Why People Get Suicide Wrong
It is not the physical act of suicide that is most common among the disheartened of life. Rather, it is the idea that we really don't want to go through with the physical act of suicide, but we don't like the premises of life and go through it nonetheless dealing with it along the way. It is being out of the circle of mild life-affirmation that most people (at least feign to) live. It is also about not even wanting to get into that circle, as that would simply be turning off the self-awareness of the situation. Buddhists and their ilk would say to let go- even of the self-awareness. All definitions should be swept away. Yet, the premises of life are still there- the survival/boredom- the dealing.. So dropping the self-awareness, is dropping the rebellion against that which is causing us to deal in the first place. De facto acceptance is not the answer for to disheartened either. It is consciously observing the dealing every step of the way. In fact, they don't want to let go- for ego reasons (like everyone else who has their identity wrapped up in a concept.. which everyone does).. Bringing from unhappiness with life to happiness isn't just a letting go of pessimistic thoughts.. That would be giving up an insight. It has to be integrated into the life. It isn't just blind acceptance and dropping the insights of the "dealing" life is presenting. It is going forward with this knowledge.
Comments (70)
My point was suicide is more than the act of suicide- it is about the ideation. It is about living despite not liking its premises. That is prolonged suicide. It is not something to be dropped- no "cure" must be had to get into the circle of mild life-affirmation (well-adjusted in psychological jargon?).
I can only offer advice about coping with depression. Unfortunately, it never goes away, the thought patterns are deeply embedded. There are always alternatives though. Such as ketamine therapy or SSRI's. Some people are adamant about dealing with depression and try other venues like psilocybin or DMT, and can have breakthrough experiences (in controlled settings).
But that's the point.. calling it depression, and then making it something that has to be dealt with. How about depressive realism? Perhaps it is seeing things how they are, but still coping with it.
The point should be directed or focused on dealing with it effectively, and only paid professionals can help with that. The only element missing in all this is that the stipulative definition of depression is so large and comprehensive that nobody really knows how to deal with it. It's a form of realism that is self-serving and justifying. You have to reach a cognitive dissonance that these feelings are unwarranted by your situation in life. Once you reach that cognitive dissonance, you can escape from the depression.
Just some ramblings on my part.
It is this cognitive dissonance that I am suspicious of. Is it a mood or an evaluation on life? Why is that evaluation bad or wrong? Perhaps it is accurate.
Hi. Do you know the phrase: Life's a bitch and then you die ? And then in lots of comedy we get characters joking about the meaninglessness and terribleness of existence. My point is that this attitude is not generally repressed. Instead it's just part of a more complex vision of existence. To me the person who refuses to see the negative is similar to the person who refuses to see the positive. They want to dodge the complexity by ignoring half of it.
No offense, and this may not apply to you, but the vast majority of Schopenhauer flavored posts on philosophy forums appear to be written by college sophomores living on mom and dad's money while typing their profound insights from a bean bag chair under the impressive beer can wall in their dorm room.
The "way things really are" is that nobody at that age really knows what they're talking about, for very understandable reasons. And it doesn't get a whole lot better as they proceed in to middle age and beyond either.
Human beings typically require a story to live within. Sometimes finding a story we like can be challenging. But then things happen, and life goes on. Until it doesn't. Not so complex after all.
To make it even simpler, let's reflect on a picture of Schopenhauer the man. Is his philosophy working for him?
Well put. I guess the complexity is in that finding of a story.
Indeed. Some people are good at that, and others not so much, like everything else. Huge brained profound philosopher grand thinker peeps like us often have problems with stories, because we tend to ask too much of them. Simpler folks tend to have simpler stories which are easier to manage.
What is the criteria for "better"? What is the insight people are supposed to get over time? Something to do with balance and acceptance? You didn't add anything except dismissive derision. Give some substance to the picture then. Man up.. Dismissive sarcasm is the strategy of a sophomore in college sitting on a bean bag, holding an impressive beer can, using dad's money.
Schop's story was pretty nuanced. You can downplay for rhetorical points, or you can get in the complex muck.
Again, well put. And I'd say philosophers in particular tell stories about how devoid of plot-holes the stories philosophers tell themselves (or ought to tell themselves) tend to be.
I think it's an accurate evaluation. People tend to like life more than dying. It's just an inherent biological defense mechanism to prefer life over death. Given normal circumstances.
