Schopenhauer's Philosophy: The Blind Will and Human Suffering

Schopenhauer argues that the universal blind will to live causes suffering, suggesting art, music, and asceticism as means to escape it.

### Schopenhauer's Pessimistic Philosophy: The Blind Will and Human Suffering
* 🌍 Schopenhauer's main work, "The World as Will and Representation," presents a pessimistic view of human existence, arguing that all living beings are driven by a **blind, metaphysical will to live**.
* 👥 He believes that this will is **universal, present in all living beings**, and ultimately serves **no higher purpose**, leading to a **constant struggle for survival and competition among individuals**.
* 🎭 Schopenhauer suggests three ways to escape the suffering caused by the blind will: through **art, music**, and ultimately through **asceticism and meditation**, which lead to a **denial of the will to live**.
* 💔 He views life as inherently full of suffering, with six main sources of human misery: **needs, the impossibility of satisfying all desires, the constant recurrence of desires, the struggle for existence, worry about future needs, and the inevitability of death**.
* 🌐 Schopenhauer criticizes traditional theodicy and rejects religious explanations for **human suffering**.
* 🎨 He sees art as a **temporary escape from the will to live**, providing moments of **contemplation and freedom from personal desires**.
* 🧘 The only lasting solution, according to Schopenhauer, is through **asceticism and meditation**, which allow individuals to **transcend their egos** and recognize the **unity of all existence**.
* 🌿 Despite his pessimistic view of life, Schopenhauer emphasizes compassion and suggests that recognizing the **universal suffering caused by the blind will** can lead to **greater empathy and understanding** among people.

I warmly welcome you to Arthur Schopenhauer, one of the most significant thinkers of the nineteenth century. Schopenhauer was and still is, among all philosophers, the best and most brilliant pessimist. None has recognized and described the great and small problems, as well as the hardships of life and the tragedy of world history, as fervently as he did. His main work, The World as Will and Representation, is still a provocation today because he argues that ultimately, humans are not, as everyone always claims, Homo sapiens, a rational being, a creature of reason. No, he says, humans are only seemingly drawn from the front, but actually pushed from behind, similar to plants or animals. Like them, we humans are pushed from behind, so to speak, by a drive, the famous will to live. In this context, he states that we can easily recognize this will to live by simply taking a closer look. Every living being, when its life is threatened, goes into the highest possible resistance and does everything possible to stay alive. I quote, The entire essence of such a threatened living being immediately transforms into desperate struggling and resisting against death. One can see, for example, the incredible fear of a person in mortal danger and the boundless joy after being saved. The will, this will to live that we see in everyone's desire to stay alive, is universal, meaning it is equally present in a fly caught in a spider's web.

And with all his might trying to get out of the spider's web like a hare that can only run faster, making turns and trying to escape the fox, and likewise in humans who, let's say, see an avalanche coming towards them and try to reach the forest sideways as fast as they can to seek safety from the avalanche. It is the same universal will. And even if, for example, one of you has a garden, if you remove the rubbish, it immediately comes back. So, it goes for the plants, and everyone also knows the image of a dandelion breaking through the middle of a tar road or a paved road. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the blind will to live. And Schopenhauer can therefore say, every view of the world attests that the will to live is the sole true expression of their innermost essence. And this will to live, Schopenhauer says, is metaphysical, which means that the will to live is metaphysical, from the Greek meta meaning behind, and physical meaning physical, so the will to live is to be sought behind all physical and physical appearances. An example, this metaphysical will is not measurable, and an example, we could measure with appropriate sensitive equipment how much force the fly tries to escape in the spider's web and could say it uses 0.0037 kilos upon tyne in the strikes, the hare runs at 38 kilometers per hour away from the fox

We will soon reach 30 kilometers to the avalanche cent to measure the common basic structure of all, but the will, the will to live, which is metaphysically the cause of all their movement and running, cannot be measured anymore because it is metaphysical. The will alone is changeable and absolutely identical. Therefore, while every living being has different speeds, the will remains constant and is at work in every living being with full undivided force. The theologians and philosophers are wrong precisely because they have simply overlooked the blind will. Man is not a spiritual being or a rational being; instead, it is the blind will manifesting as the drive for life, joy of life, and courage. Why does Copenhagen actually speak of the blind will? After all, survival is indeed a meaningful goal, as well as reproduction in Teterow. At first glance, one could think that the will is goal-oriented, as Schopenhauer says, but upon closer examination, we will find that it is rather a blind urge, a completely groundless, unmotivated drive. It is unmotivated upon closer inspection because it serves no higher purpose. And that is the interesting part: does this survival serve a higher purpose? Schopenhauer asks, what is the ultimate purpose of...

