Some of Schopenhauer's best insights were his ideas about the centrality of boredom. — schopenhauer1

Why boredom, especially? Wasn't he certain about fear or grief or anger or any other among of a host of feelings too?

[quote="schopenhauer1;d12594"Boredom sits at the heart of the human condition.[/quote]
Boredom is just one of the many feelings a human being can be aware of at any time. Most probably Schopenhauer was "bored to death" and boredom dominated all his other feelings! :smile:
If he had lived today, he would maybe have chosen "stress" as the basic element at the heart of human condition in our times ...

But then, we can say of a lot of other things besides feelings to be at the heart of the human condition, i.e. which are more characteristic of the human condition (than boredom): Suffering, love, compassion, communication and understanding, acknowledgment and recognition, ... All these are very important needs --at the heart of the human condition-- that characterize humans, making them different from other species.

Boredom is just one of the many feelings a human being can be aware of at any time. Most probably Schopenhauer was "bored to death" and boredom dominated all his other feelings! :smile:
If he had lived today, he would maybe have chosen "stress" as the basic element at the heart of human condition in our times ...

But then, we can say of a lot of other things besides feelings to be at the heart of the human condition, i.e. which are more characteristic of the human condition (than boredom): Suffering, love, compassion, communication and understanding, acknowledgment and recognition, ... All these are very important needs --at the heart of the human condition-- that characterize humans, making them different from other species. — Alkis Piskas

Nah on all that. Go back to some posts discussed on here for reference. At the end of the day, besides survival motivations, you are trying to get your attention caught up by something.

Yet this self-hood is at the heart of being born at all.. The fact that we even need a way out is something to look at first. If a perspective change happens through some Buddhist technique, the fact is, we were in place A (not Enlightened), and we need to get to place B (Enlightened).

Also, I just don't buy it.. The self-hood thing is part of moving through the world. Most people just can't become Enlightened ascetics (if that's even a metaphysical "thing" to become).. I may want to be the best X, but doesn't mean I will achieve that.. Same with this. In a way it is aligned with a radical perspective in anthropology that sees humans very cognition as being radically different. Sapir-Whorf like.. You see, Eskimos understand snow better because they have more words for different snow... — schopenhauer1

Earlier in the thread, a poster was especially displeased by our suggestion that he is at all times, basically, acting out of boredom.

I wondered thene whether to stop posting in this thread or at least send you a note about where it's likely going to head, given the displeasure of this poster (and some others), and that it might be best not to continue.

You're in a similar situation now like the other posters who took a dim view of your suggestion that they're acting out of boredom. Now, another poster is suggesting something that is outside your scope, and you take a dim view of it.

Just like you're at ease enough with the idea that humans act essentially out of boredom (while not all other people are at ease with this idea), some other people are at ease enough with the idea that selfhood is a construct (while you (and many others) are not at ease with said idea). It's why some people can discuss a particular topic without such discussion causing them unease, and others cannot.

So individuals choose to form an identity.. But that's just not true. Humans function (normally) via enculturation using socio-cultural cues aligning with a whole host of human-traits that we evolved to survive and live in the world. If anything, the desire to shed one's self-hood is simply a recognition of the disappointments of the self that must form as being a functioning human. First comes the identity and then comes the detaching from identity.. There is still a "deal with" situation of moving from attached to not attached.. So now there's that put upon the human born into the world...

There is in some religious/spiritual traditions a warning given that one should not discuss certain religious/spiritual topics with just anyone at just any time in just any setting. This warning is given with good reason, it is intended as a measure to avoid unnecessarily upsetting people, and to avoid wasting one's time.

I haven't seen such consideration emphasized in Western philosophy, but I think it is very much in place.

Not sure what you’re getting at. My view is that self may be constructed but we can’t help but to construct a self. Was there something you wanted to critique or add?

This is a bit tricky ... There is a lot of literature written about what @Possibility is talking about. But if one isn't familiar with it, it's very difficult to discuss it. It's a huge topic (in fact, in some Buddhist traditions, it is considered so problematic that insiders are forbidden to discuss it with otusiders and newcomers). It's quite optimistic of her to think she can properly present it within a few forum posts.

So in your view of Buddhism, is there a goal of deconstruction of self?

If anything, the "deconstruction of self" is a means to an end, namely, to nirvana, the complete cessation of suffering.

Right, but getting to nirvana is a sort of discipline no? I’m saying this is one more burden, one of the do (not do) of Buddhism.