For me the issue is what accuracy can mean here. It's like grunge being more accurate than hair metal. 'Life is really X.' 'No, life is really Y.' How is either position going to be falsified? Like just about everyone (I assume), I've been up, down, and in between. In terrible moments, the uglier cosmic visions were more plausible. In good moments, the cheerier cosmic visions were more plausible. Of course our identities can get tangled up in one of the visions, and this may help lock us in. Or maybe the reverse is true. A largely constant mood may encourage a largely constant cosmic vision. In any case, we can't measure 'the thing itself' to see if our cosmic theory is correct. Or I don't see how we can.
To take college sophomores with a grain of salt, while remembering we've all been there.
That was simply self-referential. You didn’t say anything.
You bring it a good point that even things are going well, life seems to make sense.
But you don't like it because it doesn't create a space for you to play the role of profound expert. Ok, you are not obligated to like it, no problem.
I don't get what you are getting at. We tell ourselves stories about life? Not really. Life presents itself in a pretty straightforward fashion as far as how we are socially integrated into a particular situated culture and we learn to survive and entertain ourselves within this cultural framework. Everything from how basic needs of food/shelter are met to meeting our wants for entertainment which I deem as things beyond the tasks at hand that allow for survival needs.
We ourselves, the "me", is a story. So it's more fundamental than me telling myself a story. The story teller is himself a story.
Meaning is a story. My life is meaningful because I'm a good Christian or a brilliant thinker or the best car mechanic in town etc.
Schopenhauer seems to be saying something like these are all just made up stories. Ok, fair enough. But there's no point in leaping from there in to all this endless dreariness. Imho, that's just Schopenhauer expanding his own personal situation and personality in to some kind of universal statement. You know, like me saying life is all about typing because it is for me.
It seems more helpful to work on building a better relationship with our story, whatever it might be. You know, the meaning story in our lives might be thought of as a friend, whom we've learned to not take too seriously.
If you looked at my previous thread, I had a similar sentiment though presented differently. It was about motivation. We must trick ourselves in a way, because there is no set reason we should do anything. We decide based on cultural preferences perhaps, or habit that we create for ourselves to give structure- but we don't have to. The ideas of authenticity and radical freedom are not lost on me here. However, the landscape this choosing occurs in is pretty much set as far as what Schopenhauer described as the psychological pendulum swing between survival (in some cultural related form) and entertainment. We are always lacking, and this is the root of his philosophy, in my opinion. It is what I describe as the "structural suffering" that is different than the contingent ones we face in our daily lives based on situations and varies depending on time, place, and circumstances.
Is it really your experience that "we are always lacking"? This seems to be true only from an addictive mindset.
Indeed, it is quite addictive. It is akin to Buddhist beliefs of suffering if you want a reference more well-known. As someone pointed out in another thread, there is a sense that any movement, any change made by a mind, is in a way mediated by some sort of need that is not fulfilled. Thus dissatisfaction drives us. Food/shelter/defecation etc. are obvious ones mediated by biological imperatives. Entertainment is the other end for beings such as ourselves with complex minds that need to focus attention on something. Boredom is a huge limit in this regard.
Yes aren't we satisfied after a hearty meal? We're not "always" lacking.
Its usually short and fleeting...and on to the next goal. The needs are insatiable and hard to satisfy for the complex human animal compared to the time, effort, and struggle to achieve goals/stay in equilibrium with comfort levels/health levels/ not being bored.
The ameliorative efforts are always an ad hoc effort in Western culture.. try meditating more, simplicity/minimalist movement, mindfulness.. these are all bandaids on a bigger issue.
The limits of the given situation for the human mind are survival-related goals and boredom-fleeing goals. Contendness is a negative in that it is negating the always-present lack which again gushes forth once it has been satiated :D.
Imho, suffering is built in to the nature of thought, which explains why suffering is a universal property of the human condition, whatever the time and place etc. Does Schopensour have anything to say along those lines?
If suffering arises from thought itself, then it seems such schemes would be addressing the heart of the issue. Your, um, thoughts?
Quoting Jake
Yes, Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation Books 2 and 4 would be very much about the suffering as a structural/universal property of the human condition.
Here are some of his quotes that might help you from various internet sources if you want a really summarized view:
Here is a secondary source with some basic commentary of his essay "On the Sufferings of the World". [quote=https://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/11/17/arthur-schopenhauer-on-the-sufferings-of-the-world/]Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 – 1860) was a German philosopher known for his atheism and pessimism—in fact he is the most prominent pessimist in the entire western philosophical tradition. Schopenhauer’s most influential work, The World As Will and Representation, examines the role of humanity’s main motivation, which Schopenhauer called will. His analysis led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires cause suffering and can never be fulfilled; consequently, he favored a lifestyle of negating desires, similar to the teachings of Buddhism and Vedanta. Schopenhauer influenced many thinkers including Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Einstein, and Freud.
