Ask HN: Which book/essay changed your life?

Bard is a controversial person and I will certainly not stand for all his stupid quips through the years. But I definitely found this book worth its while.

I’m not sure if it would hold really hold up to scrutiny if I were to re-read it today. But it sure gave me a lot to think about. And it was there I said goodbye to socialism.

* Why We Sleep - changed my sleeping habits

* How to Win Friends and Influence People - stopped me from being pedantic and argumentative

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

I lost someone very close to me in my early 20s. Reading through the grief C.S. Lewis went through after he lost his wife was very cathartic. There will be setbacks (death, sickness, divorce, etc.) in life that will violently shake your core and make you feel as though you cannot go on. What I learned was communing with the grief, staring it straight in the face no matter how painful, is an absolute necessity. You will always carry the loss with you, but that does not mean your life has to be dominated by it.

I think his book really help me put "life" into perspective. Setbacks big or small can be overcome, and exploring the grief caused by them really helps with the process of moving past them, despite how painful it may be.

“Industrial society and its future” made me really reflect on the purpose technology has in my life.

Understand labor exploitation and avoid being a victim of it.

That's probably one reason why I read.

To say that Pound's translation of the Analects was more profoundly important than the Tao and Faulkner's The Town and Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Hobbit from my youth and The Three Little Pigs read nearly nightly to a child doesn't make sense.

Sometimes I walk through Castaneda's world.

Sometimes Knuth's.

Other's I am in my head with Vonnegut.

Profoundness is out in the world.

And many books point to it.

Helped me with my depression, enough said.

I had tried to learn BASIC and Pascal. And it never really clicked. But K&R’s book explained the language, how it worked, and how to program — in the most primitively satisfying way.

That's some of the stuff that comes to mind as having shifted my perception on things in some fundamental ways. I don't think I've ever practically changed anything in my life though as a response to reading a book, not sure how that would even manifest.

Here are two books that explain a lot about politics.

The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World - Tim Marshall

[0] https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

1. The Goal/ E. Goldratt. I read this first when I was a teenager, and kept returning to it (and some of its sequels) again and again. Adopting a systems thinking mindset. When analysing problems looking for the bottleneck, then figuring out how to elevate that constraint.

2. Topics in Algebra/ I. N. Herstein. During the first summer at Uni I decided to read this book cover to cover and solve every single problem in it. Which I did. Sadly, twenty years on, my algebra game is poor. But that summer, of abiding in algebra, was a really spiritual experience. And it's left a mark.

3. The Orchid Thief/Susan Orlean. By my early twenties it was clear to me I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. But I enjoyed it for the intellectual experience, it would never leave me rattled the way fiction can leave you. And then I read this book and my mind was blown. I was outraged that people in the world can write like that, and that I am not one of those people.

4. Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama/D. Goleman. I randomly picked up this book, it was lying around at this place I was staying at. This was my first intro to Buddhist analytical analysis and I came out of it a different person. Not a better one, sadly, but for sure one more determined to learn more, and to bring these principles into my own life. It's been a journey since, but that's where it started.

5. On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant/D. Graeber. It's kind of funny that this essay, which was tongue-in-cheek and deliberately provocative, would end up being like a real thing. But by the time I read it (and later, the full book) I was really questioning what was wrong with me that made everything feel so...meaningless. In his lingo, I had shit jobs and I had bullshit jobs, and I was really struggling to see how I can productively manage decades to come of work if these are the only two choices. But airing this problem in this way also helped me, eventually, walk down a path I was more comfortable with. It took a long time, but I finally like the path I'm treading.

6. Not an essay, a film. Searching for Sugar Man/ M. Bendjelloul. I don't even know where to start on this one. I mean, the story's pretty radical as non-fiction goes (see above), but there were moments in and around it, where it's like someone comes and slaps you in the face to wake up. And then the meta aspect, of the director's own sad story. I spent A LOT of time thinking about this film.

I went through the calculations in the book and it was eye opening for me. From then I did a 10 month 5000 mile hike and then lived in China for 10+ years. Absolutely made my life much happier and content.

I had just encountered the internet for the first time, after coding every day for 6-7 years with the help of a few books and magazines, but having no idea there was a large electronic community out there. Nobody told me about the internet!

Then I found the GNU Manifesto as I was exploring GNU Emacs, and it changed my life.

I know it sounds strange now, 30 years later, but that was the first time I was really exposed to the idea of putting in significant work to help other people, backed by a persuasive argument. Doing something not just to learn, but to give away and design for other people's benefit. The way it was put in the GNU Manifesto felt empowering and inspiring.

It's informed how I've treated people for decades since.

(My thinking has evolved a lot since, and there have been other inspiring books, but that was a significant and memorable shift.)