If there’s a delusion of self there’s being non deluded but that takes X thing that one must deal with like everything else from being born at all..hence my pessimism of even Buddhism which ironically is a kind of path forward from its own pessimistic evaluations

Why boredom, especially? Wasn't he certain about fear or grief or anger or any other among of a host of feelings too? — Alkis Piskas

I guess there is a view held by some that most of what people do in life is just filling in time until you die. I've never quite understood what boredom actually means because the word seems to be an umbrella term used by people to describe a range of emotional responses that coalesce around a central idea of dissatisfaction. It also seems to be related to anxiety.

One of my favorite quotes is from Blaise Pascal: “All of man’s misfortune comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to sit quietly in a room”

Go back to some posts discussed on here for reference. — schopenhauer1

I'm sorry, I didn't. But reading other posts won't change what I think about "boredom" being at the the heart of human condition. It's too dramatic and too shallow. That's why I joked. You shouldn't take it that seriously. Here's another joke, not mine this time:



And here's something showing the unimportance and uselessness of "boredom", from another important philosopher:
"Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?"
(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Listen. I know about boredom as a few know ... Boredom can become pathological, a mental disease. I suffered from it for about two years, during my compulsory military service in the Navy. I had lost my interest for everything. And I was feeling a big pressure inside, like a knot. I hope no one knows ever that feeling! Yet, as serious as that could be, I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted. As it has passed with me, a little before my service came to its end.

And, as you saw, I can even joke about that! :smile:

I've never quite understood what boredom actually means because the word seems to be an umbrella term what boredom actually means because the word seems to be an umbrella term — Tom Storm

Right. There's this too.

It also seems to be related to anxiety. — Tom Storm

Well, as I wrote to @schopenhauer1 a while ago, I have felt pathological boredom to my bones. I know well what it is. It might be connected to "stress" (I said I was feeling a big pressure inside), but not to anxiety, i.e. worry, nervousness, etc. These feelings are much higher on a "livingess" scale. Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing.

“All of man’s misfortune comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to sit quietly in a room” — Tom Storm

Nice! And true. It can be said in a million ways ...

Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing. — Alkis Piskas

To me that sounds like depression.

The world I understand is through my mediating self. It was the individual brought into existence and that suffers. You can twist that logic all you want and you ain’t gonna change that point. I might interact from it and learn information that I can process to survive in my environment and entertain, but it’s still the individual who is processing and using this information and outputting it. You can’t just skip over that. — schopenhauer1

You can’t twist logic, but you can ignore it.

Individuals are not ‘brought into existence’ from somewhere else they’d rather be. They are ‘conceived’ in potentiality by mostly unintentional collaboration of existence. This conception manifests life via lots of small and seemingly insignificant choices or ‘willing’ collaboration, until such time as there is sufficient intentional awareness, connection and collaboration among willing aspects to construct a ‘self’ as a local consolidation of choice in potentiality. But this ‘self’ is not identical to the conception from which your life manifest in the first place. Although in language it would make sense to consider them the same ‘individual’ subject, it is this ‘flattening’ of what is a more complex potentiality for the purpose of language that leads to conflicting value structures.

Formal logic insists that only one of these value structures can be our ‘true’ value structure - so it seems as if we’re ‘forced’ to choose between the qualitative primacy of the individual (in which case the problem is existence), or the quantitative primacy of existence (in which case the problem is individual, personal).
— Possibility

This sounds incoherent. It sounds like you are saying what I already gathered, that it’s the individuals fault for experiencing the sufferings and harms. It also sounds like you think you can take the view from nowhere regarding your own existence. But you can’t. All choices are mediated by a person with a will, values, reasons, goals, etc that de facto are forced upon them as they are born and interacting. — schopenhauer1

Well of course it sounds incoherent - this is the conflict. And I don’t see why experiencing suffering and harm is necessarily someone’s fault. You’re looking to attribute intentionality in a moralistic structure, but you need to reconcile the conflicting value structures first - which is as easy as reconciling quantum physics with general relativity. Your solution is to exclude one in favour of the other - and then fight to deny anyone’s experience which might suggest the reality you’ve decided on might be ignoring aspects of the truth. Hmm... and yet I’m the one accused of gaslighting.

All choices are mediated by a person whose will, values, reasons, goals, etc are continually reconstructing as they are born and interacting. This variability can be mapped, just as Copernicus mapped the solar system without leaving Earth.