In “On the Sufferings of the World” (1851), Schopenhauer boldly claims: “Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim.”[i] In other words, suffering and misfortune are the general rule in life, not the exception. Contradicting what many philosophers had stated previously, Schopenhauer argued that evil is a real thing, with good being the lack of evil. We can see this by considering that happiness or satisfaction always imply some state of pain or unhappiness being brought to an end; and by the fact that pleasure is not generally as pleasant as we expect, while pain much worse than imagined. To those who claim that pleasure outweighs pain or that the two balance out, he asks us “to compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.”[ii] And he quickly follows with another powerful image: “We are like lambs in the field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who choose out first one and then another for his prey. So it is that in our good days we are all unconscious of the evil Fate may have in store for us—sickness, poverty, mutilation, loss of sight or reason.”[iii]
Schopenhauer continues by offering multiple ideas and images meant to bring the reality of human suffering to the fore: a) that time marches on and we cannot stop it—it stops only when we are bored; b) that we spend most of life working, worrying, suffering, and yet even if all our wishes were fulfilled, we would then either be bored or desire suicide; c) in youth we have high hopes, but that is because we don’t consider what is really in store for us—life, aging, and death; (Of aging Schopenhauer says: “It is bad today, and it will be worse tomorrow; and so on till the worst of all.”[iv]); d) it would be much better if the earth was lifeless like the moon; life interrupts the “blessed calm” of non-existence; f) if two persons who were friends in youth met in old age, they would feel disappointed in life merely by the sight of each other; they will remember when life promised so much, in youth, and yet delivered so little; g) “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist?”[v] Schopenhauer argues that we should not impose the burden of existence on children. Of his pessimism he says:
I shall be told … that my philosophy is comfortless—because I speak the truth; and people preferred to be assured that everything the Lord has made is good. Go to the priests, then, and leave the philosophers in peace … do not ask us to accommodate our doctrines to the lessons you have been taught. That is what those rascals of sham philosophers will do for you. Ask them for any doctrine you please, and you will get it.[vi]
Schopenhauer also argues that non-human animals are happier than human beings since happiness is basically freedom from pain. The essence of this argument is that the bottom line for both human and non-human animals is pleasure and pain which has as it basis the desire for food, shelter, sex, and the like. We are more sensitive to both pleasure and pain than non-human animals, but we also have much greater passion and emotion regarding their desires. This passion results from our ability to reflect upon the past and future, leaving us susceptible to both ecstasy and despair. We try to increase our happiness with various forms of luxury as well as desiring honor, other persons praise, and intellectual pleasures. But all of these pleasures are accompanied by the constant increased desire and the threat of boredom, a pain unknown to the brutes. Thought, in particular, creates a vast amount of passion, but in the end, all of our struggles are for the same things that non-human animals try to attain—pleasure and pain. But humans, unlike animals, are haunted by the constant specter of death, a realization which ultimately tips the scale in favor of being a brute. Furthermore, non-human animals are more content with mere existence, with the present moment, than are we who constantly anticipate future joys and sorrows.
And yet animals suffer. What is the point of all their suffering? You cannot claim that it builds their souls or results from their free will. The only justified conclusion is “that the will to live, which underlies the whole world of phenomena, must, in their case satisfy its cravings by feeding upon itself.”[vii] Schopenhauer argues that this state of affairs—pointless evil—is consistent with the Hindu notion that Brahma created the world by a mistake, or with the Buddhist idea that the world resulted from a disturbance of the calm of nirvana, or even with the Greek notion of the world and gods resulting from fate. But the Christian idea that a god was happy with the creation of all this misery is unacceptable. Two things make it impossible for any rational person to believe the world was created by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being: 1) the pervasiveness of evil; and 2) imperfection of human beings. Evil is an indictment of such a creator, but since there is no creator it is really an indictment of reality and of ourselves.
Schopenhauer continues: “If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world as a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony.”[viii] He claims this is the view of Origen, Empedocles, Pythagoras, Cicero, as well as Brahmanism and Buddhism. Human life is so full of misery that if there are invisible spirits they must have become human to atone for their crimes.
