Reddit mentions of Lost in the Cosmos

>more amazing how people right next to them can’t take there eyes off the screen

Walker Percy points out that our tendency to look for ourselves in photographs, look in mirrors as we pass, etc, comes not from narcissism but from the fact that we spend our whole lives living in a subjective reality, so we are naturally fascinated by the experience of observing ourselves in a somewhat objective manner.

https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cosmos-Last-Self-Help-Book/dp/0312253990

No need to stop at Existentialism. A few decades of Zen has informed my readings of most Philosophers. Some fit better than others, of course, but all seem to glitter with a bit more truth when seen from this side of practice.

If you ever get a chance, read Lost In The Cosmos by Walker Percy. He was trying to "popularize" existentialism before it was cool.

You're being cryptic so I can't be sure what this is about, but I'm going to be a somewhat bold and recommend a book, Lost in the Cosmos. Walker Percy, the author, calls it somewhat facetiously the "last self-help book" since it lampoons much of the work that self-help books try (and hilariously fail) to do. The essential premise is that one persistent feature of the modern world is alienation and isolation. He takes that premise and runs with it, questioning all the ways modern humans strive to cast away that persistent pressure upon our shoulders. Percy doesn't so much offer answers (how could he, as he doesn't know himself in the same way we don't know ourselves?), but he does offer some fascinating questions to chew on and ways to think that have honestly changed the way I view life.

If you're interested, the Amazon page I linked should allow you to read through the first 10 pages or so, Percy's 6-question quiz that tries to get the reader to think about why it is that we can know so much about so many things, and yet know so little about our own selves.

And what's honestly amazing is that he wrote this 30 years ago, and we know dwarf his ability to have access to information in any variety about any subject, but we still know very little about ourselves.

Now as a disclaimer, the author is Catholic, but spends very little time making any effort at pushing his particular religious inclinations on the reader. Those times when he does talk about his faith, it's easy to read it as an expression of his own journey and not sweat it. It's clear that Percy himself has a troubled relationship even with his own religion, which doesn't have all the answers for why human beings are so lost. My point is that this is not a book focused on conversion at all, and I think it could be more than useful no matter your religious affiliations.

An interesting take on modern malaise (which is what I would call the non-depression unsatisfaction in life that many modern people experience) is Walker Percy's book Lost in the Cosmos.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cosmos-Last-Self-Help-Book/dp/0312253990

It's packaged as a self-help book but it is ANYTHING but that, it's really a huge satire on self help books. He argues that the existence of hundreds of thousands of self help books and thousands upon thousands of psychotherapists signifies that we have a whole lot of "death"...not life surrounding us.

He talks a lot about the modern "self" and uses semiotics to present some theories about man's epic identity crisis.

Or "Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book" https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cosmos-Last-Self-Help-Book/dp/0312253990

Walker Percy wrote a story of aliens and humans not being able to communicate as a chapter in this book.

The aliens were evolved from bat-like creatures, who communicate in screeches that, through a form of echolocation, send images based on sounds instead of "words" the way we think of them.

The last self-help book

For convenience, here is the book list from Professor Casey, with links:

The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard (full text)

The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (full text)

Anarchy and the Law by Edward Stringham (full text: http://anarcho-capitalist.org/wp-content/pdfs/Stringham%20(Edward%20P.)%20-%20Anarchy%20and%20the%20Law.pdf)

Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty

Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy

The Message in the Bottle by Walker Percy

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Cosmos-Last-Self-Help-Book/dp/0312253990