Allen was troubled individuals for a short period of time to then the reproduction of this gender and its drive in this apparent imbalance between the and the wage, the will to live appears to us as a gate, a delusion, so the means is just a gate, a kind of war because it serves no higher purpose, and for three reasons, it is blind, so first, it is blind because ultimately, as much as we all continue to live and wriggle through life, we all must die. Secondly, it is a blind will because even if one now says okay but we have children, we reproduce and immediately there said whoopen h also that is ultimately the reproduction of the sexual drive is a blind will because its pessimistic forecast is that in the end, the sexual drive will lead to the complete overpopulation of the entire planet. Thirdly, the will is blind, and perhaps most importantly, because it does not reflect on itself, it does not recognize itself, and this is particularly evident when the will of individuals, in the words of Schopenhauer, the will goes into the individual rows and individuality essentially, and then something happens: the same will that drives the wolf to catch and kill the deer and feed on it, drives many individuals as well in the kingdom, and it drives the deer to somehow escape the deadly bite. Schopenhauer says in a

So, therefore, Schopenhauer says that in one of his manifestations, the wolf seeking heightened well-being in the other brings forth great suffering, and thus in the intense urge, he sinks his teeth into his own flesh, not knowing that he only hurts himself. So, the will strikes its teeth into its own flesh, and because it is blind, it doesn't even know that there is a reason, thus competing with itself. Therefore, Schopenhauer can say the source and the tormented are one. Additionally, the blind will, of course, without any morality, so it knows no scruples. Therefore, the conclusion comes from Joe Bauer: the will, considered from within, is knowledge-less and only a blind, unstoppable force. That's why the majestic lion, which we have admired for many centuries and has been so wonderfully described in literature because of its calmness and tranquility, also ultimately stands on a mountain of corpses and only sustains its existence through a daily new blood tribute. Ultimately, there is no escape from this cycle of eating and being eaten because all living beings are metabolic, they know inhaling, they must eat, they must drink. Therefore, when one looks at nature, one can say, just look at it, this world of constantly needy beings who only exist for a while by devouring each other, enduring their existence in fear and need until they finally plunge into death. This is where Schopenhauer draws the same conclusion.

Consequence, as the Buddhists mean it, existence means suffering. To live means to suffer, and thus one can say that every life story is a story of suffering. Life, seen as a whole, has an additional, somewhat sad tendency. He also says that the path is steadily downhill: from childhood, through the joyful youth, the laborious manhood (no typo here, he writes in this spelling manesalter), the frail, often pitiful old age, and finally the struggle of death. Doesn't it seem like existence is a misstep? Schopenhauer's clear answer is yes, indeed, existence is truly a misstep, an accident of evolution. We must admit that we have nothing to rejoice about in the existence of the world and that it would be better if it did not exist. Now, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, or how should I say, sadly, we are all here, or still here, even though our existence, in fact, not existing, would be preferable to existence. Yes, we are all here, but I cannot comfort you now. However, Schopenhauer gives us, in the end, three chances and explains three ways how we can escape the blind will and the suffering of the world. First, let's take another look at his main work, The World as Will and Representation. This book begins with a very clear and simple sentence: The world is my representation is the first sentence here, and that

Already a provocation because if the world is just my imagination, then it could be that I have an idea of the world, but in reality, it is entirely different. This is exactly what Schopenhauer meant by this sentence: The only world that everyone truly knows and of which he is aware, carries it within him as his idea. Let me give you an example: the lumberjack, the woodsman who goes far and has to fell the giant tree, sees the tree in his imagination, having a completely different idea of the tree when he knows he has to cut it down. Like the children climbing up there, they experience the tree completely differently, and they experience it even more differently than the lovers who kiss under the tree, perhaps even love each other. They see this foliage, they have a completely different idea of one and the same tree. That's why Schopenhauer can say that even in the same environment, everyone lives in a different world because everything that is there for humans is only in their consciousness. That's why these sentences exist: you may have ideas or a more common phrase we hear, In what kind of world do you live? In principle, we all already live in the same world, but in the same environment, we all have different ideas. This also applies to science because in science, there are ideas about the world. Initially, they had the idea that the Earth is flat, then suddenly it was said it's round, and then

Reality is relative, and with each new idea and each new hypothesis, our entire reality, which we know of the world, changes. The only certainty we all have in our lives, the only real certainty, is that we are driven by blind waves. And why? Because those who want him to get him, we have a twofold conception of our body. We all have a body, or the body, and we have two different conceptions of our body. Once as a conception in rational contemplation as an object among objects. But at the same time in a completely different way, namely as will. This means that when you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, look down at yourself, and on the right is the wardrobe, and on the left is the chest of drawers, you first have a conception of yourself as a completely normal, as an object among objects. There is the wardrobe object, the chest of drawers object, there is my body object. And then you can say, okay, as heavy as I am, too fat, doesn't matter. But we see ourselves as an object in comparison to the wardrobe, which hopefully weighs more. But we have another conception of our body, and that is crucial. We feel that we are hungry, that we are thirsty, that we have needs. Everyone feels and knows this in themselves. This conception is not deceptive; this conception shows us how the world is structured. Therefore, one can say that everyone