If you accustom yourself to this view of life you will regulate your expectations accordingly, and cease to look upon all its disagreeable incidents … as anything unusual or irregular; nay, you will find everything is as it should be, in a world where each of us pays the penalty of existence in [their] own particular way.[ix]
Ironically there is a benefit to this view of life; we no longer need to look upon the foibles of our fellow men with surprise or indignation. Instead, we ought to realize that these are our faults too, the faults of all humanity and reality. This should lead to pity for our fellow sufferers in life. Thinking of the world as a place of suffering where we all suffer together reminds us of “the tolerance, patience, regard, and love of neighbor, of which everyone stands in need, and which, therefore, every [person] owes to [their] fellows.”[x]
Summary – Schopenhauer thinks life, both individually and as a whole, is meaningless, primarily because of the fact of suffering. It would be better if there was nothing. Given this situation, the best we can do is to extend mercy to our fellow sufferers.[/quote]
Here is a direct Schop quote I always refer to as the essence of his idea of the human condition:
[quote=https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/pessimism/chapter2.html]Then again, how insatiable a creature is man! Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will. And why is this? The real reason is simply that, taken in itself, Will is the lord of all worlds: everything belongs to it, and therefore no one single thing can ever give it satisfaction, but only the whole, which is endless. For all that, it must rouse our sympathy to think how very little the Will, this lord of the world, really gets when it takes the form of an individual; usually only just enough to keep the body together. This is why man is so very miserable.
Life presents itself chiefly as a task — the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won — of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden.
Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest — when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon — an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature — shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.[/quote]
And finally, one of the better commentaries of the meaning of Schop's philosophy for the layman:
[quote=http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-schop-suff.html]When Schopenhauer says that all life is suffering he means that all life, that is, everything that lives and strives, is filled with suffering. Life wants, and because its wants are mostly unfulfilled, it exists largely in a state of unfulfilled striving and deprivation. Schopenhauer says it thus:
All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this to an end; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied. Further, desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity, fulfillment is short and meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one; the former is a known delusion, the latter a delusion not as yet known. No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar, which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will [which is as long as we are will-filled living beings], so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never obtain lasting happiness or peace. Essentially, it is all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear harm or aspire to enjoyment; care for the constantly demanding will, no matter in what form, continually fills and moves consciousness; but without peace and calm, true well-being is absolutely impossible. (Die Welt, vol I, p 196)
We have seen this theme in The Book of Ecclesiastes and we could have seen it as well in Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, as well as in Blaise Pascal's Pensées, so it should not really be new to us.
Pascal tells us in his Pensées, for example, that we all do actually realize life to be so full of suffering, emptiness, and unsatisfaction that the only way we can tolerate it is by filling our lives with a whole variety of diversions and entertainments.
Misery.--The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this [diversions] we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death. (Pensées # 171)
Diversion.--As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all. (Pensées # 168)
And Pascal reminds us also about Ecclesiastes and Job.
Misery.--Solomon and Job have best known and best spoken of the misery of man; the former the most fortunate, and the latter most unfortunate of men; the former knowing the vanity of pleasures from experience, the latter the reality of evils. (Pensées # 174)
What Schopenhauer adds to this awareness of universal suffering is, as we saw above, that the root of all life's suffering lies in wanting, desiring and fearing, i.e., in willing
You will see much of Schopenhauer's thinking on this theme in pp 311-26 of Die Welt, so you might want to pay particular attention to those pages.
For example, on p 315 he tells us
The ceaseless efforts to banish suffering achieve nothing more than a change in its form. This is essentially want, lack, care for the maintenance of life. If, which is very difficult, we have succeeded in removing pain in this form, it at once appears on the scene in a thousand others, varying according to age and circumstances, such as sexual impulse, passionate love, jealousy, envy, hatred, anxiety, ambition, avarice, sickness, and so on. Finally, if it cannot find entry in any other shape, it comes in the sad, grey garment of weariness, satiety, and boredom, against which many different attempts are made. Even if we ultimately succeed in driving these away, it will hardly be done without letting pain in again in one of the previous forms, and thus starting the dance once more at the beginning; for every human life is tossed backwards and forwards between pain and boredom.
And even what we call "happiness," he says, is really only a temporary cessation of some particular suffering. Schopenhauer tells us that
All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive. It is not a gratification which comes to us originally and of itself, but it must always be the satisfaction of a wish. For desire, that is to say, want [or will], is the precedent condition of every pleasure; but with the satisfaction, the desire and therefore the pleasure cease; and so the satisfaction or gratification can never be more than deliverance from a pain, from a want. (p 319)
Furthermore, all this suffering is without any purpose or meaning (pp 161-65). It is all pointless and in vain.[/quote]
I'm wondering if it's possible to sidestep all this wordy complexity. It seems more useful to me to do something along these lines...
1) Suffering arises from thought itself.
2) Thought is an electro-chemical information medium, a mechanical process of the body like circulating blood, digestion, sex drive etc.
3) Suffering is most efficiently managed by focusing on the mechanical process which is it's source. Suffering is a story, an unpleasant story generated by this mechanical process called thought. To the degree we lower the volume of thought, that which the story is made of, the story and suffering goes away.