Fine collaborating about pessimism then. Awareness of the forced agenda we are all a part of. Why force people into life? Any answer implicates you mam. It implicates that you too have an agenda for people.. — schopenhauer1

How about collaborating between pessimism and optimism? Or awareness of a broader agenda that is not forcing a consolidated ‘individual’ into a quantitatively limited, temporal existence, but rather opportunity for a potentially constructed ‘self’ to manifest actual collaboration with existence? You may choose to limit your collaboration to increasing pessimism, but your comments here have been denying my capacity to choose optimism, or to move freely between the two, simply because it doesn’t fit with your own limited perspective. So stop trying to accuse me of gaslighting.

Then tell me your philosophy! Can you actually summarize your argument in a succinct intelligible way? Do you even grasp what I’m arguing? All I’m getting from you is that it’s the pessimists fault for not seeing some truth that I’m sure you think you have access to cause you are seeing it from some quantitative way. — schopenhauer1

You don’t want to hear my philosophy - you want me to tell you who I think is to blame for this situation we’re in. But I’m not laying blame. If you were interested in my philosophy at all, you would have been reading what I actually wrote, instead of reducing all my words to some moralistic stance you can argue against. If you genuinely want to hear my philosophy, then go back and re-read my posts, and then discuss those words, rather than what your mediating self feels that I’m saying.

Just like you're at ease enough with the idea that humans act essentially out of boredom (while not all other people are at ease with this idea), some other people are at ease enough with the idea that selfhood is a construct (while you (and many others) are not at ease with said idea). It's why some people can discuss a particular topic without such discussion causing them unease, and others cannot.

There is in some religious/spiritual traditions a warning given that one should not discuss certain religious/spiritual topics with just anyone at just any time in just any setting. This warning is given with good reason, it is intended as a measure to avoid unnecessarily upsetting people, and to avoid wasting one's time.

I haven't seen such consideration emphasized in Western philosophy, but I think it is very much in place. — baker

I appreciate your open-minded approach. I think this warning is often along the lines of ‘when the student is ready, the teacher appears’. I agree that some people are not ready to explore beyond their event horizon - it’s an unsettling and often terrifying process. Far less risky to step away from the apparent precipice. But I also think we have this faculty of imagination for a reason, and it isn’t really to avoid getting bored or to talk ‘hocus pocus’. Philosophy is about enabling the interaction of logic, affect and value structures in a way that challenges the structures themselves to improve their accuracy and effectiveness. That means we need to be prepared to dismantle them to understand why they’re not working.

Right, but getting to nirvana is a sort of discipline no? I’m saying this is one more burden, one of the do (not do) of Buddhism.

If there’s a delusion of self there’s being non deluded but that takes X thing that one must deal with like everything else from being born at all..hence my pessimism of even Buddhism which ironically is a kind of path forward from its own pessimistic evaluations — schopenhauer1

As I said before, Buddhism is commonly misinterpreted as a practice to self-improvement, but the path to enlightenment is not a one-time deal. There’s no consolidation at the end known as ‘enlightened’ - Buddha’s ultimate achievement was non-existence. We’re not obligated to follow this or reject it, but invited to explore the path in order to understand, and from there make choices in genuinely reducing suffering (not just our own experience or observation of it), as far as our awareness, connection and collaboration allows.

I’m inviting you to connect and collaborate to increase awareness - not because I think I know better, but because the very fact that we’re not on the same page indicates there is an aspect of awareness that we don’t share. You can choose what you want to do with that. No one is forcing you to respond. But when you do, I will be trying to find a position from which I can understand yours without denying my own experience - knowing I may need to imagine the possibility that such a position exists. You don’t have to join me there, but I’ll try to describe it, just the same.

To me that sounds like depression. — Tom Storm

Depression is a "higher" state on a livingness scale. It is a feeling of loss of hope or courage, and often being guilty and inadequate or useless. Enter the depression pills. In apathy, you have no feelings --except apathy itself, which can be barely called a feeling. (Actually, the word "apathy" comes from Greek "a-" (privative) + "pathos" (passion, feeling) => no feeling. There are no pills for that!

In apathy, you have no feelings --except apathy itself, which can be barely called a feeling. (Actually, the word "apathy" comes from Greek "a-" (privative) + "pathos" (passion, feeling) => no feeling. There are no pills for that! — Alkis Piskas

Some would say there are no pills for depression. As someone who works with people who are living with depression, both treated and untreated, what you describes sounds exactly like what many of them describe.