Summary of his main work: There are 100 different conceptions of the world, but behind everything, there is a universal metaphysical will, and that is crucial. That's why the world is called Will and Representation in this order. Because the will drives us, there is a 16-fold suffering from which we cannot escape. As we have already said, life means suffering. Firstly, all desires stem from a need, from lack, from suffering. Against a wish that is fulfilled, at least ten are denied. This first suffering simply refers to our structure of needs. For example, when we are hungry, it is a lack, we suffer from the absence of food, similarly with thirst. Secondly, he says we cannot satisfy all needs. For example, the need for love, recognition, fame, power, money, material security, eternal health. We have so many needs that even if some are fulfilled, ten more remain denied. The next major problem we suffer from is that these wishes, these needs, keep coming back. We are constantly in the supermarket, needing to do things. These needs keep recurring. Some have said to him, But Schopenhauer, isn't it nice that we keep getting hungry again? This way, we have new pleasures in life.

Pleasure outweighs all effort, and in addition, Schopenhauer says, Whoever wants to test the assertion that pleasure outweighs pain in the world, or at least that they balance each other out, should simply compare the sensation of an animal eating another with the suffering, which is the third great point of suffering we all have in life, and furthermore, we are condemned by the will to live. The individual I mentioned before, because the will is indeed in all living beings, naturally leads to a struggle among living beings. He says, We see strife, struggle, and the changing of victories everywhere in nature. Each stage of the objectification of the will challenges others - matter, space, time. For example, each stage of the objectification, what are stages of objectification? For example, plants, animals, humans are different stages of objectification, and each challenges the others for matter. Plants draw minerals from the earth, which is also will, and challenge the minerals. Then animals eat the plants, grazing on them, challenging the matter, and also each other. So within plants, Schopenhauer gives the example that plants often stretch towards the sun, one overshadowing the other, depriving it of sun, and there they also challenge each other for matter. And the worst would be.

The worst, of course, is human, and there was also a nice sentence. He says the man has oppressed all others and reduced them to mere factories. Isn't it beautiful? I believe I have brought it with me so that the will to live continuously in different forms is its own food until the end, the human race, because it overpowers all others, views nature as a product for its use. The same race, however, also reveals to itself that struggle, that self-division of the will, in the most terrible clarity, and homo homini lupus - man is a wolf to man. He also speaks of how we lock plants in glass prisons, like greenhouses, how we lock animals in huge halls, but also, man becomes a wolf to man, homo homini lupus, as quoted by Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher, because we, and here he brings specific examples and describes them nicely, these factories of the Industrial Revolution in which he lived, where workers perform monotonous movements all day in a hall without any light, without sunshine, and he says it is degrading and pure exploitation, akin to slavery. However, this is the fate of millions ultimately, this mutual oppression, exploitation, and cannibalization are precisely the result of our structure of needs, and there is no way out because the will is a hungry will. Therefore, there is no way out because the

A hungry will is a strong will, and it is showing now in a great variety of meticulous examples. There are even spiders that, after mating, decorate the male partner, or insects that lay their eggs in other animals, and the larvae hatch and eat them alive from the inside. Turtles come ashore every year to lay eggs, and there the jackals are waiting, breaking their soft chest armor and eating them alive. This misery happens every year. I have brought you a truly touching example because it once again shows the blind will, which acts individually as soon as it is in unity. It is completely unreflective, fighting in this individual unity. The example is the bulldog ant, a huge brown fierce ant. What does fierce mean? It's nonsense, of course, it's not a moral judgment. If you cut it in half, a battle begins between the head and the tail parts. The head attacks the tail with its jaws, and the tail bravely defends itself by stabbing the head until they die or are dragged away by the other ants. This has been observed in nature for millennia, including by naturalists of the time. The fourth great suffering we have as an existence on earth is a specifically human suffering, namely, the worry about future needs.

we also have the fact that animals do not know, for example, fear of poverty in old age. They know less about it. But humans, even when they have their needs under control, always have thoughts about the next needs. In contrast to animals, which live in the present, this complete immersion in the present, which is characteristic of animals, contributes a lot to the joy we have in our pets. I remember the time when the poodle was with us on long walks, and it was good to see that at least when he had eaten and drunk contentedly, he would be calm and happy. Just like humans who are already thinking about their future hunger. Additionally, we always have a main concern, especially in this fourth quarter, where we constantly have to think about the future. It is indeed interesting. I have always had a main concern. He says that when a major and oppressive concern is finally lifted from our chest due to a fortunate outcome, another one immediately takes its place. Even if it is smaller, it builds up until it fully occupies the throne again. And the fifth challenge, which we all face as humans, interestingly emerges when we have just managed to satisfy all our needs. It is boredom. Take, for example, a family man who has truly made provisions.