As example, say there is an annoying advertisement on the TV. We could yell at the TV, bemoan our fate, analyze the social forces which lead to ads etc etc a process which can continue without end and so on. Or, we could just hit the mute button on the TV, thus sidestepping that whole process.
We have to eat and drink regularly to survive. We typically don't turn this never ending life long requirement in to a big complex problem. We calmly accept the fact that a price tag for living is eating and drinking, and we do the regular maintenance which is required. Simple.
When we're tired we don't turn this in to a big complex problem, we just get some sleep. Simple.
When we need to go to the bathroom we don't turn this in to a big complex problem, we just go. Simple.
If we look at the mind as just another mechanical process of the body then the same kind of simple direct maintenance solutions present themselves. If we're suffering from doing too much thinking, take a break from thinking, rest, let the thought engine cool off.
Of course this is a temporary solution, and the need for ongoing maintenance remains. So what? How is this any different than all the other routine maintenance which we calmly accept as being necessary?
Well ok, if one wishes to turn this fundamentally simple situation in to a huge complex issue for entertainment purposes there's no law against that. But shouldn't the clear minded honest philosopher disclose that this is what they're doing?
Not really. You downplay greatly, the complexity of the human mind, which Schopenhauer explicated so well. Eat and drink? How do we obtain such things? On one end we created civilization- and passed the industrial revolution, a highly complex technological one. This is an immense network of thought, anxiety, time management, and effort to maintain. Food is not just the consumption. It is everything that goes into obtaining it. Even on the individual level- it's not just "ready at hand" when you need it.
Quoting Jake
If only our minds went into sleep modes. Sitting isn't just sitting. It is a mind thinking a myriad of things. Even sleep can be a torture for the insomniac and uncomfortable. Then there is the effort to achieve this seemingly simple phenomenon. The human mind is immensely complex. To describe it as just cooling off, is to downplay the thoughts upon thoughts it creates for itself to entertain itself. Boredom is a serious limit to the human animal. We must amuse ourselves- even if that means putting in effort to meditate or other type mental exercise- which is itself an act of will.
Let me explain a little more on will. According to Schopenhauer- Will (capital W because of its metaphysical importance) is the lord of all worlds. He was an idealist in the sense that all physical phenomena were simply a manifestation of this unified principle of Will. Now, do I believe there is some underlying noumenal force of will- not really. But his conclusion was sound nonetheless. Each act of movement is in a way will-personified. A mind needs to focus its attention. It needs an aboutness. It needs a to do. It is deprived of "something". The needs of hunger and taste, the wants of a goal to work towards- a project. It cannot be still. And here is probably the most important takeaway- if existence was satisfying IN AND OF ITSELF there would be no need for need. There would be no boredom at the end, there would be no need to move towards ANYTHING. Mere existence would be its own satisfaction. But it is not.
Existence can be satisfying in and of itself. Very useful information, but the price tag will be it might spoil your Schopenshour hobby. Your call of course.
If we are basing satisfaction on Schop's definition- satisfaction stands in for a temporary reprieve from the usual game of goal-getting and dissatisfaction with a current state (think of any "need" or "want" here), then that can't be right. You can disagree with the premise, but based on that definition you will need more than an assertion and a joke.
That's different than a suggestion that dissatisfaction is somehow a property of existence, and there's nothing that can be done about that etc, as your quote seems to imply.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So perhaps this is just a semantic quibble, and hopefully we agree that we're talking about our experience of existence. My argument is that this experience can be managed, and that existence can be experienced as satisfying in and of itself at least part of the time. Thus, cynicism is not really justified, given that there are things we can do to adjust the situation Schop seems to be describing.
I wasn't joking, such an investigation has the potential to undermine your interest in Schopenhaur, and I get the impression that perhaps you'd rather that not happen, as you seem rather attached to the fellow. This is just a friendly warning, not advice on how you should proceed.
But I too disagree with the notion that dissatisfaction is somehow a property of existence. However, as human animals, it is in our nature to be dissatisfied, IF it is defined as Schop is defining it, which I think you are missing. If you want to call the human animal nature "Experience" of existence rather than the nature of the human animal- so be it. Then we are just playing word-games but agreeing on the fact of the matter. However, if you think we are not dissatisfied at almost all times, then as Schop explains, why do we need goals in the first place? Why do we need to do anything at all? The problem is not that his philosophy is too narrow, but that it is so expansive, that you are missing his point.
Perhaps you could clarify Schop's definition for us in simpler clearer words, if you feel that we are somehow obligated to limit discussion to his definitions.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Let's use a hopefully helpful comparison.
