12 of the HARDEST Books Ever Written (and how they'll change you)

Comments · 720

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  @stephenpetro411 · 4 months ago · pinned

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• NI

  @nikhil-chandel-i4z · 4 months ago

  In ancient Greece, a young student once came to the philosopher Aristotle with a complaint.<br>&quot;Master,&quot; he said, &quot;I have studied for months. I read the scrolls, memorize the teachings, and listen to every lecture. Yet wisdom still escapes me.&quot;<br>Aristotle did not answer.<br>Instead, he handed the student a rough stone and pointed toward a mountain.<br>&quot;Carry this stone to the summit every morning.&quot;<br>The student obeyed. Day after day, he climbed the steep path carrying the heavy stone. Weeks passed. His shoulders ached. His patience wore thin.<br>Finally, he returned in frustration.<br>&quot;Master, what does this have to do with wisdom? I asked for knowledge, not labor!&quot;<br>Aristotle smiled and asked,<br>&quot;When you first climbed the mountain, what did you see?&quot;<br>&quot;Only the path.&quot;<br>&quot;And now?&quot;<br>The student paused.<br>&quot;Now I know where the ground becomes slippery after rain. I know where the wild goats rest at dawn. I know which rocks are stable and which only appear stable. I know where the sun first touches the valley.&quot;<br>Aristotle nodded.<br>&quot;You were so busy seeking an answer that you did not notice what the journey was teaching you.&quot;<br>Then he added:<br>&quot;Many men wish wisdom to arrive as a sentence. But wisdom usually arrives disguised as effort.&quot;<br>The student looked at the stone in his hands.<br>For the first time, he understood that learning is not collecting answers. It is becoming the kind of person who can recognize them.<br>The lesson: Knowledge is what you find. Wisdom is what you become while searching. 🌿📜

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• MI

  @milk-it · 3 months ago (edited)

  I’ve analysed all the philosophical texts in this video during my undergraduate degree and used Adorno’s Negative Dialectics with the aforementioned to contextualise and partly explain Günther Grass‘ Die Blechtrommel („The Tin Drum“). This yielded me a distinction for my 8,000 word essay written in German back in 2005, but it cost me a lot of sleepless nights. In my library at home, I have Adorno’s complete works from Suhrkamp, along with dozens of selected works from Hegel, Habermas, Foucault, Satre, Kant, Jameson, Deleuze, and Nietzsche. It’s honestly a labour of love reading, analysing and enjoying these texts.

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• DO

  @dooleyfan · 3 months ago

  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance starts off relatively straightforwardly, and yet in a manner that is still revelatory. Then it gets challenging. I read it first when I was about 18. When I went back to reread it in my forties, I recognized how much the book had shaped my thinking. The bit about what a shim “is” vs. what a shim “does” is ingrained in my DNA.

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• SA

  @sastracaksusa2728 · 3 months ago (edited)

  In the beginning of Geneology of Morals, Nietzsche talks about how his books are difficult, and how this is conducive to rumination. Like you said, the difficulty is intentional and part of the process.

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• MU

  @Musashi_Yojimbo · 2 months ago (edited)

  @<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=defE4aecMC8&amp;t=210">3:30</a> Reading &apos;Being and Time&apos; is a brutal 600-page lesson on what it means to <b>&apos;be there&apos;</b> and get through it.

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• TH

  @the_sheet · 3 months ago

  Gödel, Escher, Bach &nbsp;I bought it 15 years ago and went through some of the chapters. That process has stuck with me to this day. I recently found the book in storage and look forward to going through it again...

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• ID

  @idriskapasi2698 · 4 months ago

  Books that are hard, hard to read because they have nuances in them because of those authors, they have given their entire lives to get to where they are.