Who has made 20 to 30 million can take care of himself for a lifetime, have the best medical care, everything for his wife, children, and grandchildren. What happens then during the campaign? Shedding hair, literally, the predatory bird of boredom here, and why is it so bad? Because either we are in need or we are bored. Yes, so behind the need lies immediately the boredom, which even affects the smarter animals, is a consequence of life lacking true meaning. If life had true meaning, then it wouldn't be a problem, and we wouldn't fear boredom because it would be very pleasant. But boredom is very dangerous because we then feel, no longer distracted by need and concerns, yes, and occupation, we are not distracted, and then we feel the whole emptiness of existence, and that all the hustle and bustle actually serves no purpose. Even higher animals experience it, and indeed, in all the cities that operate zoos, there is this problem. The animals, if they no longer have to hunt, don't have to worry, don't have to run away to safety from predators, in turn, no longer go hunting, they degenerate, become obese, and depressed. Actually, the mortality rate is very high in zoos because the animal degenerates and cannot cope properly when this will to live is so reduced because they always get their food.

brought and in their fence, they are a complete security, yes, people also write. Schopenhauer often have fear of these holes in occupation. Therefore, they always create an artificial full schedule so that they always have something to do and seek constant occupation. However, as soon as this falters, the complete Karl Hyde and teaching of existence come to light, and the last great suffering, the sixth great suffering of humans, is mortality, and thus the incontrovertible fact that life is only a continuous hindrance, dying an ever-opening death. Therefore, we all live constantly moving towards death at every moment. Yes, it is sad that evening is already here again. Schopenhauer says every evening we find ourselves one day poorer, and the children who are still unclear, Schopenhauer writes, sit like in a theater, full of curiosity in front of the large red velvet curtain, waiting for this curtain to finally open, full of desires and eagerness to act. They sit there curiously waiting, and Schopenhauer says it's fortunate that we don't know what will really come. And even youth says to push death back naturally and does not see it yet. He writes that the cheerfulness and vitality of our youth partly rely on the fact that we are going uphill and do not see death because it lies at the foot on the other side of the mountain. However, by the age of 36, every person crosses the peak, gradually and completely.

Clearly, but gradually, he sees more and more clearly at the foot of the mountain what is waiting for him, and he compares. He has a yearly metaphorical language. He also compares the individual biographies of people with ships that set sail at the beginning and sail out of the harbor under full sail to conquer the world, to find the princess, to plunder treasures further, and to discover life for themselves. But as Schopenhauer usually says, in the end, every castaway sails back into the harbor, disempowered. However, it doesn't matter whether he has been happy or unhappy in a life that is now ending. So, in conclusion, we are sentenced to a sixfold suffering. We suffer from our needs; we suffer from the fact that they keep coming back; we suffer from the individuation of the will that forces us to cannibalize, and we suffer from the future worry that we always have, our main concern, and of course, from the fact that we all must die again, overshadowing our lives. But it's not just our personal lives that are overshadowed; world history is overshadowed too. History shows us the life of peoples and has nothing but wars and uprisings to tell. The peaceful years seem to be only brief pauses. So, world history also shows us this blind will as a struggle, and it gets even worse. He clearly says there are such things and there are wars, and science back then already tried bacter

To get a little bit of a handle on it, there were already some initial successes, he says. Even if one should assume optimistically that there will be no more of these and no wars at some point, he says that would all be useless. Even if all of this were finally overcome and eliminated, the result at the end would be overpopulation of the entire planet, the appalling evil of which only a bold imagination can grasp. Yes, and that is also why there is no progress in history because although there are always individual scientists and wise people who recognize and say the right thing, it doesn't help in general. Throughout all times, the wise have always said the same thing, and the fools, that is, the immeasurable majority of all times, have always done exactly the opposite. And so it will always remain. We are all laughing now, but unfortunately, I found it partly touching because it also has a dizzying relevance. Assuming that we are actually now experiencing the consequences of the overpopulation of the planet, which he says, not overpopulation but population, we are feeling huge migration flows every day, like 50 football fields of rainforest being wiped out. Everything becomes monocultures, agriculture is intensified, insects are dying. I don't even want to know where this is heading. I don't want to imagine these evils. And there were also wise people who recognized this.

Already in the 1970s, precisely in 1972, this major study from the Club of Rome was released, The Limits to Growth. At that time, there were 3.7 billion people, and the Club of Rome stated that we must limit economic growth, with the driving force being the population explosion, an extremely exponential population development. We must not exceed four billion; we need to implement education programs worldwide to address this issue. The book was translated into 30 languages and celebrated globally. However, as Schopenhauer said, despite all this, with seven billion people, we have done exactly the opposite. Predictions indicate that we will soon reach ten billion, which poses unimaginable challenges. Schopenhauer concludes that the true philosophy of history lies in the realization that despite endless changes, we always face the same changeable nature. This is a pessimistic view, as he does not believe, like Hegel, that history progresses, and each generation learns, leading to improvement. No progress is evident. He questions why all this turmoil on Earth exists and answers with one word: suffering.