It is in our nature to be physically hungry. The physical hunger arises again and again, over and over, day after day, all throughout our lives, until we die. Observe how we don't turn this reality in to fuel for cynicism, despair and grand philosophy. Instead, we make peace with the necessity of managing this chronic need, and address the need in a practical manner.
It is also in our nature to suffer from chronic psychic hunger, that's true, agreed. But again there is no need cynicism, despair and grand philosophy. Just as with physical hunger we have the option to address psychic hunger in a straightforward practical manner. And just as is true with physical hunger, there is no permanent solution. Just as is true with physical hunger it's a case of ongoing management.
What unites physical hunger and psychic hunger is that they are both inevitable by products of mechanical processes, digestion and thinking
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree with much of what Schop is saying in the sense that we typically fear the void which emerges when we aren't covering it up with lots of becoming schemes. I agree that this is covering up process involving creating meaning stories out of thin air is a chronic part of the human experience.
I disagree with any notion that this state of affairs is a fixed property of the human condition which can't be avoided, thus we should be cynical and despairing etc.
The dissatisfaction is a product of thought. Thought can be managed to some degree. It is possible to experience reality as being sufficient in and of itself. I'm guessing that Schop knew nothing about any of this given the time and place where he lived. Just a guess, could be wrong, not a Schop expert here obviously.
"Us" "We"? Royal we? :razz:. So his definition was essentially laid out in the quote I used above when I provided the three Schop internet sources. That is to say desire comes from a lack of something- an already-at-hand deficiency that is in the equation and does not/cannot be extricated as animals who need to survive and find mind-engaging stimulation from the environment. Put more elegantly here
:
Quoting Jake
We make due yes. What choice other than physical suicide do we have? Life is about living this out.
Quoting Jake
Well yes, ongoing management, correct.
Quoting Jake
Quoting Jake
No nothing human is straightforward. You know that toilet you shit on? That was created out of immense complexities of distribution and manufacturing. Schopenhauer had a passage about how there are these seemingly basic needs like hunger, and that out of these basic drives, the human mind needs to make a kaleidoscope of needs and wants that are ceaseless and myriad in their complexity. Sure, you can throw words like straightforward and practical to make a rhetorical point. This doesn't change the facts on the ground- which is that the human mind is not straightforward and very complex. Even tribal societies have millennia of trial and error in cultural practices to maintain their small hunting-gathering or pastoralist economies and lifestyles, which again are anything but straightforward.
Anyways, the point is that the dissatisfaction is in the equation. What Schop means by reality not being sufficient in itself is that we would not ever get bored, we would not ever be restless, we would have no need for anything if mere existence was itself satisfying. Need and want are the ruler of our lives. Cause and effect in a physical sense, but dissatisfaction in terms of the human psyche/mind. The root of the animal experience, and MORE so for the human animal is the needs of survival (and in the case of the human animal) distraction and entertainments to fill the void. So yes, the animal does suffer IF suffering is defined as Schop (and to an extent Buddhism) is defining suffering. So your idea about straightforward, practical, and just the mere assertion that we are experiencing reality being sufficient does not, to me, counter that argument.
Learn how to better manage the device which is generating the suffering.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Except that reality IS satisfying in and of itself. Our experience of reality is often not satisfying because we don't bother to better manage the device which is generating the suffering.
The reason that we typically don't experience reality as being satisfying in and of itself is that we are rarely paying attention to reality, but are instead focusing on the symbolic realm between our ears, a phenomena often referred to as being "lost in thought".
It's true that being lost in thought is a very common human habit, and that it generates many of the issues which Schop is describing. I don't deny that there is a problem and that Schop is articulately focused on it.
My point is that there is no reason for cynicism, despair and relentless gloominess because there are things we can do to address the problem.
Quoting Jake
There's no problem. All Schopenhauer did was lower the bar for what entails suffering to such an extent that everyday life is suddenly filled with it. In other words, Schopenhauer was a pussy.
Or conversely.. we are suffering but accept it as a rite of passage of the human experience?
All willing springs from imagination.
It still stands that this definition is a characterization of what is the case. We will because we cannot help it. It is in our nature as restless animals. The counterpoint to this would be that existence would be satisfying in and of itself without any needs- but that is not our world.
Where I have a problem with Schopensour and his followers is that they seem to be worshiping suffering. There's this enthusiasm for endlessly restating the sad state of the human condition etc, and little interest in doing anything constructive about improving the situation.
To me, it's rational to shine a light on problems if the goal is to then try to address them. It's not that rational to limit the inquiry to endlessly describing the problem.
