Life-Changing books you should read & why they are life-changing

Interesting thread on Reddit so far.

The Bible.
Not for any religious reason, but because it underpins so much of Western art, culture, and literature.  If you have not read it, you will miss out an awful lot.


1984.
Not necessarily because I believe it will happen (in that exact way), but more because it rings to attention many problems that are appearing/being revealed in modern society.  Specifically, the many ills, laws and other regulations inserted by states in many parts of the Western world.


The Republic by Plato.

It lays down so many of the reasons we have now for why we do things. You just have to read it if you're in anyway interested in any sort of academic pursuit.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Brilliant, unsettling and impossible to put down.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. 

Both are war related (WWII and Vietnam, respectively) but they are so beautiful, deep, touching and really give a deeper look into war and it's effects on people, especially the soldiers fighting it.

The prose is enthralling, compelling and if you don't cry in at least one part of either book, or at least have it make you contemplate life and humanity, then I don't know what to tell you.

Siddhartha. 

Each time I read it I learn something new or gain a new vantage point. I grew up catholic and before this book, I had NO exposure to the concept of no-self. I literally never had anyone in my life ever even hint about such a concept. Looking back on how much change has entered my life since then, I consider reading that book to be my "opening the wardrobe to Narnia" moment.

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The reason why this different than your standard fare of self-help book and why it has withstood the test of time is that unlike other self help books, it isn't a simple "read this and it will change your life instantly."

Rather it is a book delineating a regimen for slow, incremental change that requires time to implement, and constant review (the author encourages constant re-reading of chapters.)

But once it is implemented, your life will change, and your social interactions and career will literally change, just not overnight.

Read the full thread here.

Quantum Mechanics explained like you're five

OffColorCommentary does a brilliant job.

Okay, see this stick? If I swing it, it moves swoosh. If I hit it against something, it stops moving smack. If I let go of it, it falls down clatter. You're not very surprised by this, right? That's because everything in the world uses the same rules. About three hundred years ago, a guy named Isaac Newton wrote down all the rules, and we call them the laws of physics.

Scientists still use his versions of the laws for all sorts of stuff, but there are a couple places they found where things are a little bit different. One of them is for things that are very, very small. So if I break this stick in half crack, both halves work just like they did before, right? swoosh, smack, clatter And if I break one of the halves snap it does too. If you had a tiny saw and a microscope, you could keep making smaller and smaller sticks, and they would all work the same way, right? Well it it turns out that when things get small enough, smaller than things that are too small to see, they start to act a little bit weird.

So imagine this stick is just one of those tiny tiny pieces inside the stick. If I throw it to you and you catch it, then someone uses a stick-finding machine, it might turn out to still be in my hand, or it might be in your hand like it would if it was a normal stick. Yeah, it's weird: scientists were really confused about this when they started seeing it, and a whole lot of them working together took about fifty years to get it right, because it's so strange. Eventually they figured out that the tiny stick, and everything else that small, is actually always in multiple places at once. So even though we think it's in my hand, it's actually also in my other hand, and already on the ground, and still in my hand but just a tiny bit to the side of where we thought it was. Even stranger, the stick is more in some of these places than it is in others: most might be in this one spot in my hand, but less in my other hand, and just a tiny bit on the ground. And it's all still the same stick. This is all really weird, but one thing about it is still perfectly normal: all of the places the stick is in still follow Newton's laws. If I drop the stick from my hand onto the stick on the ground, it'll stop when it hits the ground, and the pieces will add up, so most of the stick will be on the ground.

(I think now would be a good point to mention that yes, a real conversation with a 4 year old wouldn't go like this. You'd have to stop and answer questions and re-explain pieces of it. I'm just proof-of-concepting this.) Okay, so remember when I said the stick could be in more than one place? It can also be going more than one speed! So some of the stick could be on the ground and not moving, and some could be in the middle of falling down, and some could be just starting to fall out of my hand so it's still moving slowly. Another very smart man, this one is named Werner Heisenberg, figured out that the more different places the stick is in, the less speeds it is moving in, and the more speeds it has, the less different places its in.

(PS: grammar Nazis, it's really "less," not "fewer." Can you figure out why?)

