Author Topic: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)  (Read 3593 times)

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raul

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Herr Holden,
Thank you for your words. I am not the right person to write. I appreciate all the things you have written and still you are writing. I have felt suicidal many times and filled with sadness and bitterness too. I saw myself hanging from the roof many times, or crossing the street in front of the buses or cars whose drivers here drive recklessly. Many in the city killed themselves by crossing the streets looking for the end.   But I suppose the will to life is still strong in me and that´s the reason I still continue my existence in this world. There are days where everything tastes ashes.

You write about salvation and suicide. The world salvation reminds me of the priests and pastors who preach that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, for mankind to attain salvation in the eyes of the Father. Suicide is a forbidden word.

Reading this blog, your words and Hentrich´s are important. Here in Paraguay many end their lives but the media, I mean, TV does not report them except the radio stations and newspaper but few lines. It is very uncomfortable for most people to understand tragedy. We are filled with distraction or tranquilizers. Someone told me that our consciousness continues after death. I am not sure but it is called eternalism, a part of what they call philosophy of time. 

Yes, to exist no more is beautiful. I think about that most of the time and like any other human being I am also afraid. I am afraid of life and death at the same time. Especially when I see my father suffering from diabetes and Parkinson´s Disease. Also I see some elderly people in the streets very early in the morning collecting beer cans or plastic from the garbage in order to sell them to the recycling company and survive another day. There are people who tell me that I should try to stay healthy but I do not pay attention to them. I am tired of all this.

Holden

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Senor Raul,
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing back to me.You see ,most of the anti natalist blogs are dead.Mr Karl does not write anything neither does Metamorph.Liggoti also is silent.Mr Gary still speaks but I am really worried about him as he is getting so very thin and he smokes all the time.

This philosophy is the most important thing in my life.You speak of eternalism.Do you mean we could be destined to repeat out lives continually?I am very much afarid of it.What if Schopenhauer in some manner had to take birth again?

I know that most people will just laugh at us-but I dont care.
Gary after all has devoted thousands of hours urging people to think about it.

Should I try to write stories like Lovecraft and Liggoti?I am not saying I would be a good writer like them,maybe I would just write for the likes of us&post them here?

I am terribly sad.I literally weep all the time.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but 'tis commonly no easy matter to get out of it.

~ James Thompson 1700 - 1748, Philosophy


He that best understands the World, least likes it.

Nine Men in ten are suicides.

Who is rich?  He that is content.  Who is that?  Nobody.

~ Poor Richard's Almanack  1753

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

~ Samuel Johnson  1709 - 1784

(from The Dark Side)
« Last Edit: August 16, 2017, 03:13:00 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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Nation of One

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Alan R. Pratt wrote

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Schopenhauer was a brooding loner whose shrewd insights have had a profound impact on modern man's sense of self-worth.  Extreme pessimism, he argued, is the only outlook from which the world can be viewed objectively.  Optimism, Schopenhauer wrote, is not merely absurdly naive, but is a "really wicked way of thinking, a bitter mockery of the unspeakable sufferings of mankind."  His stark vision of the world, stripped of romantic and idealistic pretense, is at once terrifying and fascinating. 

Imagining himself the successor of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer was convinced that he had ascertained the "thing-in-itself," the metaphysical ground which underlies all reality - and it was totally evil, reducing human life to a stupid, self-defeating struggle.  The principle from which the world is formed is the Will, a blind, rapacious energy with no ultimate purpose or design other than gratification.  All the desires and motivations of mankind, all nature, in fact, are manifestations of Will.  The human body itself is Will objectified, a tool by which the Will manipulates and destroys to satisfy its primitive cravings.  Thus, each individual is locked in mortal combat with all other particular wills, competing for the resources that permit fleeting moments of satisfaction that must end in disillusionment and boredom.

