Have any works of fiction helped improve your outlook?

[Handsup051]

As a shut-in, I've played a lot of story-focused games over the years. Something I've noticed as I'm approaching my breaking point, is that while a lot of them have uplifting messages about hope and faith in tomorrow, I always find them way too general to apply to my own situation as someone with physical and mental disability, and I just end up feeling hollow.
Are there any movies, books, shows, games, etc that have actually succeeded in giving you will to live? I'm interested in hearing any stories about it.

 

[gattara]

when i was in high school, reading charles bukowski's poems helped me a lot, specifically "nobody but you". i would say poetry in general can be very helpful. i think art centered around moralistic messages isn't very helpful. im more interested in something that touches my heart or makes me feel understood. i have a lot of favorite poems that i reread from time to time.

 

[temspaperflakes]

A recent movie I've seen is the Breakfast Club and I think it fits! Its main thing is that everyone goes through life with a persona that is influenced by their environment, and behind closed doors they can be very different! It can be a sad movie, but the ending left what happens next up to interpretation and more hopeful than anything.

 

[meowpuppy]

i've always liked how robert frost's poetry meshes the experiences of humans with the experience of nature itself.. it makes me feel more at peace and less alienated

 

[Set Real Goul]

A bit off-topic, but still. Six months ago, I was in a much more broken state than I am now: when I woke up, it was incredibly difficult to get out of bed, and I could lie there for five hours, anxiously thinking step-by-step about different ways of CTB, unable to switch my mind to anything else. Whenever this madness temporarily subsided each day, reading the book Daily Rod by Ukrainian writer Yevhen Pashkovsky helped me. It is a truly unique book; the author hates everyone and everything, and writes about it beautifully. It resonated with me deeply. His writing style is unlike anything else, filled with completely unique, somewhat boomer-like neologisms.

Also, this may sound a little strange, but Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus helped me cope much better with impulsive negative thoughts. If something triggered me, I used to spend 20–40 minutes hating myself, but these books helped reduce those episodes—as well as thoughts of CTB—to a minimum.

But nothing has brought back my will to live. I find myself at a crossroads

 

[Canto XIII]

Not a work of fiction, but check out Leopardi's late poem, La ginestra o Il fiore del deserto.