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• NE

  @NewCaffrey · 2 months ago (edited)

  AMAZING VIDEO. Loved the choices, the commentaries are brief and valid (not simple vulgarizations) and the speaker is very eloquent. Congrats 🎉🎉🎉🎉

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• NI

  @nikhil-chandel-i4z · 4 months ago

  &quot;Śrotavyaḥ Mantavyaḥ Nididhyāsitavyaḥ&quot;<br>&quot;First listen, then reflect, then deeply internalize.&quot;<br>This famous learning framework from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes a complete path from information to wisdom. The first stage, Śravaṇa (Learning), involves acquiring knowledge through listening, reading, or study. The second stage, Manana (Metacognition), requires actively examining that knowledge—questioning assumptions, connecting ideas, and testing understanding through reflection. The third stage, Nididhyāsana (Deep Integration), is the process of repeatedly contemplating and applying the knowledge until it becomes a natural part of one&apos;s thinking and behavior. This method transforms learning from mere memorization into genuine understanding and lasting wisdom. 📚✨

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• EC

  @EcstaticTemporality · 3 months ago

  I loved reading Being and Time. Tractatus is next!

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• WI

  @willieluncheonette5843 · 4 months ago

  &quot;The great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, &nbsp;is a specimen of those people who are absolutely in the mind. He lived according to mind so totally that people used to set their watches, whenever they saw Immanuel Kant going to the university. <br> <br>Never – it may rain, it may rain fire, it may rain cats and dogs, it may be utterly cold, snow falling… Whatever the situation, Kant will reach the university at exactly the same time all the year round, even on holidays. Such a fixed, almost mechanical… He would go on holiday at exactly the same time, remain in the university library, which was specially kept open for him, because otherwise what would he do there the whole day? And he was a very prominent, well-known philosopher, and he would leave the university at exactly the same time every day. <br> <br>One day it happened… It had rained and there was too much mud on the way – one of his shoes got stuck in the mud. He did not stop to take the shoe out because that would make him reach the university a few seconds later, and that was impossible. He left the shoe there. He just arrived with one shoe. The students could not believe it. Somebody asked, “What happened to the other shoe?” <br> <br>He said, “It got stuck in the mud, so I left it there, knowing perfectly well nobody is going to steal one shoe. When I return in the evening, then I will pick it up. But I could not have been late.” <br> <br>A woman proposed to him: “I want to be married to you” – a beautiful young woman. Perhaps no woman has ever received such an answer, before or after Immanuel Kant. Either you say, “Yes,” or you say, “No. Excuse me.” Immanuel Kant said, “I will have to do a great deal of research.” <br> <br>The woman asked, “About what?” <br> <br>He said, “I will have to look in all the marriage manuals, all the books concerning marriage, and find out all the pros and cons — whether to marry or not to marry.” <br> <br>The woman could not imagine that this kind of answer had ever been given to any woman before. Even no is acceptable, even yes, although you are getting into a misery, but it is acceptable. But this kind of indifferent attitude towards the woman – he did not say a single sweet word to her. He did not say anything about her beauty, his whole concern was his mind. He had to convince his mind whether or not marriage is logically the right thing. <br> <br>It took him three years. It was really a long search. Day and night he was working on it, and he had found three hundred reasons against marriage and three hundred reasons for marriage. So the problem even after three years was the same. <br> <br>One friend suggested out of compassion, “You wasted three years on this stupid research. In three years you would have experienced all these six hundred, without any research. You should have just said yes to that woman. There was no need to do so much hard work. Three years would have given you all the pros and cons – existentially, experientially.” <br> <br>But Kant said, “I am in a fix. Both are equal, parallel, balanced. There is no way to choose.” <br> <br>The friend suggested, “Of the pros you have forgotten one thing: that whenever there is a chance, it is better to say yes and go through the experience. That is one thing more in favor of the pros. The cons cannot give you any experience, and only experience has any validity.” <br> <br>He understood, it was intellectually right. He immediately went to the woman’s house, knocked on her door. Her old father opened the door and said, “Young man, you are too late. You took too long in your research. My girl is married and has two children.” <br> <br>That was the last thing that was ever heard about his marriage. From then on no woman ever asked him, and he was not the kind of man to ask anybody. He remained unmarried. <br> <br>The mind is very impotent in a way. It cannot give you any existential juice, any existential experience, and that is the only thing that matters.&quot;

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