Just did some research on light philosophy books to get someone off of the "philosophy" offered by the likes of Richard David Precht ans Jordan Peterson. And I noticed that while I love philosophy, most literature is – of course – mostly considering society as a whole and less focused on self improvement. Even if self improvement is a topic it of course only exists within the context of society.
And indeed most bigger philosophical issues are actually rooted in society (at least in my view). Unfortunately that means that most literature that I'd recommend in that regard, while interesting and inspiring fight against the system ... ultimately isn't that helpful to people struggling to find their place in a system that's fucked up beyond recognition.
So you can either read JP and consider all issues as problems of the individual, or actually fight power struggles but live in existential despair. Which, yes, matches a lot of philosophers.
Maybe we need some self-help books that teach how to be egoistically content with oneself with proper self-care when appropriate without lying about the state of the world as it is. This huge gap needs to be closed, otherwise all activists are just perm burned out (hi, lol!).
@ljrk books like that probably fall less into philosophy, but more into psychology I guess. There is one or two that I know that might fit, but they don’t particularly address activism
@fl0_id Definitely, unfortunately people ask me for "philosophy" since they consider JP and RDP "philosophers" ... .
But yes, some kind of "mental health self-help book that doesn't pretend all issues are tied to you, the individual" would be great. Mental Health for Activists as well...
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