Skip Navigation
51 comments

  • For me it was the book Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. It played a great part in the development of my beliefs. The most memorable part was where he was talking about the spirituality of science in the chapter "Science and Hope":

    In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos. And the cumulative worldwide build-up of knowledge over time converts science into something only a little short of a trans-national, trans-generational meta-mind.

    ...

    Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

  • The Lord of the Rings. It has become such a big part of my cultural self. I love everything about it, but especially the fact that there is an entire universe Tolkien created, mainly because of his love for languages. That kind of passion is absolutely amazing and it kind of taught me that it's good to be passionate about something. It also taught me that some thing "nerdy" is actually very widely accepted to be one of the greatest works ever written (and one of the greatest films), and in turn it led me to accept that you shouldn't be ashamed of the thing you like, even if they are nerdy/geeky/dumb or stupid in other people's opinion. It also got me super interested into world building, which I'm expressing currently in building a boardgame.

    Favourite part is hard, but the Ride of the Rohirrim gives me goosebumps everytime someone even mentiones it.

    • Two things about getting into LoTR, especially as a younger person, that easily go undervalues:

      1. It is basically a gateway drug to history. The world building goes beyond just "a world", it's a history. In fact I'd argue that Tolkien wasn't aiming at "world building", except for the minimal amount ... but rather "history", "culture" and "geography" building, which is why his "world" feels so real. As a young person, you'll basically become a history nerd without realising it.
      2. It demonstrates very well some powerful ideas about what heroes actually look like. Neither Gandalf nor Legolas nor Aragorn are the heroes of that story. Not even Frodo, as he fails at the end despite his many virtues within the context of the story. It's Sam and Hobbits in general ... the little people with big selfless hearts who made the difference in the battle between good and evil. Eowyn is obviously a relatively feminist figure against the patriarchal backdrop of the world, but without knowing Tolkein's intent with that character, it's a pretty natural character arc when you're already doing the whole Hobbits thing.

  • My Side of the Mountain. Kid gets tired of family problems, runs away to live in the Catskills off the land on an old family farm. Befriends a librarian who lends him books on survival. He makes his own clothes from deer skin, catches his own fish with homemade hooks, lives in a hollowed-out tree, that sort of thing.

    I am currently a bushwhacking bookworm. I suspect it was all that book.

  • Literarily: Ulysses. Such a layered work, poetical and so run through with themes and styles.

    Philosophically: the mind's I by Dennet and Hofstaedter, great selection of articles surrounding consciousness and digital structures.

    • The Mind's I lead me to Lem, which lead to Tarkovsky which lead to "serious film" in general...

  • Momo by Michael Ende.

    That time is the most precious gift we have to give and we should choose wisely how to use it.

  • Jiddu Krishnamurti - Life Ahead (talks to students)

    "One of the causes of fear is ambition, is it not? And are you all not ambitious? What is your ambition? To pass some examination? To become a governor? Or, if you are very young, perhaps you just want to become an engine-driver, to drive engines across a bridge. But why are you ambitious? What does it mean? Have you ever thought about it? Have you noticed older people, how ambitious they are? In your own family, have you not heard your father or your uncle talk about getting more salary, or occupying some prominent position? In our society - and I have explained what our society is, everybody is doing that, trying to be on top. They all want to become somebody, do they not? The clerk wants to become the manager, the manager wants to become something bigger, and so on and so on - the continual struggle to become. If I am a teacher, I want to become the principal; if I am the principal, I want to become the manager. If you are ugly, you want to be beautiful. Or you want to have more money, more saris, more clothes, more furniture, houses, property - more and more and more. Not only outwardly, but also inwardly, in the so-called spiritual sense, you want to become somebody, though you cover that ambition by a lot of words. Have you not noticed that? And you think it is perfectly all right, don't you? You think it is perfectly normal, justifiable, right.

    Now, what has ambition done in the world? So few of us have ever thought about it. When you see a man struggling to gain, to achieve, to get ahead of somebody else, have you ever asked yourself what is in his heart? If you will look into your own heart when you are ambitious, when you are struggling to become somebody, spiritually or in the wordily sense, you will find there the worm of fear. The ambitious man is the most frightened of men, because he is afraid to be what he is. He says, "If remain what I am, I shall be nobody, therefore I must be somebody, I must become a magistrate, a judge, a minister". If you examine this process very closely, if you go behind the screen of words and ideas, beyond the wall of status and success, you will find there is fear; because the ambitious man is afraid to be what he is. He thinks that what he is in himself is insignificant, poor, ugly; he feels lonely, utterly empty, therefore he says, "I must go and achieve something". So either he goes after what he calls God, which is just another form of ambition, or he tries to become somebody in the world. In this way his loneliness, his sense of inward emptiness - of which he is really frightened - is covered up. He runs away from it, and ambition becomes the means through which he can escape.

    So, what is happening in the world? Everybody is fighting somebody. One man feels less than another and struggles to get to the top. There is no love, there is no consideration, there is no deep thought. Or society is a constant battle of man against man. This struggle is born of the ambition to become somebody, and the older people encourage you to be ambitious. They want you to amount to something, to marry a rich man or a rich woman, to have influential friends. Being frightened, ugly in their hearts, they try to make you like themselves; and you in turn want to be like them, because you see the glamour of it all. When the governor comes, everybody bows down to the earth to receive him, they give him garlands, make speeches. He loves it, and you love it too. You feel honoured if you know his uncle or his clerk, and you bask in the sunshine of his ambition, his achievements. So you are easily caught in the ugly web of the older generation, in the pattern of this monstrous society. Only if you are very alert, constantly watchful, only if you are not afraid and do not accept, but question all the time - only then will you not be caught, but go beyond and create a different world."

    https://jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/life-ahead/1962-00-00-jiddu-krishnamurti-life-ahead-chapter-7

  • The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

    That's a self-help book, not a novel. It opened my mind to having a plan for life, having a reason for doing what I do - because I have decided that it's worth doing.

    I heard about it while channel surfing in 1997, there was Oprah interviewing Stephen Covey and both made a big impression on 20yo me. I jumped onto Amazon and saw some reviews of the book. Back then you could contact the reviewers!! So I asked some of them some questions, and one of them turned in a close and life-long friendship.

51 comments