While the Will constantly strives for satisfaction, it can never gratify its desires; it is ceaseless exertion and energy expended without purpose.  Thus, "all life is suffering."  Even if all myriad evils of the world were eliminated, boredom would immediately occupy their place.  Progress is a myth; human existence is a wholly meaningless enterprise, and man is doomed to an eternal round of frustration, strife, and misery.  Suicide then?  Suicide is a futile and foolish act because it merely eliminates the individual, not the entire wretched species.
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« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 07:38:30 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #19 on: September 08, 2017, 09:32:43 am »
My life is one demd horrid grind.  ~ Charles Dickens

We, who neither recognize (not believe in) fortune or fate, or any personified force and necessity which compels and rules over us, have no one against whom to vent the feeling of hatred and horror (if we are magnanimous and constant and incapable of yielding) except against ourselves. ~ Giacomo Leopardi

Man (and other animals as well) is not born to enjoy life, but only to perpetuate it, to communicate it to others who follow him, to conserve it ... A frightful, but nevertheless a true proposition and conclusion of all metaphysics.  Existence is not for him who exists, nor is it for his end and good; and if he finds therein any good, it is just a pure chance; the person who exists is for existence, and nothing but existence, and this is his real pure aim ... All this is manifest if we see that the true and the only real aim of nature is the conservation of the species, and not the conservation or the happiness of the individual; which happiness does not exist in the world at all, neither for the individuals nor for the species.  Hence one must in the last stage come to the above mentioned general, supreme, and terrible conclusion.


Living is a misfortune, death a kindness.

 ~ Giacomo Leopardi

« Last Edit: September 08, 2017, 09:38:41 am by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #20 on: September 09, 2017, 03:59:53 pm »
I want to try the experiment whether one can be perfectly frank, even with oneself, and not take fright at the whole truth

He [man] is fond of striving toward achievement, but not so very fond of the achievement itself, and this is, naturally, terribly funny.  In short, man is constructed comically; there is evidently some joke in all this.

~ Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dostoevski


If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which he has inflicted on men, He would kill Himself. ~ Alexandre Dumas


Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd. ~ Walter Savage Landor


The idea of giving birth to someone fills me with horror.  I'd curse myself if I became a father.  A son of my own!  Oh, no, no, no!  Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and the ignominiousness of life.

The hypothesis of absolute void contains nothing at all which terrifies me.  I am ready to fling myself into the great black hole with perfect calm.


~ Correspondence - Gustave Flaubert

« Last Edit: September 09, 2017, 04:08:20 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #21 on: September 12, 2017, 10:08:08 am »
I look at this life and see the arrogance and the idleness of the strong, the ignorance and bestiality of the weak, the horrible poverty everywhere, overcrowding, drunkenness, hypocrisy, falsehood. . . . Meanwhile in all the houses, all the streets, there is peace; out of fifty thousand people who live in our town there is not one to kick against it all. Think of the people who go to the market for food: during the day they eat; at night they sleep, talk nonsense, marry, grow old, piously follow their dead to the cemetery; one never sees or hears those who suffer, and all the horror of life goes on somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is quiet, peaceful, and against it all there is only the silent protest of statistics; so many go mad, so many gallons are drunk, so many children die of starvation. . . . And such a state of things is obviously what we want; apparently a happy man only feels so because the unhappy bear their burden in silence, but for which happiness would be impossible. It is a general hypnosis. Every happy man should have some one with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws, and some misfortune will befall him -- illness, poverty, loss, and then no one will see or hear him, just as he now neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer, and the happy go on living, just a little fluttered with the petty cares of every day, like an aspen-tree in the wind -- and everything is all right.'

~ Anton Chekhov, Gooseberries

« Last Edit: September 12, 2017, 12:05:17 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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How sweet it must be to die..
« Reply #22 on: September 12, 2017, 10:26:32 am »
I read all the major works by Chekov when I was in grade 11 and 12. I used to read him the whole night long. I used to weep and read him simultaneously. I guess I was born with a broken heart. Much water has flowed under the bridge but I still continue to weep. It gladdens my heart when I find you on-line.You are the only one to responded to my mail on that sad day in the summer of '14.

