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Influential Books & Movies
11-05-2009, 04:09 AM
What are some influential books and movies that you have encountered in your life?
Books: Siddhartha (the passing of stages), 48 Laws of Power (good introduction to various interesting sources),
Philosophers: Nietzsche (reading about his life actually taught me more about life than his philosophy, really. A bitter old man who fell in love with a girl who wouldn't return his love for him. Best way to learn about life is through other people's mistakes!). Kierkegaard wrote the Seducer's Diary which was pretty interesting.
My old roommate once showed me his book on Gestalt Therapy. I only read the first chapter, but in it was an exercise that was meant to prove a point. In the exercise, you basically visualize doing something differently. For instance, you would imagine a ball returning to your hand, I think (I read the chapter 4-5 years ago now, I can barely remember). It brought me down a path to becoming more curious about the power of my own mind. When I found out about NLP I read about that too. NLP is definitely interesting, although I didn't really dig too deeply into it.
Movies: Old french movies [Le Mepris] (Learn about REAL Romance), Fight Club (getting rid of material possessions in order to really live), A lot more, but I can't think of any right now...
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Influential Books & Movies
11-05-2009, 07:08 PM
Iceberg Slim. Malcolm X. Art of Seduction. Mode One and David X pickup books. The Prince. Roald Dahl short stories about My Uncle Oswald (courtesy of Roissy)
Films: The Decalogue. Metropolitan by Whit Stillman. I recently saw some of Hurt Locker, a new film, very good.
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Influential Books & Movies
11-05-2009, 09:38 PM
Good thread guys, keep it going!
At some point in my past, I was at the height of my AFCism. I had began dating a girl that I had oneitis for for several years. Due to my beta male tendencies at the time, I ended up losing her. I feel into a deep depression thinking that girl was the pinnacle of my life accomplishment and all I wanted was to be with her and I lost her. I made pathetic attempts to get her back. She came back briefly giving me hope that this was meant to be, and then she kicked me to the curb once again when she met someone else. I was once again devastated all over again. At that point I started becoming really introspective and trying to figure out why my luck with women has been consistently so bad over my whole life. I started studying psychology and took a great deal of interest in MBTI and learned about my personality type(which is INTP, btw) and found it fascinating. At the same time I also found out about a man named Dr. Gilmartin who wrote a now long out of print booked called Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment. It was basically the only serious research book about men were extreme betas. The book was like 800 pages long. You couldn't buy it anywhere, and there was only one copy of it in the entire Los Angeles library system. I located it and got the book and must have read all 800 pages in about 2 and a half days. I literally couldn't put it down, reading it for like 18 hours a day. It blew the doors off for me. Maybe the way a guy who lived a life of crime feels when he's in prison and turns to the bible or koran for the first time and comes to an epiphany about the errors of the entire way he's lived his life. I felt like for the first time I truly understood my situation and it was a transformational experience. The only problem is that the book is that it didn't mention much in the way of solutions or where to go from here now that you understand what happened to you. From there, I found out about David DeAngelo most notably as well as some other gurus. I started working on my inner game and came a long way. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, but I have come a long way from where I was. In a paradoxical way, I guess that girl really did me a favor. I only wish it happened much sooner.
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Influential Books & Movies
04-07-2010, 02:05 AM
Speakeasy I appreciate the anecdote. What does INTP stand for by the way? I may have to check out Dr. Gilmartin's book as well...
Here is my list (Books): A Fine Balance, Black Boy (Autobiography of author Richard Wright), Kite Runner, On the Road, 4 Agreements, Siddhartha, Autobiography of Malcolm X, Revolutionary Suicide (Autobiography of Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton), Rasta Heart
Movies: City of God
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Influential Books & Movies
04-19-2010, 05:14 AM
By far, the most influential books I have ever read were by Helen and Scott Nearing. Helen was a talented musician and Scott a university professor and famed socialist writer. Together they set out to build a rural homestead nearly a century ago. All of them. I started writing when I was eight, and I didn't have how to books to tell me how to write. I learned from reading books from the library.