Some would say there are no pills for depression. — Tom Storm

I assume that you mean that (the existing) depression pills are useless --hence "treated and untreated". I not only agree with that but Ialso believe that they even do more harm than good.

I don't know exactly what is your relation with depressed people ... I have worked on a couple of these cases and I know that depression can be treated with no medicine or any physical means whatsoever, and in a relatively short time, depending on how severe it is, how long it has lasted and, of course, the person him/herself. A depressed person can become a healthy and happy person in a relatively short time. And never regress.

, who has offered us the opportunity to discuss about all these things --Thanks!-- talks about a subject, "boredom", about which, as I can see, has very little knowledge. And unfortunately, he doesn't seem to want to learn more ...

I not only agree with that but Ialso believe that they even do more harm than good. — Alkis Piskas

I manage psychosocial services in the area of mental health, suicide prevention and substance use - medication works for many people and it works well. But it's not for everyone.

I manage psychosocial services in the area of mental health, suicide prevention and substance use — Tom Storm

This is very good! :up: (Hard job, too!)

medication works for many people and it works well. But it's not for everyone — Tom Storm

OK. Yes, of course, it's not for everyone.

Some have thought it relevant to include Buddhism into a discussion on boredom. I second that. After all ennui is basically a state brought on by pointless repetition and samsara (death-rebirth cycle) is precisely that: a circular path that ends at the beginning only for us to go through what we've already gone through, in all likelihood, countless number of times.

Nirvana then is the frantic wish, a desperate effort to terminate a process that gets you nowhere.

That said, people have tremendous fun riding a merry-go-round and many dances have a circular format. I don't get it. Samsara, carousels, same thing! One is enjoyable, the other tedious and even painful.

A Sisyphusean nightmare!

I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted. — Alkis Piskas

Bin der. Dun dat. Under totally different circumstances

A bit of a difference between boredom and depression: the overall feeling is SOMEWHAT similar, but not totally. They say boredom is the forerunner to depression.

A healthy person deals with boredom much like he deals with any other displeasure: he seeks to avoid it or else to replace it. Much the same way as with hunger, sleepiness, etc. A person who can't avoid boredom is diseased, precisely how you wrote it. But much of the time the inability to avoid boredom or to replace it is not due to inner difficulties, but to outer ones, such as being in jail or in the arm or navy. To some males the pervasive absence of female company can trigger this. Hence, the aversion to Muslim lifestyle for a western type man.

I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted.
— Alkis Piskas
A bit of a difference between boredom and depression — god must be atheist

Where in my above statements that you have quoted --or even the whole post to which they belong-- do I talk about "depression"?

Anyway, I know well the difference between the two, and have talked about that a little earlier ...

Your quote is from me, alright, but your comments seem to be addressed to someone else. (@Tom Storm maybe?)

I just kept on reflecting on the thought. That I brought up depression was not a response directly to what you said, instead, it was a continuation of my thoughts on the topic.

I don't know if I addressed anyone with my post as a response. My post was rather a reflection of my thoughts starting from the point of the quote.

I talked about depression not because you mentioned it but out of my free will (so to speak). I am sorry for having thoughts and imagination. I'll try to curb them next time. :-)

who has offered us the opportunity to discuss about all these things --Thanks!-- talks about a subject, "boredom", about which, as I can see, has very little knowledge. And unfortunately, he doesn't seem to want to learn more ... — Alkis Piskas

Hey, I just don't need to engage in unnecessary tangents that don't understand what I mean by, boredom. Here is a quote that encapsulates it:

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

That is to say, we would feel no need for ANYTHING as mere BEING would satisfy us. But it doesn't. Survival and boredom rule our world. We need goals to achieve, things to occupy our minds.

Individuals are not ‘brought into existence’ from somewhere else they’d rather be. — Possibility

I never said that! This is a straw man.. I said they were simply brought into existence. I didn't say that to imply that they existed prior to their birth, so stop.

They are ‘conceived’ in potentiality by mostly unintentional collaboration of existence. This conception manifests life via lots of small and seemingly insignificant choices or ‘willing’ collaboration, until such time as there is sufficient intentional awareness, connection and collaboration among willing aspects to construct a ‘self’ as a local consolidation of choice in potentiality. But this ‘self’ is not identical to the conception from which your life manifest in the first place. Although in language it would make sense to consider them the same ‘individual’ subject, it is this ‘flattening’ of what is a more complex potentiality for the purpose of language that leads to conflicting value structures.