I remain as crazy as I was in those days.What am I to do with myself.I cannot change myself. This is how I am. You are a very kind man,Herr Hentrich.
The corporate job has turned me into a zombie-I walk and I talk but my heart has frozen. I am not sad because I am not rich or because I don't have a "girl friend" ,no, that is not it at all. I am sad because I have not been bold like van Gogh.

I would prefer to die like him,you see. I would prefer to die in utter poverty among my books rather than to slave away for these gorts.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #23 on: September 12, 2017, 11:07:39 am »
Quote from: Holden
I would prefer to die like him,you see. I would prefer to die in utter poverty among my books rather than to slave away for these gorts.

I very much understand what you are saying and sympathize with how you feel.  I am sure there are those who question why, after all these years, have I not become bored and dissatisfied enough to just surrender and take some humble employment. 

It is a touchy subject.  One of the things that made the film Henry Fool so memorable for me was how Henry would preach to Simon about his need to quit his job.  What Henry was saying was so true, and yet sounds so funny to us because we are under the impression that there is no way out of the daily grind, that one has to be very fortunate to be employed at all (denying the very real feelings within the breast which say otherwise).

I have to admit, the same kind of attitude is what makes Toole's Igantius Reilly so appealing to me, even with all his defects of character.

I want to be a character such as Henry Fool or Ignatius Reilly.

You mention Van Gogh, yes - he is the real man who is not able to live as a "good employee". 

In our world, such "free spirits" must be willing to play the role of the fool, the idiot, or the mental patient.

There was a very funny post made by someone back in the days when we were posting in the WhyWork? forums.  (I knew those forums were targeted for destruction as the ideas go against the corporate work ethic in the global farm of the Industrial World).

I did a search here and found it in our Why Work? section.

Keep a record of your thoughts on how you feel reporting to the workplace, as well as how you feel the night before having to report to work. 

This attitude we have is extremely subversive and goes against the whole "be all you can be" slave mentality.   Not desiring the carrot, will they not be forced to use the whip?  And yet, I felt so blessed to be employed by the State Park Service, and housed!  It was a Fool's Paradise.

As you say though, there are millions upon millions of youth (even college graduates) entering the workforce, all wanting to live as Lords.  They will be angry to find out they will just be well-dressed perfumed serfs.

At least the true scholars might embrace a minimalist lifestyle.  There are the few who will just take the attitude of Henry or Ignatius or Van Gogh.

But we are not dealing with the masses and statistics.  I know what you are facing.

I suppose my personal rebellion was a spontaneous response.  I sought higher education as a means to escape serfdom, and then found that I would be lower than a serf were i to drop out of the rat race altogether.

Now I just want to study for the sake of learning, and like Ignatius Reilly, I would strongly resist if anyone were to try to push me into "the middle class".   

Down with the Middle Class!   :D

There is more than a little irony in the situation when you have the gorts pushing mathematics on their offspring with the hopes of them someday finding gainful employment with a High Tech Company, and then to have someone like me, who wants nothing to do with the structure and discipline required with such a position so as to have the leisure to do nothing other than studying that same math!
« Last Edit: September 12, 2017, 11:36:35 am by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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the dark side: it is only cruel and stupid
« Reply #24 on: September 12, 2017, 12:06:03 pm »
The third escape lies  in knowing that  life is evil  and absurd and putting an end to it by killing yourself.  I  understood this, but for some reason I  did not kill myself.  The fourth means of escape lies in knowing that life is as  Solomon and Schopenhauer have described it, knowing that it is a stupid joke being played on us, and yet continuing to live, to wash, dress, dine, talk, and even write books. Such a position was disgusting and painful to me, but I  remained in it all the same.

