if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose, how would men occupy their lives? what would they do with their time? If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature. — Arthur Schopenhauer
but he conflict his own words, war, murders, and everything again ruins the equilibrium Schopenhauer trying to establish by fulfilling everyone's wish.there would be wars, massacres, and murders
Our wishes are never-ending, even if Jack obtained his Jill, maybe life seems boring to him and he discovers a new Jill (I don't want that though, it will ruin our childhood). But yup wishes are never-ending. — theWhiteLight
Any pessimists out there who'd like to defend Schopenhauer on this point? — Amalac
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. — Schopenhauer
if all wishes were fulfilled as soon as they arose — Arthur Schopenhauer
Even in what we THINK is paradise (like the Jack and Jill scenario you quoted), we would lack something.. even if it is just the bare restlessness of existence itself (i.e. the state of boredom). — schopenhauer1
Dissatisfaction drives Humanity. — New2K2
I would think that the person may be best to consider why they wish for that. It may point to something deeper.We could also ask if we got everything we wished for would not develop any wisdom? So, it may be worth reaching for the heights in what we wish for, but with some awareness that it may not even be desirable to fulfill all of our desires. — Jack Cummins
If all desires are fulfilled, then soon a person will appear who wants all desires of everyone NOT to be fulfilled. And the great recursion will come. :) — SimpleUser
Then all desires can be considered the same, seeming. Otherwise, it turns out that there are "right" desires and "false"?True, like I responded to another user the only way out of such a situation seems to be this: The man who wishes for everyone's desires not to be fulfilled actually is saying something like: It would feel so good if I could ruin everyone else's desires. — Амалак
I mean, I'm fine with lacking that. Is there a reason why we should not lack anything? In that paradise we also lack pain and despair, but it doesn't seem like that's bad in the least. — Amalac
Then all desires can be considered the same, seeming. Otherwise, it turns out that there are "right" desires and "false"? — SimpleUser
at face value the desire to kill someone may appear to be based on a sensation, but it may not be that simple. It could be that the desire is based upon the way that person is having in their life. — Jack Cummins
Getting back to the idea of boredom, we could ask if that is an actual sensation, experienced bodily, because it could be experienced more as an absence. So, really, Shopenhauer's Jack may just be left with a void of craving if he did not have to work to win Jill's love. So, it seems that the presence of craving is seen as worth having as opposed to boredom. The question is whether boredom is really the worst possible scenario. What is boredom exactly? Is it simply a sensation? — Jack Cummins
The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present—the ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.
In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope—in such a world, happiness is inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over.
At the same time it is a wonderful thing that, in the world of human beings as in that of animals in general, this manifold restless motion is produced and kept up by the agency of two simple impulses—hunger and the sexual instinct; aided a little, perhaps, by the influence of boredom, but by nothing else; and that, in the theatre of life, these suffice to form the primum mobile of how complicated a machinery, setting in motion how strange and varied a scene!
On looking a little closer, we find that inorganic matter presents a constant conflict between chemical forces, which eventually works dissolution; and on the other hand, that organic life is impossible without continual change of matter, and cannot exist if it does not receive perpetual help from without. This is the realm of finality; and its opposite would be an infinite existence, exposed to no attack from without, and needing nothing to support it; [Greek: haei hosautos dn], the realm of eternal peace; [Greek: oute giguomenon oute apollumenon], some timeless, changeless state, one and undiversified; the negative knowledge of which forms the dominant note of the Platonic philosophy. It is to some such state as this that the denial of the will to live opens up the way.
The scenes of our life are like pictures done in rough mosaic. Looked at close, they produce no effect. There is nothing beautiful to be found in them, unless you stand some distance off. So, to gain anything we have longed for is only to discover how vain and empty it is; and even though we are always living in expectation of better things, at the same time we often repent and long to have the past back again. We look upon the present as something to be put up with while it lasts, and serving only as the way towards our goal. Hence most people, if they glance back when they come to the end of life, will find that all along they have been living ad interim: they will be surprised to find that the very thing they disregarded and let slip by unenjoyed was just the life in the expectation of which they passed all their time. Of how many a man may it not be said that hope made a fool of him until he danced into the arms of death!
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.
— Schopenhauer
Any pessimists out there who'd like to defend Schopenhauer on this point? — Amalac
However, I can see the relevance of Maslow's ideas, because he is suggesting that when one need is met this becomes a basis for moving on to the next one up in the hierarchy. Also, it would be easy to compare the whole idea of desires with needs, because both could be seen as arising from the essence of human nature. — Jack Cummins
So, really, Shopenhauer's Jack may just be left with a void of craving if he did not have to work to win Jill's love. So, it seems that the presence of craving is seen as worth having as opposed to boredom. — Jack Cummins
we could ask if that is an actual sensation, experienced bodily, because it could be experienced more as an absence — Jack Cummins
The question is whether boredom is really the worst possible scenario. — Jack Cummins
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