The will objectifies itself more, he says we cannot determine, but people are not satisfied with that. The human being has a metaphysical need for explanation. Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques in all countries are evidence of the human being's metaphysical need. We have been seeking explanations since ancient times, and the Quran and the Bible say exactly fulfill this need for action because they both promise eternal life and say you do not really die, you could live eternally, and all this activity here with all the suffering and problems, they say it's just a test. Those who pass the test will be rewarded by God, who created and organized this world and the tests, with eternal life. Yes, and Schopenhauer says these explanations all have a theodicy problem. Theodicy comes from the Greek theo for God and means justification in Greek. So, all theologians have to deal with theodicy, which means justifying God in terms of why God, if He is an almighty loving God, also created suffering, natural disasters, wars, all these things. Why did He create all that in His omnipotence and all validity? The theologians have to justify that, and they do so in a theodicy. The most significant theodicy we have is that of Leibniz, you may be familiar with it. Everything says, well, God is already responsible for that and has in His omnipotence.

Actually, diseases have also been created, and wars, and even the possibility for humans to orient themselves towards evil and exhibit moral misconduct. However, Leibniz says that it can be justified because it is still the best of all theoretically possible worlds. He claims he could not have invented it better himself because only through illness do we appreciate good health, only through war do we value peace, and only through the possibility of moral misconduct does the wonder of being able to be good and rejoice in our goodness exist. Therefore, God created the world in this way, as the best of all possible worlds. Ultimately, even though suffering exists, it is necessary. Schopenhauer vehemently disagrees, stating that it is not the best world; in fact, it is the worst of all possible worlds. This world is structured in such a way that it can barely survive, and if it were just slightly worse, it would no longer exist. So, if it were a tiny bit worse, everything would collapse. Therefore, according to Schopenhauer, every theodicy must fail. He also presents a compelling argument, questioning why, if life and all the suffering here are indeed explained as a test or punishment from God, the loving God would also harshly punish animals. After all, animals also have to endure everything. In the end, he argues that if God is loving,

Actually, the Almighty is damned for this suffering, and that's why he likes the Hindu creation story so much. Because in that story, the creator god, Brahman, accidentally stumbled, and the world fell out of him. Schopenhauer likes this because he says the creator brings forth the world through a kind of worship but remains to atone for it until he is redeemed from it. He naturally likes it, but he finds our, let's say, Western creation story in the Old Testament much worse. He says that a god who brings forth this world of distress and misery, and then applauds himself and says everything was very good (Genesis 1:31), is unbearable. He also rejects all descriptions of hell and heaven. Schopenhauer says the best description he found was Dante Alighieri's, who wrote a book, the Divine Comedy, where he detailed hell and the torments of hell. Schopenhauer said that if one reads through it and sees these torments, one quickly realizes that he copied everything from human life. Where else could Dante have taken the material for his hell than from our real world? Yet, it has become quite a proper hell. But then at the end, he describes heaven.

He thought only a few pages logically brought together because our world simply does not offer any materials for something like that. He actually only quoted a few of the church fathers to make some hints that heaven could be. Well, if religions ultimately cannot provide an answer, the question arises as to what the whole hustle and bustle on earth is for. Schopenhauer's answer, as already shown, is very sobering. But why the whole tragicomedy is there is far from clear. Our only answer is, the will to live objectifies itself. And now, as promised, there are three possibilities and chances as to how we can free ourselves from the blind will and all the suffering. And the first way out is art. When we stand in front of a work of art and immerse ourselves completely in the beauty of a painting, a city, or a piece of art, and enjoy the pure beauty, we are distracted and catapulted out of our own constant need and therefore our desire. That's why he can say, this state is pure contemplation, merging into contemplation, losing oneself in the object, forgetting all individuality. So we forget our ego, we are completely in the artwork, and he formulated it a bit like Kant, that is disinterested pleasure. So, if you now go to an exhibition in a museum, you basically leave your needs behind. There are paintings hanging there, you can't just go from one Rembrandt to the next.

You cannot eat food and that's what Schopenhauer says, the need that we want to look at art. That is a very special need; it is no longer the blind will. He says that for that moment, we are relieved of the mundane will. We celebrate the Sabbath of the discipline of work of wanting. The wheel of the Ypsilon stands still, so we celebrate the Sabbath of the discipline of wanting. This means we celebrate freedom. During the week, we always have the whole wanting driving us. But when we look at and celebrate the artwork, we celebrate the work-free Sunday from the blind will, so to speak, and the wheel of the Ypsilon stands still. This comes from the crisis mythology. King Seeon was so daring to seduce the wife of two others, which was noticed, and as punishment, she tied him to a rotating wheel of fire. That is the wheel of the Ypsilon. In this metaphor, we humans are all bound to the wheel, the wheel of the blind will. But in the enjoyment of art, it briefly pauses. The second chance is music. Music works in a different way; it is an image of the will itself. That's why the effect of music is much more powerful and penetrating than that of other artists. Music affects us so profoundly because it is the direct image of the blind will. In music, we have highs, lows, middle tones, drama, everything collapses, then rebuilds.