Now I see that if I  did not kill myself, it was because I  had some vague notion that my ideas were all wrong. However con­vincing and unquestionable the train of my thoughts and of the thoughts of the wise seemed to  me, the ideas that had led us to affirm the meaninglessness of life, I  still had some obscure doubt about the point of departure of my reflections.

My doubt was expressed in this way: I,  that is, my reason declared that life  is  irrational.  If  there is nothing higher than reason (and there is no way to prove that there is anything higher than it), then reason is the creator of life for me.  If there were no reason, then for me there would be no life. So how can this reason deny life when it is itself the creator of life? Or to put it differently: if there were no life, my reason would not exist either. Therefore, reason is the offspring of life. Life is all . Reason is the fruit of life,  and yet this reason denies that very life. I felt that something was wrong here.

"Life is an absurd evil; there is no doubting this," I  said to myself. "But I have lived, and I am still living; and all of humanity has lived and continues to live. How can  this be? Why do men live when they are able to die? Can it be that Schopenhauer and I are the only ones brilliant enough to have realized that life is meaningless and evil?"

Understanding the vanity of life is not so difficult, and even the simplest of people have understood it for a long time; yet they have lived and continue to live. How is it that they all go on living and never think to doubt the rationality of life?

My  acquired  knowledge, confirmed by  the  wisdom of  the wisest of  men, revealed to  me that everything  in  the  world, both  organic  and  inorganic, was  arranged with extraordinary intelligence; my  position alone was  absurd.  But  these fools, the  huge  masses of simple people, know nothing about the organic and inorganic arrangement of  the world, and yet they live, all  the while believing that life is arranged in a very rational manner!

It occurred to me that there still might be something that I  did not know. After all, ignorance acts precisely in this man­ner. Ignorance always says exactly what I was saying. Whenever it does not know something, it says  that whatever it does not know is stupid. It really comes down to this: all of mankind has lived and continues  to  live as  if it knew the  meaning of life, for without knowing the meaning of life it could not live; but I am saying that all this  life  is  meaningless  and  that  I cannot live.

No one prevents us from denying life, as Schopenhauer has done. So kill yourself, and you won't have to worry about it. If you don't like life, kill yourself. If you live and cannot understand the meaning of life, put an end to it; but don't turn around and start talking and writing about how you don't understand life. You are in cheerful company, for whom everything is going well, and they all know what they are doing; if you are bored and find it offensive, leave.

After all, if we are convinced of the necessity of suicide and do not go through with it, then what are we, if not the weakest, most inconsistent, and, to speak quite frankly, the most stupid of all people, fussing like foolish children over a new toy?

After all, our wisdom, however accurate it may be, has not provided us with an understanding of the meaning of life. Yet the millions who make  up  the  sum of  humanity take part in life without ever doubting the  meaning of life.
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If not today, then tomorrow sickness and death will come (indeed, they were already approaching) to everyone, to  me, and nothing will remain except the stench and the worms. My  deeds,  whatever they may be, will be forgotten sooner or later,  and I  myself will be no more. Why, then, do anything? How can anyone fail to see this and live? That's what is amazing! It is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us; once we are sober we cannot help seeing that it is all a delusion, a  stupid delusion!  Nor is here anything funny or witty about it;  it is only cruel and stupid.

Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon is one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud.

-------------------------------------------------
Note that the statement, "It [Life] is a stupid fraud." uses the "is of identiy".

How would this be worded using E-Prime?

The actual experience of a living human organism feels far different (to me) than how it is portrayed by science and religion.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2017, 12:06:32 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Holden

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Kantian Pessimism
« Reply #25 on: September 12, 2017, 07:55:58 pm »
The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism by Dennis Vanden Auweele is so pricey that only libraries can afford it or millionaires.
Why is it that some philosophical books are so expensive to be out of the reach of the common man.Maybe they do not expect the common men to read such books.They expect them to feed, pay heed to boss and breed.

Well, I downloaded the free sample of the book.This is what Mr. Auweele says-"If Schopenhauer convinced me to become a pessimist,it is you(his lady friend) who is seducing me back to optimism.There might me hope yet".

