Thats why I’m looking for readings on purposeful work and changing life.
The typical recommendation of „Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance“ isn’t exactly what I’m looking for, but I’m also unable to tell you what exactly I'm looking for.
Any ideas for those perspective changing works?
There is an assumption today that everything can be known and expressed. Great authors know that isn't true. They lead you somewhere where you might catch a glimpse.
Out of copyright because even so they are still being sold. I am not suggesting a list because it would be mine, and contentious.
I haven't been the same, in the best way possible, ever since reading it.
Anthony was well-read and traveled and his background as an Indian, Jesuit Priest and practicing psychologist put him at the perfect intersection of experience to deliver such a life-changing work that encompasses religion, science, relationships, your psyche, career, money, philosophy, spirituality, etc.
It's telling and (to me) validating of his mastery of life that, after his death, he was excommunicated from the church due to his 'blasphemous' works.
The ebook and audiobook are available for free here: https://archive.org/details/Awareness-AnthonyDeMello
At some point in life we all end up asking ourselves "what is the meaning of life" and "who am I"?
In your particular situation I would look at the the "existential given" Meaning and Meaninglessness.
Are you Meaning Creating or Meaning Seeking?
There are 5 existential givens
1. Freedom, Responsibility and Agency 2. Death, Human Limitation and Finiteness 3. Isolation and Connectedness 4. Meaning vs Meaninglessness 5. Emotions, Experience and Embodiment
My own favourite existentialist philosophers are: Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Søren Kierkegaard.
My favourite existential psychotherapists are: Irvin Yalom, Emmy Van Deurzen and Rollo May.
Irvin D. Yalom "Love's Executioner & Other Tales of Psychotherapy" Basic Books (2012) Rollo May, "Man's Search for Himself" W. W. Norton & Company (2009) Professor Emmy van Deurzen, "Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice" Sage Publications Ltd (2002)
Please read Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens.[0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Ludens
Flow
The Evolving Self
There’s the ‘awakening’ thing you can do, which might give a fresh perspective:
The Mind Illuminated - Culadasa
Seeing That Frees - Rob Burbea
Right Concentration - Leigh Brasington
[1] The author was a highly credentialed career physicist before abandoning that for thinking about alternative paths through life.
Not the OP but in a similar situation.
I don't want to promote a specific religious book, but you could look into modern interpretations of past work. Rumi's poetry is built atop Sufism, atop Islam, which is atop the Abrahamic religions. Coleman Barks does the Rumi translations that many quote, but in doing so he morphed it to something no longer Rumi. If you find something that makes you uneasy, don't follow it, or look deeper into where the inspiration comes from.
James P Carse is also really good at digging deep and across multiple religions. I'd recommend that as another starting point. His most popular work is Finite and Infinite Games, which is well suited for modern society.
- What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life - Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey
I like Travels Michael Crichton for discussing the ups and downs of life.
I read it sometime back. It questions the idea that our childhood events have formed our current personality and our behaviour. It asks us to reinterpret the past events from different perspective. It encourages everyone to live in the moment and form a mindset to change for better where we compare ourselves with our ideal self and look at each other as comrades and not as enemies in a zero sum game.
https://www.amazon.com/Living-Godfrey-Robinson-Stephen-Winwa...
Graeber makes interesting points and also criticizes views that most people in tech will at least be familiar with by now, like Dawkins and Harari.
Typically read by anarchists and libertarians, I'm not recommending it to change your politics, but rather as a philosophical exercise. It does an amazing job at taking something so ingrained and obvious to us and then flipping it on its head and forcing you to use your own logical faculties to prove whether or not what you always believed is actually logically correct.
A paradigm shifting book regardless of your politics or philosophical belief system.
Sorry, but to which thread are you referring?
You may disagree with what they are saying, but these books will give you a new perspective.
If your idea of philosophy is Pirsig, try one of Plato's Socratic dialogs as a palate-cleanser. It shouldn't be toil.
If have more time, study Arabic and try to listen/read the Quran.