So if all the tiny parts of everything are acting this strange, how is everything so normal when you get back to big things like us? Well, there is one more odd thing about tiny tiny things that I haven't told you yet. Say I have TWO tiny tiny sticks. You know how one can be in a whole bunch of places at once? Well it turns out that sometimes you have to take both sticks together to figure out how much is in any place. So maybe for most of the tiny sticks, stick one is in my hand and stick two is on the ground, and there's also some where stick two is in my hand, and stick one is on the ground. But, there's no sticks where both are in my hand at all, even though both sticks by themselves are at least a little in my hand.

(This is where the kid will have the most questions, and also probably where anyone reading this is going to have questions, so ask away. Though tell me whether I'm allowed to use grown-up words like "particle" or I have to keep saying "tiny stick.")

When how much of one tiny tiny thing is in one spot depends on how much of another tiny tiny thing is in another spot, scientists call those two things "entangled." That makes it sound like it's a special, weird case, but it's really the other way around. Scientists go through lots of trouble to get tiny things that aren't entangled so they can study them, but just about everything is entangled most of the time. All the tiny tiny pieces of stick in this actual stick are very entangled with eachother. That's how big things like us and this stick don't seem like they're in more than one place at a time. The pieces of stick are all in a few places at once, but every different group of tiny sticks adds up to the big stick in my hand, even if the tiny pieces could be swapped around a little.

(As a final note, I've always heard the phrase as "if you can't explain it to a particularly bright 4 year old, you don't understand it yourself." I think we lost the dim one in the second paragraph.)

Hellvis' response to "What are some unwritten photography rules?"

"Okay, I've been drinking so I'm gonna lay this shit out for you guys, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Former university photo prof and former professional photographer here.

The rule of thirds is horse shit. The 'critics' looked at zillions of awesome photos and from them distilled out that things should be placed on the thirds but they didn't understand why. This is the deal:

There is a balance point between tension and static in a photo. Static is near the center slightly above true center. Look at a portrait. Static to a Tee. The most tension in a photo is right at the extreme edge of the photo. It's so much tension that you'll rarely find a photo that uses the edge effectively. I had a student once though that did a shot of a girl in a pool with her face right at the edge of the photo and it was amazing.

The BALANCE between static and tension is halfway between the edge and the center which just so happens to be on the thirds. If you understand the reason the 'rule of thirds' works you can exploit it to your advantage. Put it closer to the edge for more tension and closer to the center for more static / relaxation and on the thirds for a good balance.

Second nugget for all y'all.

In painting we talk about composition. Composition means you're adding elements to the picture. Unfortunately because photography came along way after painting we still use the same words but those words are horseshit in this artistic medium. You don't compose fuckall unless you're taking pictures of still lifes.

Photography is all about isolation.

You don't get to compose, you certainly don't get to compose mountains, or trees (unless you're Fred Picker*). What you're doing in photography is better called:
ISOLATION.

You're isolating your subject from distractions. When people give you the advice to get closer? What they're saying is to isolate from distractions only they're idiots who are parroting shit they've read on the internet and don't understand the underlying meaning.

Because you don't get to compose your only tool in creating meaning and making that meaning powerful in a photograph is to isolate from distractions. You have to get in close, zoom in, walk up, get in your subject's grill and take the pic so that there is nothing taking away from what you're trying to convey. For big subjects like the Sistine Chapel you can't get the whole thing in. That's a tourist shot. Back up until you can take a picture of the whole thing. Bullshit, now you have a tiny cathedral in your wide angle lens and it looks like ass. Move in until you're taking a detail. When you can't see the edges of something then it might go on forever. Portraits? Don't include the environment unless it helps tell the story and 99% of the time it doesn't.

You're a shitty editor, in most cases.

W Eugene Smith was one of the greatest photographers that ever lived but he was a shitty editor. You are not emotionally divested from your work and can't make objective decisions about it. Be brutally honest about your work and don't be afraid to throw away a photo you worked hard on. Sometimes it just doesn't work. It breaks your heart but it is what it is.

