I promised @chocobean that I would talk about my recent turn to Christianity, so here goes.

The short, trite answer is that I’m taking a leap of faith on a few mystical experiences, and because I’ve run out of spiritual options. Everything else I have tried to do with my life has come up short. A lot of this outcome results from a traumatic early childhood formed, perhaps ironically, in part from Christian religious abuse. In some way perhaps I am trying to synthesize and re-narrate that experience. But also, I really want to go to a Church that is fun, fulfilling, challenging, and does progressive good in the world. There just ain’t a lot of those to choose from, so I figure I need to start my own. For a little more detail, read on. You can skip to the last two paragraphs for a little more reasoned “why Christianity here and now,” independent of my experience.

I was born into a fundamentalist family. Lots of rules, hell, purity, that sort of thing. Very traumatic, and I mean clinical trauma. I left the church in high school thanks to drugs and some smart people, but I maintained a kind of love affair (infatuation?) with good preaching. Something deep inside me responds to the gospel message. I cry when I listen to Jesus Christ Superstar, and a passionate preacher with a good heart, and great gospel music. This is likely tied to suffering-religion at its best helps us grieve and carry on, find joy in a broken world.

One time in college, after a psychedelic party, I found myself unable to sleep, a common side effect I experienced from LSD. I turned on the local gospel station, and suddenly was struck with the urge to go to church. This was black folks gospel, and so I wanted to go to a black church. There was one I knew about, and I have no idea how it was in my consciousness. It was called Life Community Church in Durham, NC. I put on my best suit, tied my tie, and with dilated eyes and doughy disposition I set off. I arrived at precisely 10:30, the service time identified on the marquee.

You may be familiar with black folks time, which is often most evident at church. Black folks time is about moving when the spirit moves you. When I arrived, on white folks time, the church was half-full. It met in an old movie theater, the kind with hundreds of seats. I was ushered to a seat, which was basically the next available seat, they were filled sequentially from the front. This was different from other churches I attended, where members generally seat themselves in their customary location, a respectful distance from others.

There was a large, energetic gospel ensemble delivering the real gospel goods. Large choir, lots of electric instruments, percussion. Everybody dressed better than I was. And I did my best to keep up, clapping hands and shouting and grinning. I was all in.

After a while, the pastor came on stage, a 6’8 Nigerian native. He made a few comments, and invited us to pass the peace. In a white church, this takes a couple minutes, and you politely smile and shake the hands of the people around you. At Life Community, however, everybody left their seats and wandered around giving hugs and smiles and lots of time to each other. No idea how long we were at that, but I did notice that space was now standing room only.

Then the preacher was joined by his 5’4 (at most) Guatemalan wife, who greeted us cheerfully before the pastor began his sermon. It was all mostly about leading a decent life, strong families, moderation, godliness, fairly conservative socially. I was riveted to every word, I clapped and shouted and prayed.
When everything was finally over, and I had been repeatedly and warmly welcomed and invited to come back, I finally made it to my car and noted the time: 3:30 p.m.! And I knew then, this was what I wanted to do with my life-bring this kind of joy, and be a channel of this kind of power.

I didn’t have any real religion then, however, wrongly thinking that was some kind of requirement, and so I left the dream on the table. I went on to become a drug addict, get clean, get married, have kids and begin life as a lawyer.

When the kids started to get mobile, their mom and I decided we ought to go to church, that it would be good for the kids morals, provide community, that sort of thing. I was buddhist/atheist/soft new age, not really in on the Jesus thing, but it seemed right. We found a church with a great garden out front and a pride sticker on the door, and headed in. Compared to Life Community Church, the preaching was good, but not as passionate, though the message more closely aligned with my values.