I'm not sure how to relate the first three sentences to what I said. What do you mean? As to the counterpoint: what's the use of comparing this world to a world that isn't and isn't possible?
I think that's unnecessarily judgmental. What's wrong with creating meaning in an inherently meaningless world? It's lovely, in my view, as it is inherently an act of creation. Human knowledge and progress is a gigantic edifice of meaning imposed by us on reality, cultivated, shared from generation to generation. What other creature is capable of this?
I don't see how one could find something satisfying other than from the position of having been unsatisfied? They seem to go together. We are restless, or we are resting, lively or lifeless, hungry or sated; comfortable or discomforted, etc. Call it all suffering, why?
Quoting Benkei
Perhaps for some people it is so; some people take their own lives, and seem to have been suffering invisibly. I don't think it is a mistake to find life burdensome, any more than it is to find it a fascinating and joyful privilege, well worth a few slings and arrows. But it is perhaps a mistake to make one's own condition a universal philosophy.
The world is not what you make it.,both in terms of basic drives and in social-survival realities. To accept is to keep living. To deny is to suicide. Very interesting choice we are given.
I didn't mean it to be judgmental, was just trying to summarize my highly imperfect understanding of Schop quickly.
Quoting Benkei
Right. We are human. We write stories, about everything. This is who we are and what we do. However...
1) If/when we are creating meaning stories as a way to hide from something deep inside that we are afraid of, then the stories can become problematic. If I NEED my story and you disrespect that story, I may have to kill you, wipe out your tribe, remove any threat to my story etc.
2) We don't actually know it's a meaningless world. That's just another story some people like to tell.
It is, to me, and probably to @Benkei, a curious, unfamiliar choice. As if I were to say to myself picking up a hammer, 'shall I hammer the nail into the wood, or my foot?' Conceptually, both are possibilities, but I never actually wonder about it or consider the choice. Or going to the restaurant, dancing naked on the table is a choice, but it is not 'on the menu', neither the restaurant's nor my own internal menu of possibilities. I genuinely do not know, from my own experience, what it is to face suicide as a real choice, though I accept it is one for some people. I choose to call myself lucky, rather than delusional, when pressed to consider it.
Un, I think you are modest to believe, that your not holding the suicide card in your hand, has anything to do with luck.
Unless you mean that you have never been in a dark enough place to have thought about suicide as an out. Is that what you meant?
There is certainly that; circumstantially, I haven't lived through a war, had addict or fighting parents, serious illness, or childhood trauma, but perhaps it is more so dispositional, or genetic. I really mean it is not a personal virtue that I have achieved by my own effort, or by adopting a better philosophy. There is nothing 'reasonable' about my attitude to life, and 'unreasonable' about Schop's. Hemlock is just never on the breakfast menu for me, and it seems to be always there for him - our philosophies explain different lives, and so we have no real disagreement.
Well, as Rudyard Kipling said to Charles Foster Kane:
"If you can keep your sled when all about you are losing theirs..."
Oh screw it. I’ll delete this post.
I think this is a really important point. When you cannot feel joy or any genuine positive sensation, it becomes rational to conclude that all action merely involves being afflicted by some suffering, need or want, and then toiling to cease that sensation, and nothing else. I agree that fundamentally we are motivated to act only by some sense of dissatisfaction, suffering or lack - without which we would be action-less. But for most people there is a positive sense of satisfaction felt when the whatever is causing the dissatisfaction is dealt with, there is a payoff. If you presently lack the ability to feel the satisfaction that comes when needs are dealt with and goals are reached - the world truly can seem a bleak, dark place. Suicide becomes a real, legitimate option to consider.
[quote=Schopenhauer]All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive. It is not a gratification which comes to us originally and of itself, but it must always be the satisfaction of a wish. For desire, that is to say, want [or will], is the precedent condition of every pleasure; but with the satisfaction, the desire and therefore the pleasure cease; and so the satisfaction or gratification can never be more than deliverance from a pain, from a want. [/quote]
What's going awry with this kind of thinking is not that it's wrong, but rather that the lack of experienced payoff is being universalized. For some people, life really is this way. There is no experience of joy or pleasure in their lives. You eat to deal with hunger pains, and it seems for no other reason than that you may continue to experience hunger tomorrow. The issue is projecting this lack of payoff in your personal life onto everybody elses - universalizing it. I used to do the very same thing. At times I have been quite deeply depressed and suicidal, eating was nothing but a chore for me, food was unenjoyable. It seemed the world was just a blind process of suffering perpetuating itself, using human embodiment and all the misery that entails to further it's own existence. Suicide became a very serious consideration. But since I have become better, hunger doesn't seem like such a monumentally raw deal to experience the pleasures of eating, and the novelty of trying new foods. Neither view is wrong per se, the issue is when you project the very personal character of your own experience (are you experiencing a payoff? aren't you?) out onto the rest of the world. It's as if because you personally are not feeling joy from eating, and therefore all eating, for everybody in the world, is nothing but a chore to quell the pangs. There's two issues here. The fundamental unchangeable character of the world - the dissatisfaction that pervades everything, and the varied amounts of payoff each human gets from dealing with their needs and wants - the degree to which you can feel genuine pleasure and joy. The latter is what can be managed. You can't change the fundamental character of the world, but you can get alter and work on how much payoff you can get from dealing with it. At least in my own experience you can start experiencing the payoff again, and life isn't so bleak.