Backgrounds are not subjects. 85% of the photography on the internet is a background in search of a subject. If you want a great photograph you need a center of interest and don't bullshit yourself into thinking that tree over there is the center of interest. It's not. It's a fucking tree that doesn't add shit to the photo. Backgrounds make great uh.. backgrounds on your desktop but they aren't art. If you shoot landscapes carry a red poncho around and stick it on your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend and have them walk out into the scene and be your subject. You just need an anchor.

Finally, shoot, a lot. These days you don't have to pay for film and developing. It's a two-edged sword. On one hand it's awesome because you can shoot mountains of images without cost. On the other hand the cost of fucking up is so low that you don't learn important lessons. Forget to include the filter factor? Ah who cares, re-shoot. It won't stick. When Ansel shot Moonrise over Hernandez he had literally ONE SHOT. He couldn't find his meter and so he had to base the exposure on the known luminosity of the moon and go for it. After he exposed the first sheet the light went off the crosses and the picture was not worth shooting. He had one sheet and so he had to develop it to make everything come out like he wanted. Now we'd just composite in photoshop and it'd be fine but sometimes you don't get a second chance. If you don't learn those hard lessons about forgetting stuff it's going to bite you in the ass one day. You'll only get 10 seconds of good light, or something, and miss the opportunity because you were checking the screen. Know your tools, spend time being familiar with them, and shoot by God shoot your ass off. Shoot until you wear the shutter button out and then buy another camera and wear that out because that's how you develop your eye.

All of you have unique vision. Some of you are probably best suited to shooting senior portraits. I believe you're born with the eye for pictures, you have it or you don't - however, all of you have a vision. Don't take instruction from assholes who couldn't make it as a pro, don't take my word for shit. Shoot your OWN VISION, develop it. Don't become a clone of someone you admire. The worst problem with photography schools is they create neat little clones of the professors. That's horse shit. Break out of the mold and exploit your vision. Nobody becomes amazing by being what came before them.

That is all.

tl;dr: Fucking go read it you lazy fucker.

Also: cocks."

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Redditor words to live by

The real trick is learning to push yourself. My guess is you could slide by in school, and your parents didn't push you, so now is when you've got to push yourself.

First, take out a piece of paper. No seriously stop reading and get a piece of paper. It's a fucking piece of paper, trust me on this get one out.

Got one, great. Split it in three. I don't care how.

Write "What I want to do" in one section.

Write "What I can do well" in another.

Write "What I enjoy doing" in a third.

Got that?

What I want to do Leave this alone for now

What I can do well these are things you did well in school, at church, at home. I don't care if it is "Beat level 32 on Mario Bros", write down whatever you can do well. Keep going. Once you think you are done, think of five more things.

What I enjoy doing again, I don't care if it is "Masturbate in the corner while quietly weeping" write what you love to do down. After you've written everything down, write fiver more things. Remember we're learning how to push ourselves here.

ok, now go through and circle, match up, draw a line between (or whatever) things that you do well, that match with things that enjoy doing. If you have nothing, you didn't really try. Start over with a new piece of paper (i.e. If I enjoy watching porn, and I'm good at masturbating, that's something I'd tie together... so you should have SOMETHING that matches)

Ok, now start looking for jobs where what you ENJOY doing matches something you are GOOD at. Not jobs you could get right now... no you're making a list of DREAM jobs.

Got that. Things that would be awesome.

Put the list of potential jobs under What I want to do

Now prioritize them: 1. Hugh Heffner 2. IBM Engineer 3. Playboy bunny (Sex change required) 4. Muppeteer etc.

I don't care how outlandish they are, just do it.

Then research how someone actually got to do that kind of job. What college classes did they take? What did they do as hobbies?

If what they did makes you feel alive inside, like really an energy, start planning your path. You'll know not just "I'll take engineering courses" but you'll take Bridge building 302, and know what you want out of the course. Everything they say will have 1000 times more meaning.

If it doesn't make you feel alive inside, then pick the next priority and read about someone who did that. Eventually you'll find courses and small jobs that lead you to your chosen career, and you'll enjoy not only that end dream job, but the journey that go you there.

What's more, people will see you as "Driven". It'll make you more attractive to women, and your parents won't be able to nag that tithing or other church things are making you miserable.

This is the great secret they suppress in school. This is what is taught in thousand dollar job seminars. And you just got it for free.

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