The best part of the experience was Sunday school, however, and I even taught a couple classes, really enjoyed doing the bible study part of it. I started paying more attention and getting more involved. We brought in Nadia Bolz-Weber as guest preacher one Sunday. Nadia is a powerful preacher, and her work in Colorado was very promising for a time. While she was preaching, I had a mystical experience, a feeling of lightness and an urgent awareness that I should be up there doing that same thing. My (now Ex) wife was surprisingly into the idea, and so were the pastors. I went and toured a seminary in pursuit of the call. But at the seminary I was like, there is no way I can spend three years with these people, and I still wasn’t really a believer, so I let the moment pass. It’s one of the few regrets I have in life, following the call then may have led to my marriage having a very different outcome. Alas for life choices.

Come forward a few years, the marriage has dissolved bitterly, I have come out of denial about how awful my childhood was and how dysfunction of a human I had become, and how much my kids suffered as a result. Among my many ongoing efforts to remedy this, I found myself at a spiritual retreat in what is known in some circles (mainly Quaker) as a “Clearness Committee.” It’s a space where someone with some kind of intractable problem becomes the subject of a conclave of caring folks. I was there to figure out career transition. There were some q and a, some breathwork, and in the middle of a silent spot someone asked the shockingly straightforward question, “what do you really want to do?”

The answer in my mind was immediately, “I want to preach.” And almost as immediately, a voice came into mind “you can’t do that,” coupled with a profound fear of saying so out loud. I knew from previous spiritual work this was a sign that I should immediately take the contrary action, and so spoke it out.

Now, this was not a Christian gathering, but as it happened, the person who asked the question was a Christian pastor, and she gave me some names and numbers of people to talk to. As it also happened, she used to work for a guy in my current Church, who, as it further happened, was the past president of a prestigious divinity school. This was my favorite guy in Church, and so I talked to him, and here we are. A lot of yes all in a row.

So, it’s really a gamble on a set of experiences I don’t fully understand about a God I barely believe in. But I knew almost instantly as soon as I arrived in divinity school that I was doing the right thing. I still don’t believe, but I have made a decision to act in faith anyway. From an intellectual point of view, I have a strong impulse to do something, anything, to try and bring some goodness to the world. And since, in my estimation, for better or worse, America is a Christian nation, it seems Church could be an effective vehicle for that. Plus, I really do want to be a preacher.

I was about to end there because it sounded cool, but I want to say a little more about why Christianity might be especially good for my values, and for the West. More than just custom and tradition, I’m discovering that a lot of the way I think about the existence of the world is really Christian in nature. Most intellectuals since the 18th century or so would point to Plato, or more recently, to chaos as the proper way to order a mind. But in practice, most people are espousing a neo-Platonist Christian kind of justice and morality. In a super short sentence, this is that creation and humanity were made for each other. Ten years ago I would have said, and a large part of me still believes, the truth is more a kind of Manifestatum ex Chao of both together, and perhaps there is nothing particularly special about humanity. However, most people, practically at least, seem to recognize that rational ordering exists uniquely in the human mind alongside a more programmatic animal nature. They also seem to believe in the notion of goodness. Many humanists argue that we can be “good without God,” however, as far as I can tell they arguing about a goodness which is derived from Christian scholarship (love your neighbor). Even if I’m wrong on that, and/or they are right about the uselessness of God for good, most people in the way they act suggest an assumption that true compassion flows from the Christian God. As a result, I think the best way to foment good for most people here where I am geographically is within the Christian religious framework.

Finally, I’m partial to the notion of classical (medieval?) professionalism: a professional is one who professes a noble principle, i.e. clergy profess goodness, educators profess truth, military officers, peace, lawyers, justice, physicians, health, and artists, beauty.

I often tell myself that I'm "already dead". I lost my ego long ago and I often don't mind looking dumb or making mistakes, because at the end of the day, why does it matter? We're all going to die and my existence will not change the earth's future.

Thinking this way has GREATLY helped me look forward to the future and reach true happiness. It feels like whatever happens, I've already reached rock bottom so I can only go ahead.

Having said that, ever since 2016, every year has been better than the last. I now have a good fulfilling career, I have a very good group of friends, I'm good financially and I have all the freedom in the world.

