The Little Prince. It’s beautiful and helps me re evaluate / question priorities.
Vonnegut impacted me to be a bit more fatalistic (“among the things he could not change were the past, present, and future”) and nihilistic in a positive way. Although not sure this is a positive overall for my personality. More sort of forgiving, e.g. the idea that people’s mistakes are due to their bad chemicals or faulty wiring. Suggest Cats Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, maybe Galapagos for starters.
Once A Runner, as a runner myself, crystallized for me a philosophy of striving for excellence at something that may not matter to anybody else. And I find it fun.
What I liked about Neal Stephenson’s Anathem was the “this too shall pass” perspective on human societies and civilizations outside the wall of the maths. Whatever the current government or technology levels or wars happen to be, blend together. It reminds me of the feeling you get in Jerusalem of being in a moment of history that is no more important than other times and is of one piece with them, rises and falls included. This probably connects to the nihilism again. Anyway.
I almost exclusively read fiction but I’ll mention Working by Studs Terkel, not fiction but certainly not self help or technical. Just helped me feel connected to parts of society I don’t experience.
Vonnegut impacted me to be a bit more fatalistic (“among the things he could not change were the past, present, and future”) and nihilistic in a positive way. Although not sure this is a positive overall for my personality. More sort of forgiving, e.g. the idea that people’s mistakes are due to their bad chemicals or faulty wiring. Suggest Cats Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5, maybe Galapagos for starters.
Once A Runner, as a runner myself, crystallized for me a philosophy of striving for excellence at something that may not matter to anybody else. And I find it fun.
What I liked about Neal Stephenson’s Anathem was the “this too shall pass” perspective on human societies and civilizations outside the wall of the maths. Whatever the current government or technology levels or wars happen to be, blend together. It reminds me of the feeling you get in Jerusalem of being in a moment of history that is no more important than other times and is of one piece with them, rises and falls included. This probably connects to the nihilism again. Anyway.
I almost exclusively read fiction but I’ll mention Working by Studs Terkel, not fiction but certainly not self help or technical. Just helped me feel connected to parts of society I don’t experience.