by Zefferin LLamas

I was born in the 90s and came of age in the 00s. Like many queer people my age, my relationship with my parents was strained and tense. I couldn’t turn to them for the kind of guidance that adults often impart on young people as they take the first steps on their journey into adulthood. (As a grown man now, I understand that people are imperfect, and most parents & caregivers are doing the best they can with what tools they have.) Luckily for me, the kind of guidance I was looking for in my parents at the time was something that I ended up finding in other adults that I would meet later in life, like professors, mentors, and friends’ parents.

Some of these people recommended or gifted books to me that ended up also having a positive impact on my development as a young person, helping me to contextualize my own place in the universe and to make contact with a sense of purpose in life. I’m a little older now, but I still return to these books often, and I find myself reading them with new eyes, learning new lessons every time.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

A work of comparative mythology and psychology, Campbell introduces the idea of the “monomyth,” also known as “the hero’s journey,” which describes the hero who is called on an adventure, faces a crisis, and then overcomes it, transforming themself in the process.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

A timeless classic that touches of a wide range of everyday wisdom for life, including subjects like beauty, friendship, death, time, pleasure, teaching, laws, clothes, buying & selling, and eating & drinking.

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramahansa Yogananda was one of the first people to teach about yogic philosophy to western people. His life story is told through short, engrossing anecdotes that reveal the spiritual wealth and “soul-satisfying wisdom” of India.

Man and His Symbols by CJ Jung

There is an idea in Jungian psychology that sees the unconscious mind as a “great guide, friend, and adviser of the conscious.” That is, the unconscious mind can help us in navigating our life if we are able to communicate with it. One of most powerful the ways we can do this is through understanding our dreams and the symbols that emerge from them. Man and his symbols is a collection of essays on this topic by CJ Jung and a number of his students.