all their needs anymore, so they have to connect with (complain to, find similarity with, etc) other people. Thus the idea is that even for people who dislike small talk, they'll find that just by getting comfortable with chatting with people that many of their psychological problems just vanish.

    My algorithm for finding a good book (assuming I can't find any recommendations I can look up directly) is to scan a shelf, pick a book by a title that looks promising, open to the table of contents to see if any topic is interesting, then flip to that section and figure out whether the style and information is agreeable. If the book is an introductory one, I'll typically just read the preface and then decide if I want to go further.

    For novels, it's just a matter of picking one and reading until I finish or until I get bored. They're harder to sift through.
    KazeCraven
    You can reply as late as you want.

    I'm not sure how uncommon they'd be, but it does have to be a rather unusual conflict which stems from the people's philosophies, I think. For example, someone could pull up a philosophy that is pretty often used, but focus on a problem with it that isn't often thought about, and I think that would have some potential as a philosophical novel.

    Hmmm, well, as far as picking books I'd have to say that I pick them all by choice, but the thing is I might get bored and start picking books randomly and flipping through them until I find something interesting. I think that's what happened when I read the astronomy book, and that's definitely what happened when I read a book about small talk.

    So, you've been gone a while. Been up to a lot?
    KazeCraven
    I think what makes a book a philosophical novel is that the problem is due to the philosophy or that it advocates a particular (and often controversial or uncommon) philosophy. For example, Ayn Rand's work makes her protagonists embody her philosophy of Objectivism. Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf deals with the main character's internal conflict, which is due to his own philosophy. I guess there's not a clear distinction, but if you can't really say what the book is about without pointing to and expanding on the philosophies within in it...

    Actually, probably the best way to distill it would be to point out that it focuses on making the reader think about his own philosophy rather than just pitting good against evil; selfish against selfless. A philosophical novel that doesn't bring anything new to the philosophical table isn't a good philosophical novel, I guess I could say.

    And I can read a book in one sitting, but I usually read only a few chapters at a time (maybe 2-4 hours) if it's fiction. Nonfiction I tend to just flip through, or dip into a couple of sections in the middle, regardless of how easy of a read it is. Unless, of course, it is an introductory course to something I've never learned much about (I've spent about 6 hours reading an astronomy textbook so that I could grasp the general idea of what a black hole is and where it comes from, from a scientific standpoint.)
    MrWindUpBird
    His books are definitely terrifying and charmingly, nonchalantly bleak and depressing. But yes, very compelling. Go for Hard-Boiled Wonderland if you like science fiction. I have it in PDF form if you want it.
    KazeCraven
    Pretty much any major research university is going to be like this book-wise. I have all the philosophy and psychology I could ever want to read (well, almost). Actually, they might also keep classic literature books too, I'll have to double check.

    On philosophical novels: the ones that are really good base their conflicts on ideologies. I guess the difference is that the people do some strange things, but it makes sense when you trace it back to the ideologies they stand for. I also can relate a lot more to people in existential crises and such, whereas everyday external conflicts are more just nuisances to me and thus are less meaningful to read about.

    Oh, and metaphysics and stuff like that... very confusing to get a hold of deeply. In fact, it's actually rather hard to define what metaphysics is (though the best approximation is "the study of ultimate reality"). I wouldn't recommend reading beyond the preface unless you're really into highly abstract, philosophical ideas.
    MrWindUpBird
    His writing _is_ scary! Keeps me awake pondering life, the universe, and everything when I need to be asleep so I can get up for class, hahaha. You should read "Kafka on the Shore" or "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" if you haven't yet. Or if you like being depressed try "South of the Border, West of the Sun."
    Melkor
    Very deviant.

    You seem to suffering from the delusion that I *want* to talk to you.
    KazeCraven
    Thanks Trifoilum. I'll do my best.

    Philosophers... are a weird bunch, to say the least. I think that's because they are bent on building logical frameworks and coming to deeper understanding about things. They take all kinds of information and try to logically induct universal truths, which can get really wonky, cryptic, and confusing. You should read how some philosophers wax poetically about the wisdom that metaphysics alone is able to impart, and other odd beliefs.

    I'd have to say that my favorite novels have mostly been philosophical novels. They'd include Ishmael, Steppenwolf, and The Fountainhead. I've read quite a few high fantasy and science fiction books in my young childhood, so it's difficult to say which ones I'd actually like now, but I really enjoyed the Redwall series, The City of Gold and Lead, the Dune series, and the first half of the Sword of Truth series. Oftentimes it's just a few key scenes that bump a book up to the favorite list.

    University libraries are primarily research libraries, so if you've typically got several floors of books ranging across all kinds of academic subjects. There's usually an entire shelf devoted to, say, the works of Aristotle specifically, but then there's usually the same number of general reading books off to the side in the lobby. Here they've got a general academic library, a science&engineering library, a theology library, a law library, a biomedical library, and an education library (about a library for each school).
    KazeCraven
    Out of curiosity I googled Sisyphus, and realized that he's the guy who had to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, over and over for all eternity. Camus equates this to the absurdity of human life. In short, yeah, what you say about the meaningless journey is what he's getting at. Not that I agree with the philosophy, I just like reading philosophy texts (like this one) and philosophical novels.

    When I go for novels, I usually read high fantasy or science fiction, though I realized while looking around today that I'd have to purchase a library card since I'm not a resident here. The university library keeps a few novels though, so hopefully I'll find something good there.

    How about you, do you read much?

    And about life paths: I guess we'll have to see. With the direction I'm taking now, if nothing else I'll learn a great deal about myself.
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