What are some books about redemption that will inspire me to escape being a loser and an incel...

Sorry for the delay OP, eating dinner.

Don't lose hope, you are in a place many other young men are in. The same position I was in a year ago. I fully and legitimately suggest you look up Jordan Peterson on youtube. His latest book hits home for those in our demographic for a reason.

But some people don't like him, that's fine, you don't have to.

I'm having trouble reading this it's hitting home how much things have changed for me in a single year. Jesus.

I'm going to start throwing books at you now.

There is value in a religious mindset; there is external meaning that gives life purpose: "Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky.
I became an atheist explicitly at around 8ish. Since then until I year ago I hated religious people but couldn't' explain why. They had something that I didn't, and what they had was a lie. I hated them for their certainty and happiness. For me what I needed was a way to believe in religious ideas without having to sacrifice truth on the altar of faith. Jordan Peterson gave me a way to do that. But, others like Dostoyevsky have also shown that possibility.

There is something profound about bearing what life deals you: "The Things they Carried" by Tim O'Brien.
There was something about the images O'Brien coaxed into reality that didn't change any of the ways I "thought" but did improve the way I felt.

Accepting the totality of your being is one of the hardest things you can do, luckily the master has written books: "On Becoming a Person" by Carl Rogers.
I regard Rogers as the greatest clinician that has ever lived. I cry about once every five years, I cried three times reading this book. Reading Rogers is an experience that is so individual I hesitate to suggest it but if it impacts you the way it did me it's worth the risk. The walls inside you dividing you from yourself begin to tumble down.

Other worthy mentions:
"Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", a good one showing how there is value in improving your life. It's a strange one though and tends to be hit or miss with people.
"The Mind Gym," one of the few good self-help books. Brutally pragmatic, it helps with every aspect of mental functioning. Stress, interpersonal relations, creativity, you name it. Plus, it's suggestions are scientifically validated iirc.
"The Way of Zen" by Allan Watts, purists will get salty and complain that this "isn't real Zen." But, if you don't get caught up in dogma it's a good book on personal philosophy.

If you want my Disc let me know, I'm happy to chat.

The Zen book by Pirsig is good. Brothers also good. Don't recommend Peterson, Psychologists are gas lighting everyone. I don't trust em.
not familiar with the rest.

side note: Truth is sacrificed on the altar of religion. God demands everything from you, including the things you hold most sacred. This is what allows Faith to occur: belief in the absurd (or rather, on the absurd).

Notes From the Underground. It will either make you sink even more or make you realize what awaits for you if you don’t change your mindset.

>I'm not competent enough socially.
Yeah, you've got to build social skills. Really the only way of doing this is by socialising, though study and introspection help to a limited capacity. Start with simple and easy stuff, then move to complete conversations. Being incompetent is not static in this matter, anyone would become incompetent or less competent if they stopped socialising and lived a solitary, insular life. Even if they were previously very socially-adept. If you were to improve socially and then revert back to being unsocial, thinking you'd gained enough skill and needn't go out of your way to improve. You would lose that gained skill, easily.

You sound like a slightly better version of myself

>23
>dropped out of high school
>had severe social anxiety for many years
>been a NEET all this time
>friends abandoned me because I wouldn't do drugs with them
>been isolated for ages, can hardly make eye contact with people anymore

Everything I've done in my life has been done in solitude, so I'm used to it, and don't tend to get depressed. It feels like I exist not to live in the world, but to observe it, because every time I try to interact with the outside something terrible happens. At the risk of sounding more like a blogpost I'll stop here

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If you're not the kind of person who can naturally inspire yourself, things probably won't change for you in life. You can buy into self help books and meditations on perspective, but ultimately they exist as coping mechanisms for dealing with the inadequacies of life. Things are occasionally good, frequently boring, often terrible. You live for the promise of something unforeseen - not necessarily something good, but something that breaks the monotony, something to remind you that life is happening and you're not just slowly dying in your mind.

I can't speak for other psychologists but Peterson has never engaged in intellectually dishonest gaslighting.

He challenges ideas but then who doesn't?

your dad's diary, faggot. or even your grandpa's. they were all functional for some reason.

That's the issue I have. I don't care enough about football for this to work.

Sort yourself out, buckaroo.

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Had the same type of friends and fallout with them. 23 was also the peak of my anxiety. You really need to avoid porn. I can't express the mental and physical change that happens when you stop degrading your soul even for 1 week. You hear people on steroids get roid rage and become monsters, nofap/noporn is akin to the mental change only not negative.

You sleep less because your body isn't recovering from loss of the fluid that creates life. Instead it gets reabsorbed and regenerates all your cells, muscles and skin so you look like a perfect version of yourself. Because you're not watching porn and you have all this energy you actually feel like doing things you usually put off. The increase in testosterone cannot be understated. Not just the body but the mind becomes compleetly different. I'm convinced that anxienty is an effect of low testosterone. The opposite of anxiety obviosuly being self confidence comes from having high testosterone.

The key to defeating porn addiction is to simply keep offline. Don't turn on your computer or phone all day. See all the things you get done and how you begin to look better every single day as a result of living naturally. The lustful thoughts can be easily cut down before they take root when you aren't triggered by porn or lewd images online. Its being online when you instinctively check /b/ etc and fall into a pattern of dopamine triggers.

Kill it while its still only a thought and nofap is easy.

And start meditating. This is what creates a vision and light in your life. You're probably borderline nihilistic and hopeless like I was at your age. Just sit down on a pillow against the wall to support your back cross legged and meditate for 10 minutes. Only 10 mins out of your NEET day. You can do it right now. All you have to do is close your eyes, focus on yoru breathing and silence the mind. Thoughts chatter endlessly and the key is to just put all your focus on the breathing and let the thoughts fade away without being taken by them. You get better each time you meditate because its not easy to tame yoru mind as you'll find out.,

Here's a guided meditation that helps remove negative blocks that hold you back in life and cause anxiety.

youtube.com/watch?v=Y1RdEVXWXbU

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Flannery O’Connor’s short stories.

Become an Uber driver. It's a way to talk to people without having to look them in the eye. You can work up from there.

do not listen to this nofap preacher, OP, it literally makes no difference - never fapped in my life and i still feel exactly the same as everyone here does - nofap does not make a single difference in your life, it is the placebo effect

i wish i knew how to fucking fap but im a retard

My twisted world by Elliot Rodger

Maybe but in the end can you live without faith user? Think about this for a moment, you live everyday thinking you can die before the next day comes, isn't that why faith exists?

Sometimes when you're facing a situation where an outcome is determined by the decision(s) made by someone else or others what else can you do but have faith the outcome will be in your favor?

Faith may be belief in the absurd but I don't think anyone can live without it.

More like faith and hope bro, faith alone can't do it all so that's when you gotta hope for something good to happen.

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Gospel according to Matthew
Lord of the Rings (all three and the hobbit)

Can I say a book of the Bible or will that just be dismissed out of hand?

The Second Book of Samuel is exactly that

If you want to skip the backstory start at chapter 11 and read through 12

It’s quite short

But then read Pslam 51 which david was in response to what happened

You can read the rest of the second book of Samuel to hear about all the rest of the bullshitiry that happens in King David’s court because of what he did.
There’s a lot of murder and intrigue

Who knows? What heals a man, kills another.

The only piece of advice I can give you, is that if you don't like a book, give up reading it. It will do more harm than good, and maybe it's moment has not yet arrived.

Good luck.