Why do I live? I live for experiences, I live to create memories, I live to explore, I live to create, I live to better myself.

So, what are your reasons? I'm always curious about other people's life stories.

Oftentimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed when listening to music that speaks to me. I feel vivid imagery cover the landscape in my mind's eye, as if a custom made music video was being created on the spot to accompany the sound.

I encounter a frustrating obstacle when considering how to best translate this surge of inspiration into art. I know exactly what I want to create but feel limited by a lack of experience in animation, modeling, illustration etc. and the time it would take to approximate my vision. Altogether, it becomes discouraging and the idea withers before it has a chance to blossom.

My question to the creatively-minded is this—what strategies are deployed to counteract your self-doubt before it undermines your inspiration?

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Thank you for any wisdom offered. The tildes community is special and dear to my heart ♡

When I was about 18 years old, I had a philosophy class where the teacher said this quote: "Things over which you do not have power should not have power over you." It could also be read as "control the things you control, ignore the rest".

That lesson really spoke to me. I put a lot of effort integrating it into my personality and I must say now, almost 15 years later, it made my life so much more enjoyable.

I used to get mad, really mad about stuff or get stressed about stuff out of my control, and I could never really remove those feelings. These words kept coming back to me and through some effort, I must say that I can more or less apply them in my everyday life now. It saved me a lot of trouble on various situations and has helped me break through problems way faster than I would have in the past, simply by helping me identify the things I could change and focus on those things.

I'm curious about you guys and your life stories. Has any lesson had as much impact on your life?

I've found error theory, emotivism, etc. quite compelling, but I noticed that most philosophers are moral realists, though PhilPapers doesn't ask specifically about moral objectivism. As a non-philosopher, I feel that there may be considerations that I haven't come across. The SEP entry seems a bit lacking to me considering it's just a supplement to the entry on moral anti-realism, and there doesn't seem to be an IEP entry specifically focused on moral objectivism, just a tiny section in the entry on moral realism.

There was a question on reddit about whether rich people ever think about all the poor and starving people who are suffering while they live in luxury. It got me thinking about the "rich" more broadly, as many of the people like me who are on the internet are part of the global 1% if not the local.

I think a lot of rich people dont like to think about the idea that maybe the truly morally right thing to do would be to give up all their money and work a day job like everyone else.

So they try to avoid thinking about it at all to avoid having to constantly feel guilty about not doing the thing they know is right. Making a contribution to helping others just opens you up to other people or even your own conscience saying you could be doing more, and youll never be able to do enough to fully justify not doing so. Or alternatively you can embrace selfishness and give up on constantly trying to be a better person and never have to think about it again.

Maybe its easy to look at some billionaire and say they could lose 1/2 their money and not notice any change in their lifestyle, so they should be considered morally contemptable for not even offering a fraction of that when it could make such a difference for so many. But somewhere between that and living in poverty, there has got to be some line where your right to take care of yourself and your right to try and invest in your own future stops outweighing the shame of allowing the evils of the world to go unchallenged.

Then there is a fuzzy region around that line where its ambiguous whether you are doing enough good in the world or if you should feel morally compelled to change how you are living your life. And I think its probable the for a lot of people the place where they envision all their dreams coming true is somewhere on the negative end of the spectrum. So if your dream is to be a famous movie star, for example, at some point that dream might not be compatible with your moral imoerative to oppose classism.

Personally I hate having to work an office job. If I got the chance to make a fortune Id build a cabin in the woods and have food delivered to me and never have to deal with anything ever again. But doing so would be selfish. So I guess if I ever had the opportunity Id be corrupted by riches in a heartbeat. Which is kind of a downer of an ending to this line of thought.