Now,I do not have an undergraduate degree in philosophy ,let alone a doctorate like Mr. Auweele, so for all intents and purposes,who I write does not matter one whit. Neither I have a published a book,to say nothing of a pricey one.
But I tell you that this statement would not have been appreciated by Schopenhauer,at all. No,there is no hope.There never way.

The nature is strictly determined by the laws of understanding, Kant accepts that,like Schopenhauer. Only,Schopenhauer does not buy the God, Immortality ,Freedom nonsense from Kant.What he is left with is nature,red in tooth and claw,strictly determined by the laws of understanding.
There is no hope there for escape.

He gave it his best shot. Silence, really is the key. The realm of nature can be described with words ,more precisely,with mathematics.In the realm of the Will,only silence reigns.
This is how Wittgenstein plagiarises Schopenhauer's idea:
 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them... He must so to speak throw away the ladder...

So,what I am trying to say is that Herr Hentrich is in the right after all.All we can ever do is solve mathematical problems,for they pertain to the realm of the nature. The fields like sociology,psychology, economics, even philosophy to a very large extent are nothing but hogwash.

The idea is to study mathematics for its own sake. I think Herr Hentrich,you have made a genuine contribution to philosophy.









La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #26 on: September 12, 2017, 09:38:01 pm »
Thanks for the heads up.  That is a pricey book, and published just this past April.  I was looking for the author, Dennis Vanden Auweele, in the Library Genesis database, and his 2016 work, Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root, is already there.

Give it time.  The Ruskies may be able to nab it for those of us on a limited income.

That quote about optimism and hope is a bit of a disappointment, I agree.

We sure do have a full plate to work through anyway as far as studying "the Kantian foundations" goes.

Each evening I have been closing the math textbooks a little earlier since I don't want to burn out, and it is such slow going.  It does calm me down to be in my own orbit though.  I would never have thought I would have taken this route, this humble and rigorously honest path of going through a long series of specific high school text books.

I do not think this will enable me to make any contributions to academic philosophy or literature, but I may be showing by example how, even after one is well past their prime and totally detached from academic or professional life, one might keep one's mental life somewhat "together" through committing oneself to a disciplined revisiting of "school mathematics".

Of course I still have to deal with everyday life, taking care of things as they come up, so there is no way to devote every waking hour to this.

It may not be the most romantic solution to coping with the sense of meaninglessness or the frustrations with disciplines devoted to searching for anwers to questions that have no meaningful answers. 

We just have to get through the hours and the days of our lives.

When the cost of an electronic copy of the work is over $50, we can call it "prohibitively expensive".  Does the cost make his work more valuable?

If we are to read it, it will come our way.  Maybe we should look him up and request a free copy, huh?  I mean, since we are authentic disciples of Schopenhauer, after all.

Maybe there exists a gulf between Schopenhauer scholars and Schopenhauer disciples.  Hmmmm .... Sehr interessant. 

Similarly, there may be a gulf between those who have a very high level of education in mathematics (PhD mathematicians) and those who approach mathematics exercises in textbooks as some kind of psychological experiment or even a spiritual exercise (to develop humility and inner [mental] honesty) where one becomes more and more comfortable with the way one's own mind goes about thinking about problems.

If my method of "disciplined study of fundamental mathematics for my own mental health" appeals just to a few people, one being yourself, then I will have made some kind of contribution.

I am sure you will find people all over the world who would agree that their interest in mathematics has become a central factor of their existence.

Philosophy itself, much like the gems from "Eastern Religions," has been absorbed into modern [Western?] pop psychology as a means to finding what people call "happiness" or "contentment" --- or even "inner peace" via meditation.  I can't be too critical of this tendency.  Who can blame anyone for trying to make some sense of this absurd situation we find ourselves in?

The thing with my interest in Schopenhauer is that I think he would see my lifestyle as a kind of "path of least resistance" or "as close to living in a one man monastery without a God as one can get.'