Getting up again, and that's our life, but in which we are listening, it is no longer our own life, but we also participate in something else here again, so our ego lifts itself for the time of enjoying music, fortunately, and even better, we can, so to speak, free ourselves for moments from the will to live by reading a good novel or going to the theater, Schopenhauer says. Nowadays, one would also include movies in this series because we immerse ourselves in them, he says. Every novel is like a peep-show in which we observe the spasms and convulsions of the anxious human heart, another wonderful thing, a peep-show, without even sticking a television there. But basically, you could also say that when you watch there, we are looking into the peep-show and also see the spasms, the convulsions of our heart, and how it functions. He says, well, those are not us ourselves, the heroes who are struggling there, we can lean back and have a drink. That's why we are momentarily out of the whole hustle and bustle and enjoy it now. The hero has to fight, though, it only works if we identify with the hero, and that's why, quote, all poets are compelled to put their heroes in anxious and painful situations to be able to free them from it, and that's exactly how the whole thing works, even to this day, the Hollywood blockbusters

To secure the treasure or to save the world, and now it gets exciting, Schopenhauer says, Every drama must then perform a very important trick. It leads the hero through a thousand difficulties and dangers until the deep is reached. As soon as it is reached, the curtain quickly falls. So, the dramaturgy must think and end everything as soon as the hero has won because otherwise, what would come next? If it were to continue, we would see the truth and that is not acceptable. I find the trials of everyday life beautiful, yes, very beautiful. Thank you, Brecht. Brecht once again shows us the phenomenological aspect. Just imagine the beloved, enchanting, fairytale, mysterious princess, and then you see how she brushes her teeth, how she is in the supermarket where no one wants to see her, how Romeo and Juliet argue over a hard-boiled egg after ten years. The curtain must fall. Or take James Bond, who always saves the world. It always ends there when he has just defeated the enemies. Imagine if it were to continue and he has no enemies, just cutting roses in the garden. That would be madness because then no one would fear him anymore. He must always be feared. He would retire, sit in Bantorf, by the open fireplace, and get drunk every evening with a martini. Therefore, the curtain must fall, yes.

Therefore, he says that epic or dramatic poetry can only ever depict a striving and fighting for happiness, but never the lasting roles and completed happiness itself. So, the conclusion is that art, music, and theater only free us for a very short time until the curtain falls again. However, for a person who now wants to detach themselves from the whole hustle and bustle for a longer and more sustainable period - and that's what we all want - there is only one chance, as Schopenhauer says. He must say no to the blind will, he must say no to life. But this saying no does not mean that he is now saying the suicidal person is the ideal type of human and that one must take one's own life. By committing suicide, one does not at all give up the will to live by destroying the individual appearance. The suicide only destroys the individual, not the species. So, the suicide does something, but they only act on the individual, small desires within their own small person. They do not face the great denial of the entire blind will. And this is what we must achieve, according to Schopenhauer. He says we can only achieve this through asceticism and meditation. Voluntary complete chastity is the first step in asceticism. Asceticism is then further manifested in voluntary and intentional poverty. Just like in Buddhism, Schopenhauer emphasizes that humans should not be guided by externalities. In meditation, one should seek the deep experience

The difference between one's own and the foreign individual abolishes itself, then it follows naturally that such a person recognizes his innermost and true self in all beings. So, this recognition in all beings naturally means that we completely leave our ego behind. For example, if you succeed in recognizing yourself in other beings or even in all of nature, if you achieve that, then you no longer see yourself as an entity, as your own ego. And that is, of course, the path to Nirvana. It must be clear to us, and that is why it is also said, much more freely, what remains after the complete abolition of the will is nothing for all those in whom the will has turned and denied itself. So, it is about the path to Nirvana. Schopenhauer recommends this, he says the Hindus and Buddhists celebrate this in the delusional experience as the actual enlightenment. And the enlightened one who overcomes egoism and completely leaves his ego behind. How does he do it? Here Schopenhauer's philosophy of the will to live comes into play again. He recognizes the universality of this will to live in all living beings and he knows the principle of individuation. He recognizes that, fundamentally, his small modest ego, which is pushing, struggling, and striving to survive, is not really significant in the face of the metaphysical structure that all beings have this will to live. Yes, he is just a small individuation, and he realizes

The principle as to how individuation is understood, everything is the same to him, well, all beings are the same to him, no, they are not. The experience of nirvana is always difficult for us Western Europeans to comprehend. I will try it again now with Schopenhauer. It's not a great example, but for those who have a pet, especially if you try when you look into your dog's eyes. So, my dog holds the gaze, he holds the gaze, and when you look at him and really make him understand that you are also like me in all this madness, the third and in Ladenburg, looking at quotes with the dog, you will notice that the dog is like you. Yes, so you can notice it. Maybe it's a bad example, but Schopenhauer has tried something similar before. Schopenhauer has tried to spend hours visiting greenhouses, trying to connect with the plants. He also spoke to the plants, so in the greenhouse of Dresden, he spent days there. The caretakers have even approached him because he talks to the plants, but that's a different anecdote. He didn't have time then, and he also tried to immerse himself in the plants, and he always observed animals in the wild. He says if you observe long enough, you can recognize the same manifestation of will in all animals and plants as in ourselves. So, in all of nature, you can recognize it, we see it in