Indeed, great comment that gets to the hub of it. However, as one gets older the price of making the wrong call does recede.
Personally, I'm not a fan of all this "life is meaningless" business, but when they tell me I have Parkinsons disease, well, I'm not sticking around for that. Adios amigos!
Maybe. I think you can be wrong about suicide in so much as not every attempt at suicide is successful. I say that in all seriousness because the only thing worse than trying to leave a world by suicide, is only making it halfway and actively choosing to be a burden to your loved ones.
And speaking of your loved ones left behind, YOU would be the one to selfishly leave the suicide legacy in your family history, something that can be looked to by future generations.
Jake, there can be a great degree of time between the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and a quality of life not worth living anymore.
Tell me something in this hypothetical, how are you going to take your own life and are you going to tell your loved ones? Will they be present? And, as easy as people talk about suicide, it is not so easy to carry out successfully. What happens if you only make it half way and are mentally incapable of making your own decisions?
I've seen Parkinson's raw and up close and as rough as that is? It ain't nothing in comparison to being a body without a mind.
My mom died of Parkinson's. The problem is that if you wait too long, you lose the choice, and can be stuck for many years in a collapsing body prison.
Quoting ArguingWAristotleTiff
It takes one second of decision.
I never really tried committing suicide. But, it takes some real balls to go through the act. I hope that my comment wasn't meant to insinuate anything, as it's a touchy subject.
I find the unrestrained individualism problematic. At one end fine, if that's what you want to do. But, there are cures for the disease that are being devised and implemented in clinical trials.
Parkinson, alzheimers, metastatic cancer, extreme multi-drug resistant bacteria, getting run over by a truck and being not quite dead, non-fatal but catastrophic brain damage, Lou Gehrigs disease, etc. All bad.
The bit about not waiting too long... True. A friend had planned to commit suicide under xyz circumstances. XYZ circumstances arrived (cancer, immobility from weight and arthritis, heart disease, etc.) and she was no longer capable fo carrying out her plans.
I do not have definite plans regarding suicide. What may come hasn't arrived yet. Like how fast will whatever disease there is be expected to take? 6 months? 6 years? How bad will it be? What might be my circumstances at the time? 85 years old, isolated, very poor, bad nursing home, relatives all dead... what would be the point of going on at that point?
With a little effort I can wonder what the point is of going on for the rest of this week. Time to go to the corner bar for a beer. Maybe an oracle will be sitting at the bar who can tell me what will happen.
Yea, that's the outcome I would hope to avoid. But, it's not always possible. You know, one could have a stroke out of the blue, a car accident etc. But if one has some warning, I don't see the point of the heroic hanging on until the bitter end philosophy. But that's just me, I don't have an opinion on how others should proceed.
I'm wary of greed. I'm a lucky fellow and have had way more than I probably deserve. 67 years and counting. If I die today I've gotten a totally fair deal. I'm wary of spoiling this happy story by being greedy for every last minute. If I have a choice I'd prefer to go out on top.
Some are fascinated by their fear of death and obsess over it to the point that they attract it to themselves. A number of drug addicts I knew in my youth went through this and either passed through it or did not.
Then there are philosophies or perhaps I should call them moral codes that prepare one for death. Bushido calls for one to embrace one's death so completely that it stops a process inside of you. It stops fear of death, of course, but also hesitancy to act when required. They are not far off from the Gurdjieff teaching but without all the celebration about how smart they are.
Taoism teaches you only have so much in the tank. You should worry about getting re-fills wherever possible if you are having fun and less about what cannot be controlled. They do have a section that obsesses over immortality but it is mostly there to encourage the original observation.
So the Schopenhuaer metaphysical system brings up the point of what it is to be. According to his theory, to be is to will (to want, to desire). This is deemed as negative as there is lack and lacking is deemed as a deficiency in the system. This raises the question. What would a metaphysics of being be that is not will (desire or want)? It is almost unfathomable.