By going back to revisit fundamentals, and spending a great deal of time --- an exhaustive study engaged in day after day with a kind of religious dedication --- I do manage to short-circuit the insatiable "will to know".  I mean, I realize that I can not swallow all there is to know, and that I can only focus on so very little in any given present moment.

So many want to dive into subjects like Theoretical Physics or even Computational Physics, and yet, first thing in the morning, those same people may be surprised to witness their brains struggling to solve a far more elementary problem in basic Euclidean Geometry.

You mention the man who Schopenhauer visited in the mental asylum.  I think our efforts to spend our lives trying to better understand his philosophy would be respected by Schopenhauer himself.  The entire planet has become one huge Open Mental Asylum, and we are its inmates, each in his cell.  In fact, one can consider oneself fortunate just to have a cell to hide in.

I have no doubt that whatever we are able to discover in our study of the translations of Kant's work, along with what we have absorbed of Schopenhauer's thought, we will gladly post in as organized a fashion as we are able to, and that we would never seek the sell any of it, nor do I expect to be acknowledged as any kind of authority on Schopenhauer.

And yet!

We are Arhtur Schopenhauer's disciples.   It's kind of funny.  We have no authority since we are only disciples and not "scholars from the High Cultural Elite". 

May you find some peace in your readings and meditations.

For now, we'll have to forget about this scholar, Dennis Vanden Auweele, unless, of course, we want to take a look at Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root, which I mentioned above.

PS:  I don't want to sound bitter towards the work Auweele put into The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism.  I am confident that Schopenhauer would be glad that it will enrich the burgeoning field of Schopenhauer studies.  One day, we probably will read it ourselves (May Library Genesis be protected against those who do not believe in this kind of FREEdom.)

As for how I view my own personality, while I have been "scholarly" throughout my life, I do not have the patience or the discipline to approach any "Philosophy of Life" in a systematic manner.   I would never presume to devise any kind of systematic explanation of our lived experience.  Maybe I'm just humble or modest, or maybe I am just honestly stating a brute fact.   Whay i take Schopenhauer's word as gospel, i am not sure.  I just have this inexplicable trust that he put a great deal of thought into what I wrote, and that he felt he may have hit upon solving the riddle of existence, that life teaches us not to want it anymore, and that, in the final analysis, we are nothing.  There is no "I".  I do not exist.

Whatever it is that we call "I" is just as much in my head as it is in your head or in the head of this Dennis Vanden Auweele.  Since we are all equally nothing in the end, it really does not matter whether we contribute anything more to the field of Schopenhauer studies.  How we live and what becomes of us in this world (our fate?) may define us more sharply than any words we have written.

In death we are nothing, and so I would like to get used to this state of being nothing, being nobody.  This is what we really are ... nothing.

When we are engaged in figuring out how to go about solving some mathematics problem, we are using our brains, juggling abstract mental constructions.  It's a weird sensation.

With philosophy, religion, sociology, politics, two people can come to different conclusions based on their opinions.  This is not so with mathematics.  I like that when we look at the same polygon and attempt to determine how many triangles will fit in it by drawing lines from one vertex to all the other vertices, that we will come up with the same solution.  It doesn't even matter that triangles only exist as mental constructs.