In nature, the manifestation of the will, but we should communicate its inner essence. In this case, we could best use that Sanskrit formula that appears so often in the sacred books of the Hindus, That art thou. So, we must succeed in standing before an animal and realizing, That is me, or in front of a plant, or in front of all nature. We can also immerse ourselves in a forest and feel that ultimately, this level at which I exist is an illusion, and the true reality is unity alone. We can indeed achieve this. As Schopenhauer says, this is the basis of compassion. When we see any creature, whether human or animal, we truly feel that the same will to live that drives us is also present in them. He even goes on to say that the metaphysical will to live feels offended and oppressed in this existence, and it expresses this through us, leading us to suffer with them. This suffering is not ethical; it is rooted in the human nature itself. In summary, everything is driven by the will to live, and for all of us, life means suffering. However, there are three ways out: art, music, and the only sustainable way.

Actually, as cheese chastity fasting meditation and the search and attempt to go into the anna line height to merge into the unity, leaving his ego behind. Now, one must of course say that Schopenhauer himself has now conceded that what he has just described, what I have also described, is the logical consequence of his philosophy of the blind will, the denial of this 'if'. But he said that only a very few exceptional people achieve this, including Master Eckhart and Buddha. The normal person struggles because the blind will is so strong, we can hardly get rid of our ego. He himself, ladies and gentlemen, was no ascetic. He always liked to eat a lot and he had a huge Buddha statue in his apartment, which was unusual back then as it is today. But when visitors came, especially towards the end of his life when he had become famous, he would proudly show the statue to them and everyone would be amazed. However, he himself meditated a lot and lived frugally. He always enjoyed eating and that's why later the existentialist Alba Kamal wrote, Well, Schopenhauer always encouraged us to say no to life, usually at a well-laid table between the third and fourth course. Contemporary critics also criticized Schopenhauer for this, questioning how one could deny life while sitting at a well-laid table. It was because of Schopenhauer that the entire Asian philosophical area was first translated. He himself was partly young

Translations tried and had translated the whole album King with Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer himself says that it would be completely unfair if he were criticized for something like that. He says it is not at all necessary for a philosopher to be a saint, just as it is not necessary for a great sculptor to be a beautiful person himself. We would criticize Michelangelo for having a little belly, but his David is perfect. You cannot measure him against Angelo based on that. Similarly, Schopenhauer says we cannot measure him based on whether he becomes perfect in loving all the theoretical consequences of his philosophy down to the last detail. Instead, we must measure him based on whether his philosophy is true, helpful, and practical. He says especially when people accuse him of being so pessimistic, you have to see what pessimism achieves. He says pessimists, those dark and infinite characters, may have to endure more imaginary but fewer real accidents overall than the cheerful and carefree. Of course, the pessimist who always thinks from the worst-case scenario and often imagines problems that never actually occur is much better prepared when a problem does arise. The optimist, who, as Wittig says, is overly optimistic and takes much higher risks. As you know, Schopenhauer was a hypochondriac himself and always carried his own glass on walks.

He took everything with him to protect himself from herpes and other infectious diseases, and when the great cholera broke out in Berlin in 1831, Mr. Soffer had his apartment cleared out, put everything in a carriage, and on the same day in the morning, he read in the newspaper about the situation in the city. He then moved to a new apartment after a stopover in Frankfurt and shifted his focus to Frankfurt because, for various reasons he listed, Frankfurt seemed to offer such resistance and Hegel, the great optimist, says history is a constant progress. He says we are always moving to higher levels, a constant elevation, and things get better. The great optimist was only briefly out of Berlin, but then returned and got infected with the virus, dying two months later. It could have been due to carelessness, but it is a fact that the optimist died, and the pessimist Schopenhauer continued his legacy. Schopenhauer also generally points out that we all must die and that old age naturally signifies an increasing weakness of will. We can cope much better with it, for example, the decrease in sexual drive. He says in the aphorisms on wisdom of life, which he later wrote in a more personal tone, that the decline in sexual drive is actually a small liberation. It could even be argued that the manifold and endless worries that plague us all our lives, which the

Sex drive generates a constant insanity in people, entertaining the idea that only after its extinction would one become entirely reasonable. So, rationality grows in us as this drive finally diminishes, and overall, it is said one must also consider that there is another source of pleasure besides sexuality. When released from Venus, one gladly chooses a lift at the brook for an uplift, so instead of devoting ourselves to the love goddess Venus, we should seek refuge in the god of wine and pleasure. Ultimately, the great message from Schopenhauer and his legacy is what he gives us, what we ultimately have to live with suffering. So, it makes no sense to ignore this, and it would be entirely wrong to constantly search for happiness. They fail, and you know nowadays, in the German-speaking area alone, we have over 20,000 book titles where happiness is mentioned in the title. So, ten golden rules of happiness in five days, in a five-day course to happiness, or how to become happy. So, it's insane the amount of literature we have. I read one: happiness is learnable. So, it results in crazy titles. And as for Schopenhauer, we can only shake our heads. Schopenhauer says no one has ever felt completely happy in the present unless they were drunk. He also says a happy life is impossible; the highest one can achieve is to be completely indifferent.