I'm not sure if this would be better for ~music, ~tech, or what, but after messing around with Udio for a bit, I made some stuff I liked and wanted to get folks' thoughts. Imo, it's incredible to be able to get music from a text prompt - it means I, as someone who is mostly ignorant to music production, can have my musical idea and actually render that out as music for someone to hear. I can think "damn that would be cool" and then in kind of a fuzzy way, make it happen then and there. Whether it's good, I don't know. That's not up to me, really, but it is the kind of sound I wanted to happen, so I'm left conflicted on how to feel about it. Figured it would be worthwhile to show folks some of it, and see what they think.

I do enjoy synth and metal, so there's a lot of that in these. Feel free to be as critical as you like. If I can apply your criticism I will try to do it, and if you want to see how that works out, I'll share.

1. Cosmoterrestrial
2. A Floyd, Pinkly
3. Empire's Demise, Foretold
4. Metal for Ghosts Bedsheet Edition (the very end of this one is hilariously appropriate)
5. Multi-3DS Drifting

And here's a link to my profile, if you would like to browse. It will update too when I put more up.

They're all instrumental. Lyrical music is less appealing to me in general and Udio's voices do sound kinda weird to me more often than not. The way I made the tracks, I would start with a clip combining some genres/moods, and then add to either end of the clip until I had a complete song. Along the way, I could introduce new elements/transitions by using more text/tweaking various settings and flipping "manual mode" on and off. The results were fuzzy; I didn't always get what I wanted, but I could keep trying until I did, or until I got something that sounded "better". I wrote all the titles after the song was finished. The album art is from a text prompt.

I'm not sure what I think, to be honest. On the one hand, a lot of the creative decision-making wasn't mine. On the other, the song would not be what it is without me making decisions about how it came about and what feelings/moods/genres were focused upon/utilized. I think the best I can say is "use the tool and see whether it's enough to count". To me it feels almost 50/50, like I've "collaborated with my computer" rather than "made music". Does it matter? If the sound is the intended sound, the sound I hoped to make and wanted to share, is that enough to say it is "my music"? Is this perhaps just what it looks like to be a beginner in a different paradigm?

When I used Suno, I had a much more rigid opinion. What it produced, I called "computer spit". Because, all I could actually control was telling it to continue, changing the prompt, and giving it structure/genre tags that felt like a coin flip in terms of effectiveness. I had a really hard time trying to get it to keep/recall melody, and my attempts to guide it along felt more like gambling than deliberate decisions. It also couldn't keep enough in context to make the overall song consistent with respect to instrumentation. It's different with Udio, both because you have a lot of additional tools, and because it feels like those tools work more consistently at making the model do what you want. I still call the results "computer spit" where I've shown them off, but I'm unsure now whether the production has enough of myself in it to be something more. Perhaps not on the same level as something someone produced by playing an instrument, or choosing samples/arranging things in software, but also not quite the same as the computer just rolling along, with me going "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". Maybe these distinctions don't actually matter, but I'd be curious if anyone has thoughts along these lines.

I'm intentionally trying to avoid a discussion about the morality of the thing or what political/social ramifications it has, not because I don't care about that but because I'm in the middle of trying to understand the tool and what its results mean. Would you consider what I've posted here work I could claim as my own, or do you think the computer has enough of a role to say it's not? Is my role in the production large enough? Or perhaps you have a stronger position, that nothing the computer can possibly do in this way counts as original music. Does any of this change that position for you? I ask because I've gone through a lot of opinions myself as I've been following things, and one interesting bit is that I have not gotten any copyright notices when I've uploaded the music to Youtube (I did get notices with Suno's music). As far as I can tell, with what is available to me, this is all original.

And of course, the most important one: Did you like it? Is there something you think would make them better? Do they all suffer from something I'm not seeing/hearing? I'm not an expert technician nor a music producer, so perhaps my ignorant ears are leading me astray. Either way, I've had a ton of fun doing this, and the results to my ear are fun to listen to while I'm doing stuff. I wouldn't call any of it the best music I've ever heard, but I can also think of a lot that is worse. I think what I wonder the most is whether it comes off bland/plain. Most of the folks I show things to are a bit too caught up in being astounded/disturbed to really give me much feedback, so perhaps putting the request in this form will work out a bit better - ya'll have time to think on it.