PS:
If there were a "religious symbol" that best representated "science," it would be the Cartesian plane, the x-y axes, or the x-y-z axes.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2017, 11:32:25 am by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #27 on: September 13, 2017, 09:48:52 am »
The childish confidence that it is granted to us to discover truth has long since disappeared; as we progress we become aware of the difficulties that lie in the way of its discovery and of the limitation of our powers.  ~ Richard Avenarius, Critique of Pure Experience 1890
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #28 on: September 13, 2017, 05:15:50 pm »
Hentrich,
Sorry, I "kant" say anything about Kant. But let me say this world we live in, us humans, is a “giant gutter”. If there is a Creator of this universe, this creator is son of a **** and clearly this entity enjoys every second of torture it inflicts. Does the entity respect the so called freedom of its creatures? Is this entity moved by suffering? No, it throws them to this landfill. I heard that we are both male and female. So the separation of sexes is artificial. The most beautiful woman is a man in disguise. Men have ****. Do men breast feed?   Two sexes are better than one. While one sex spends the time breeding and taking care of the new little slaves, the other can work in agriculture, brick laying or whatever. Only one sex is not enough to  look after the babies, or working. Two sexes are needed for the human farm. Exploitation to the maximum.
Even if there are no humans, only animals on the planet, animals also behave horribly. Much blood is shed. 
But we accept it, we breed, we do not care about the weakest and as long bad things do not happen to me, everything is all right. And when bad things happen to us, there we react showing our fake compassion. We lack empathy. We follow our programming. We resemble our bloodthirsty creators. Who can guarantee that we are bio machines?
Most look for a mate, pay taxes, go and vote, and when Christmas comes, they will have a big dinner and get drunk at New Year´s Day. On January 6th, the parents will go and get presents for the children. It is everyday programming. On Sunday guys go to the stadium for soccer. Everything programmed. Only a few realize this. A perfect programming for farm animals.  Automatons.

Well, you have two choices: one you become a lamb or you become a predator. If you are a lamb, you survive by being humiliated, mocked, ridiculed and damaged. If you are a predator you stomp on the face of others, you kill in order to survive, and of course in due time other predators will come and get you.
I think the entire universe should cease to exist.
Drive safely.

Nation of One

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Re: The Dark Side (a profound concentration of negativity)
« Reply #29 on: September 13, 2017, 08:48:18 pm »
Quote from: Raul
Hentrich,
Sorry, I "kant" say anything about Kant. But let me say this world we live in, us humans, is a “giant gutter”. If there is a Creator of this universe, this creator is son of a **** and clearly this entity enjoys every second of torture it inflicts.

I kant say much about Kant's writings either.  The only things that really stick with me are that his phenemena are Schopenhauers representations and his noumena, the things-in-themselves, are Schopenhauer's Wills.

Sometimes when reading Kant, I get the feeling that I am crashing a party I was never invited to.

I don't think we have to concern ourselves with a creator god enjoying the misery of the created creatures.  If anything, the universe is just a brute fact and evolution is a process that just is.

In plain language, there are things that are just beyond our comprehension.  Even Kant had to violate his own rules.  I mean, in order to set the limits of reason, he had to go beyond those limits.

Man is a wild animal, and men feel this need to explain everything like boys whistling in the dark.

I have always thought of myself as having a sense of humor, but a true sense of humor would allow me to find our situation kind of comical.  As you know, there is nothing funny about it. 

Cioran said that one has to be a monster to be able to see reality as it is.

We are always with ourselves, so we know how unpleasant our nature can become when we are groggy (sleepy) or hungry or tired or just irritable. 

The universe is indifferent to our discomforts and our anxieties.  We are the universe itself, we are things-in-themselves.   

Quote from: Raul
I think the entire universe should cease to exist.

I really think that this is the core message of Schopenhauer's philosophy.  While many will argue about the technical details, the way I see it, since we are manifestations of the will to live, the thing-in-itself of the universe, and each of us is the center of this universe (from our perspective), as we grow tired of "being ourselves," the will is learning not to want to exist.

So, there is not really a Creator to blame, for it (the universe) exists as us, so when you say you think the entire universe should cease to exist, maybe you are the entire universe just very tired of itself.  If you look at it this way, we are the same "thing" feeling the same way.

In fact, there are many who feel this way, maybe not consciously, but during the night in their slep, or the moment they gain consciousness from sleep.

We begin to sense a mild hatred for everyone around us, including ourselves.  This is the misery and wretchedness that many people are ashamed to admit ever feeling.  Because of the shame associated with these feelings, self-deception and delusion run rampant.  It may be true to say that life depends on us not being aware of how we really feel about being alive. 