Erlangen can be a heroic curriculum, and with a heroic curriculum, I ultimately meant that despite all these images of suffering, etc., we still make determined leaders and continue to live. This is very serene; this is a heroic curriculum. Ultimately, he also has a good message for us at the end. He says, In fact, the conviction that the world, so the human, is something that actually should not be, is suitable to fulfill us with indulgence towards each other, precisely because we all sit in the same boat. We are all driven by this will, and solely because we know this, he would treat us with indulgence towards each other. Therefore, he says that in the future, worldwide, the greeting we offer to each other should be changed. Yes, one should no longer say my lord or miss when addressing someone or something, but rather compassionately, like companion in suffering, comrade in affliction, or my fellow sufferer. In this sense, my dear companions in suffering, thank you for your attention. [Applause]

Schopenhauer in 60 Minuten

Dr. Walther Ziegler

Schopenhauer's Philosophy of the Will to Live

Schopenhauer's main concept is the "will to live," which he believes is the driving force behind all living beings' actions and is metaphysical, unmeasurable, and constant.

He argues that this will is blind, serving no higher purpose, leading to overpopulation, and causing suffering without self-reflection.

Schopenhauer's philosophy ultimately portrays a world of needy beings, driven by an unstoppable force, and trapped in a cycle of survival at the expense of others.

Schopenhauer's View on Existence and Suffering

Schopenhauer believes that existence is synonymous with suffering, and life is a downhill journey filled with struggle and pain.

He argues that the world is driven by a blind universal will, leading to unending desires, suffering, and a constant struggle for survival.

According to Schopenhauer, the endless cycle of human needs and the inevitable conflict driven by the will to live are the fundamental sources of suffering in the world.

The Human Experience: Oppression, Struggle, and Boredom

The human race is seen as overpowering and exploiting others for its own needs, reflecting a constant struggle and self-division of the will.

This oppression is evident in the degrading conditions of the Industrial Revolution, where workers faced exploitation and monotony.

Additionally, humans uniquely experience the burden of constantly worrying about future needs, leading to a cycle of oppressive concerns.

Boredom also emerges as a significant challenge, stemming from life's lack of true meaning, and affecting both humans and higher animals, leading to a sense of emptiness and purposelessness.

Schopenhauer's Pessimistic View of Life and History

Schopenhauer believes that humans are constantly occupied to avoid the fear of mortality, experiencing a sixfold suffering in life.

He argues that world history is overshadowed by war and the inevitable suffering of the human condition.

Despite the efforts of wise individuals, Schopenhauer sees no progress in history, attributing the turmoil on Earth to the overarching theme of suffering and the inevitable consequences of overpopulation.

The philosopher's pessimistic view rejects the idea of history progressing and improving, emphasizing the enduring nature of human suffering.

The Metaphysical Need for Explanation and the Theodicy Problem

People have a metaphysical need for explanation, which is fulfilled by religious texts like the Quran and the Bible promising eternal life.

Theodicy, the justification of God in the face of suffering, is a significant challenge for theologians, with Leibniz proposing that this is the best of all possible worlds.

However, Schopenhauer vehemently disagrees, presenting art as a way to free ourselves from suffering through pure contemplation and disinterested pleasure.

The Role of Art in Freeing Ourselves from the Will to Live

Schopenhauer believes that art allows us to briefly escape the relentless will to live and find freedom.

He explains that music, literature, and theater provide moments of relief from our own desires and struggles.

However, he suggests that for a longer and more sustainable detachment from the will to live, one must practice asceticism and meditation, rejecting the temptations of the world.

Schopenhauer's path to Nirvana involves recognizing oneself in all beings and leaving behind the ego.

He believed in the universality of the will to live in all living beings, which is the basis of compassion.

Schopenhauer's philosophy influenced the translation of Asian philosophical works and was based on the denial of the ego, despite his own indulgent lifestyle.

Schopenhauer defends his translation of King with a comparison to the imperfection of great artists.

He argues that his philosophy should be judged by its truth, helpfulness, and practicality.

The philosopher also discusses the advantages of pessimism and the decline of sexual drive, ultimately emphasizing the inevitability of suffering.

Schopenhauer's final message is one of compassion and the shared experience of human existence.