Essays and Aphorisms by Arthur Schopenhauer
Joseph Campbell’s frequent references to Arthur Schopenhauer inspired my curiosity to read more about this German philosopher. Schopenhauer was one of the most provocative thinkers of the nineteenth century. His work primarily focused on trying to understand the meaning of life in a world where suffering and death were all around.
His works explored almost every aspect of human existence art, history, psychology, religion, and death. He believed that human action was not caused reason but by “will” - the blind irrational desire for physical existence. His work explores the idea art, morality, and self-awareness may be our only salvation in a suffering world.
Schopenhauer’s work is not the most cheerful writing I’ve ever experienced, but it is definitely among the most thought provoking and personally rewarding philosophical works I’ve ever had in my hands. This work of essays and aphorisms is a great introduction to Schopenhauer and his philosophy because it is broken into little chunks that you can read, put down, contemplate, and dive back in when you’ve recovered and are ready for more. — MJD.
Excerpt:
Every moment of our life belongs to the present only for a moment; then it belongs for ever to the past. Every evening we re poorer by the day. We would perhaps grow frantic at the sight of the revving away of our short span of time were we not secretly conscious in the profoundest depths of our being that we share in the inexhaustible well of eternity, out of which we can for ever draw new life and renewed time.
You could, to be sure, use on consideration of this kind a theory that the greatest wisdom consists in enjoying the present and making this enjoyment the goal of life, because the present is all that is real and everything else is merely imaginary. But you could just as well call this mode of life the greatest folly: for that which in a moment ceases to exist, which vanishes as completely as a dream, can not be worth any serious effort. p.52
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