As always, your time and attention is greatly appreciated

Edit: I should clarify. I am not attempting to be a musician. Hence calling it "computer spit" with anything public, and the lack of any effort to pitch it as something I did only on my own. Rather, I recognize the limit of my own understanding, and felt I'd hit a point where my ignorance of production meant I could not judge the results as well as I'd like. That means it's time to engage some folks because folks out there are likely to know what I do not and see things I can't. From that angle, a lot of the discussion is very interesting, and I'll be responding to those in a bit. But there's no need to argue for doing the work - I recognize that. I'm trying to see past my own horizons with a medium I don't put the work into. I'm a consumer of music, not a creator, so getting some perspective from folks more acquainted with creating and with the technology is really what I'm after in sharing the experience.

Edit again: Thank you all for a very interesting discussion. I had a spare evening/morning and this was a good use of it. For the sake of tying a bow on the whole thing, I'll share my takeaways as succinctly as I can manage.

It seems, at present, and at best, the role these tools can play is of a sort of personal noise generator. The output is not of sufficient interest, quality, complexity, etc., to really be regarded the same as human-produced music, is the overall impression I have been left with. And for other reasons, it may be that the fuzziness of it all is a permanent feature, and thus a permanent constraint on how far toward "authentic" the results can ever get. I was trying to avoid a discussion about my own creativity, the value of doing work, societal ramifications, etc., so I'll work on how to present things better. For what it's worth, this has all been part of what I do creatively - my area of study was philosophy, and the goal of that to my mind has always been "achieving clarity". So I am attempting to achieve clarity with things as they develop, as a hobby sort of interest while I'm busy doing completely different stuff and to better protect my own mind against dumb marketing and hype. So once again, I appreciate you all taking the time, and I wish you all well in all the things you do.

I have this notion that we're entering a new fuzzy era of rejecting the hyper technological stream that we've been on since the 90's. I notice people now wanting to use their phones for longer (e.g. not replacing them every 2 years because it's the trend) and I feel there's a push back towards certain things like touchscreens in cars being reverted back to clicky buttons.

Sure, there are these crazy developments happening in science. A.I. is changing so fast it's hard to keep up with, and we're going back to the moon! (I say we because it's a human endeavor goddamn it).

But there also seems to be this realization that we might have strained Earth a little too much and that we need to tend to Earth, and ourselves a little bit more.

For reference, I'm a millennial born in '89.

There have been a number of threads recently that have touched on this topic recently, and I thought the conversation deserved its own place.

My default worldview for the past decade+ has been something best characterized as naturalistic or materialist (the totality of reality can be explained by material and its interactions.) I've had a few things challenge this view recently, namely the "Hard Problem of Consciousness." I'll post my own comment about what moved me from hard materialist to agnostic on materialism, but I encourage you to post your own reasoning in your comment!

Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.

The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.

Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.

Things that probably fit the prompt:

• Minority religions
• Native beliefs/cultures
• Highly syncretic beliefs
• Non-western religions or beliefs
• "Pagan" beliefs
• Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices

Things that might not fit the prompt

• Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
• Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition

I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.

This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.

Hello everyone,

I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that
I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth
living because of what they imply. Hopefully someone here will offer me a new
perspective on them that will give me a more positive outlook on life.

(1) Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

I think that, if we do not take religious beliefs into account, humanity is
doomed to go extinct, and therefore, everything we do is ultimately for nothing,
as the end result will always be the same: an empty and silent universe devoid of human
life and consciousness.