Schopenhauer said that life depends on us not knowing it too well.

This means that life depends on not knowing itself too well.

But we are Life, and we have been discussing how we really feel about it.

This is a kind of higher consciousness communicating with itself.  We do not need to lie to each other.  We're just having a long (nearly private) conversation, comparing notes, seeing if what we feel sounds crazy or not.   

Take care, Raul, and thanks for continuing to verbalize your unpopular thoughts here.

You observe the daddies taking their sons to the soccer games.  It's a bunch of hype over nothing.  What a bunch of monkeys human beings are in large groups like that.

I much prefer interacting with human beings on the level that you, Holden, and I (and a couple others) do here.

By the way, when someone shares something here, it does color my daily life.   All day I wanted to respond to every request with "I would prefer not to."  (Thanks Maughan)

I want to become weirder and weirder.  I think that studying math every day will help me become more and more weird, as far as not being anything like those daddies taking their sons to soccer, footbal, basketball games.  I like being this outsider.

Life itself is strange and weird and, yes, even creepy.

Sometimes I am in such a foul mood that I suspect I too am evil, but so what if I were.  When I was a child experiencing a nightmare-dream which involved an evil demonic anhtropomorphic monster, I would actually attempt to befriend the Thing.  I thought that were I able to become as evil as it, this would protect me. 

I have heard that some people are too good for this world.  They are not evil enough to face another day.

I ate my eggs today.   I ate hot dogs with German sour Kraut on wheat bread.  Then, for dinner I ate a zucchini from the garden which I made spiggeti out of with sauce made from the tomatoes.  I drank espresso throughout the day, and I repressed the rage within me so I would not be too mean to my mother when she began to weigh on my nerves.

Why do I tell you this?  You did not ask.   Well, I want to show you that even though I am trying to read the translations of Kant, I only do this for about an hour each night, so I do not intend to make great progress.  When I am able to find a calm state of mind, I lay on the floor and solve a handful of math problems as I am committed to getting through a couple textbooks before the end of the year.

Such books become like a drug for me.  I feel fortunate that I am able to do something so forbidden as studying math instead of looking for a job.  Most people in my situation either struggle with drug and alcohol dependency daily, or they are trapped in some kind of "day program" [read: DAY JAIL] where fully grown adults are treated like kindergarten students - very humilating and denigrating. 

This is it for me:  math is my drug of choice.  It's what I do to isolate from mass society, and I don't have to pay any dealer or the Buddha at the liquor store.  Don't get me wrong, I used to love my weed medicine man as well as the Buddha at the liquor store, but, don't you see that I now have access to my drugs (math texts and solution manuals) as long as I stay out of jail, refrain from being seduced into gainful employment, continue to live as a celibate godless monk, and stubbornly refuse to fit into society?

I don't mind being a weirdo.  It gives me the opportunity to listen to someone like you who states frankly that you wish the universe would cease to exist.  If only more people would give some attention to such forbidden thoughts (within themselves), we might raise the level of consciousness and empathy on this planet.

The rich man is not immune to these feelings either.  There must be countless who have attained postions of wealth and power who are tasting misery and wretchedness to the dregs.  They can afford to feed their brains as much coc-aine as they wish.  You know where that will lead?   They can play with the fire, the primordial thing that they are toying with cannot be satisfied.  The more they feed it, the more it will want.

Be wise, be weird.  It is very likely that far more people feel the way we do than we can imagine, but they may have already brought offspring into this world for whatever reason, maybe for no reason at all.  Now, they feel that getting through life is just a problem their offspring will have to deal with, and they are right.  By "right" I do not mean they are justified, I simply mean that, yes, now their offspring have to deal with the burden their own existence will become to them.

At least you are able to wrap your mind around the situation with a grin.  You see through the farce and you are nobody's fool.

« Last Edit: September 13, 2017, 09:48:09 pm by { { } } »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~