I think that humanity is doomed to go extinct, because it needs a source of
energy (e.g. the Sun) to survive. However, the Sun will eventually die and life
on Earth will become impossible. Even if we colonize other habitable planets,
the stars they are orbiting will eventually die too, so on and so forth until
every star in the universe has died and every planet has become inhabitable.
Even if we manage to live on an artificial planet, or in some sort of human-made
spaceship, we will still need a source of energy to live off of, and one day there
will be none left.
Therefore, the end result will always be the same: a universe devoid of human
life and consciousness with the remnants of human civilization (and Elon Musk's Tesla)
silently floating in space as a testament to our bygone existence. It then does not
matter if we develop economically, scientifically, and technologically; if we end
world hunger and cure cancer; if we bring poverty and human suffering to an end, etc.;
we might as well put an end to our collective existence today. If we try to live a happy
life nonetheless, we'll still know deep down that nothing we do really matters.

Why do anything at all, if all we do is ultimately for nothing?

(2) Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead
to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

I also think that if, in a remote future, humanity has managed to develop
civilization to its fullest extent, having founded every company imaginable;
having proved every theorem, run every experiment and conducted every scientific
study possible; having invented every technology conceivable; having automated
all meaningful work there is: how then will we manage to find fulfilment in life
through work?

At such time, all work, and especially all fulfilling work, will have already
been done or automated by someone else, so there will be no work left to do.

If we fall back to leisure, I believe that we will eventually run out of
leisurely activities to do. We will have read every book, watched every
movie, played every game, eaten at every restaurant, laid on every beach,
swum in every sea: we will eventually get bored of every hobby there is and
of all the fun to be had. (Even if we cannot literally read every book or watch
every movie there is, we will still eventually find their stories and plots to be
similar and repetitive.)

At such time, all leisure will become unappealing and boring.

Therefore, when we reach that era, we will become unable to find fulfillment and
happiness in life neither through work nor through leisure. We will then not
have much to do, but to wait for our death.

In that case, why live and work to develop civilization and solve all of the
world's problems if doing so will eventually lead us to a state of unfulfillment,
boredom and misery? How will we manage to remain happy even then?

I know that these scenarios are hypothetical and will only be relevant in a
very far future, but I find them disturbing and they genuinely bother me, in the
sense that their implications seem to rationally make life not worth living.

I'd appreciate any thoughts and arguments that could help me put these ideas into
perspective and put them behind me, especially if they can settle these questions for
good and definitively prove these reasonings to be flawed or wrong, rather than offer
coping mechanisms to live happily in spite of them being true.

Thank you for engaging with these thoughts.

Edit.

After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:

Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

• My argument about the extinction of humanity seems logical, but we could very well eventually find out that it is totally wrong. We may not be doomed to go extinct, which means that what we do wouldn't be for nothing, as humanity would keep benefitting from it perpetually.
• We are at an extremely early stage of the advancement of science, when looking at it on a cosmic timescale. Over such a long time, we may well come to an understanding of the Universe that allows us to see past the limits I've outlined in my original post.
• (Even if it's all for nothing, if we enjoy ourselves and we do not care that it's pointless, then it will not matter to us that it's all for nothing, as the fun we're having makes life worthwhile in and of itself. Also, if what we do impacts us positively right now, even if it's all for nothing ultimately, it will still matter to us as it won't be for nothing for as long as humanity still benefits from it.)

Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

• This is not possible, because we'd either have the meaningful work of improving our situation (making ourselves fulfilled and happy), or we would be fulfilled and happy, even if there was no work left.
• I have underestimated for how long one can remain fulfilled with hobbies alone, given that one has enough hobbies. One could spend the rest of their lives doing a handful of hobbies (e.g., travelling, painting, reading non-fiction, reading fiction, playing games) and they would not have enough time to exhaust all of these hobbies.
• We would not get bored of a given food, book, movie, game, etc., because we could cycle through a large number of them, and by the time we reach the end of the cycle (if we ever do), then we will have forgotten the taste of the first foods and the stories of the first books and movies. Even if we didn't forget the taste of the first foods, we would not have eaten them frequently at all, so we would not have gotten bored of them. Also, there can be a lot of variation within a game like Chess or Go. We might get bored of Chess itself, but then we could simply cycle through several games (or more generally hobbies), and come back to the first game with renewed eagerness to play after some time has passed.
• One day we may have the technology to change our nature and alter our minds to not feel bored, make us forget things on demand, increase our happiness, and remove negative feelings.

Recommended readings (from the commenters)

• Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Nick Bostrom
• The Fun Theory Sequence by Eliezer Yudkowski
• The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
• Into the Cool by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan
• Permutation City by Greg Egan
• Diaspora by Greg Egan
• Accelerando by Charles Stross
• The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
• The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
• Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund
• Uncaused cause arguments
• The Meaningness website (recommended starting point) by David Chapman
• Optimistic Nihilism (video) by Kurzgesagt

I've recently found myself reaching for some of my favorite philosophy books as I enter another year of navigating a chaotic, painful world, and navigating my own depression and quest for meaning within it. Exploring philosophy really helps give me the language and mental framework to make sense and meaning out of an existence that often overwhelms me with fear and meaninglessness.

One big problem, though: a lot of philosophy books absolutely suck to read. They're overlong, impenetrably dense, and often awkwardly translated from another language.

TL;DR:
Can anyone recommend approachable, readable philosophy (or philosophy-adjacent) books that can help me navigate the world, find reasons to live, and develop a durable sense of meaning?

Some more background info: The philosophies that have resonated most with me over the years are the works of Camus, the broader world of existentialists and existentialist-adjacent philosophies, stoicism, and utilitarianism. While I recognize that things like logic, epistemology, and religion are important branches of philosophy I'm more interested in things that help me navigate the daily questions of existence such as meaning, suffering, purpose, and so on.

The most impactful philosophical ideas I've ever encountered are those of Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus' conception of the absurd and the challenges of navigating it resonated so deeply with me that it essentially kickstarted my entire interest in philsophy. Before that I had never done any philosophical reading that felt like it really applied to me. Suddenly it felt like Camus had taken what was in my brain and put it on the page. However, I still consider the Myth of Sisyphus not an approachable, readable philosophy book, and not really a good book at all. I found his philosophy impactful despite the fact that it's overly long, often boring, and weighed down by an English translation that may have been good in the 1950s but in the 21st century is extremely stilted and hard to read.

For that reason my favorite philosophy book is At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell. It's half biography of Sartre, Beauviour, and Heidigger, and half overview of the wide world of existentialist philosophies. It's an smooth, pleasant read written in plain English that both helped me understand more philosophical concepts than any other single book I've ever read and introduced me to tons of things I want to learn more about. I highly recommend it.

Some other books I've read:

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin is tremendous. I know this isn't technically philosophy, but it definitely feels philosophy adjacent to me since it fit the bill of "help me make sense of the world" and as a bonus is a very smooth read. I plan to re-read this soon.
• Man's Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl was a solid 4/5 for me.
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is another philosophy-adjacent book that is a tremendous exploration of how we cope with death. It really impacted how I think about end-of-life issues.
• Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments is a collection of essays meant to make philsophy and ethics approachable for normal people - hence why I picked it up. I read most of it, but the essays were just too hit and miss so I ended up putting it down about 2/3rds of the way through.
• The Stranger by Camus. I did not necessarily enjoy this book (and I have no desire to re-read it) but I do appreciate it for being thought-provoking. Plus it was a way smoother read than The Myth of Sisyphus.

Some I'm considering reading:

• The Rebel by Camus. This is the other Camus text I'm considering picking up given that both his general philosophy and the subject matter here are of interest to me ... but the idea of actually having to sit down to read it is giving me pause, given what a slog The Myth of Sisyphus was.
• How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell is the second most well-received of her books. I don't know anything about Montaigne but obviously with a title like "How to Live" it's hitting upon exactly the sort of questions I'm asking...
• The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. We have a copy of this lying around and the passages I've read over the years have been both insightful and readable.

I deeply appreciate breadcrumbs anyone can provide as I try to learn how (and why) to keep living in this world and to develop a sense of meaning within it.