Completely disagree. This is not what is going on. An agent is making a choice to procreate or at the least, engage in activities that lead to procreation. Nothing more is needed here in your model. I don't have to look at neurons or quantum physics to make this claim. It has to do at the level of human behavior. To start making it otherwise, is to obfuscate. Why are you doing that? What is the point? To be clever? Do you think because it is so simple, it can't be right, that we can actually talk at the level of agents making choices in regards to procreation and evaluating whether it is good to make a decision to bring someone else into the world?

Well of course it sounds incoherent - this is the conflict. And I don’t see why experiencing suffering and harm is necessarily someone’s fault. You’re looking to attribute intentionality in a moralistic structure, but you need to reconcile the conflicting value structures first - which is as easy as reconciling quantum physics with general relativity. Your solution is to exclude one in favour of the other - and then fight to deny anyone’s experience which might suggest the reality you’ve decided on might be ignoring aspects of the truth. Hmm... and yet I’m the one accused of gaslighting.

Experiencing suffering and harm isn't "someone's fault", but procreating people where it is known that suffering and harm occur can be construed as a choice that an agent takes. The universe did not breed me (unless you mean in the non-useful-here evolutionary sense of the term). Humans have agency and can decide not to produce more people that can and will suffer and are forced into X, Y, Z situations as a result. What I mean by that is that the situatedness of the world is already such that people have to follow this socio-culutral-physical agenda of human suvival/thriving in order to not die, despite the fact that we might want things differently. The only thing you can do to counter this is say that "It's YOUR fault for not learning to go along with the program" OR to simply say, "None of this is real, so you aren't really suffering". Both of these are false.. and yes I will say, existentially gaslighting answers to the problem I am presenting.

Also, I am waiting to hear the profoundness of this "truth" you hold. Collaboration makes all this go away, is that it? Like procreating more people who suffer isn't bad because Collaboration? Procreating more people who suffer isn't bad because, "it's only my reality and not real"? That it too? Just a yes or no would be fine... and then a SHORT summary of why or why not in a COHERENT fashion that isn't self-referential.

All choices are mediated by a person whose will, values, reasons, goals, etc are continually reconstructing as they are born and interacting. This variability can be mapped, just as Copernicus mapped the solar system without leaving Earth.

Fine collaborating about pessimism then. Awareness of the forced agenda we are all a part of. Why force people into life? Any answer implicates you mam. It implicates that you too have an agenda for people..
— schopenhauer1

How about collaborating between pessimism and optimism? Or awareness of a broader agenda that is not forcing a consolidated ‘individual’ into a quantitatively limited, temporal existence, but rather opportunity for a potentially constructed ‘self’ to manifest actual collaboration with existence? You may choose to limit your collaboration to increasing pessimism, but your comments here have been denying my capacity to choose optimism, or to move freely between the two, simply because it doesn’t fit with your own limited perspective. So stop trying to accuse me of gaslighting.

So I believe the bolded is your main premise if we take all the other distractors away. My point to this is that this has an implicit "political" goal in mind. Political not in the idea of government per se, but a sort of social agenda that other people must follow. I would say that it's find to hold a view on this or that social arrangement.. However, once procreation enters the picture, it becomes a political agenda on behalf of someone else. See, YOU want X (in this case collaboration with existence), and the individual, who is an agent, has to experience existence and thus will suffer. They not only suffer, they are forced to follow the agenda of being alive at all.. That is to say, if let's say an industrialized economy.. it more or less follows a rather predictable fashion of work for money for survival and consume stuff, get more comfortable with environment, and entertain oneself in that economic framework. Things. like that. There is obviously a lot more to say on it, but I am giving you the rudimentary here. The antinatalist/pessimist doesn't want to set agendas for others to follow. We may be alive ourselves, but we don't continue the chain. You can try to obfuscate and say that somehow "existence collaborates its way anyway", but as an agent we can individually not participate in procreating that suffering and agenda onto another person who experiences it and must follow it. I choose and promote not choosing for others to put them in these situations. Not existing hurts no one, and deprives no one. Existing hurts someone, and the collateral damage of suffering will take place.

Besides which, as is the theme of this thread, boredom I believe to be a powerful understanding of the standard human condition. That is to say, we cannot generally, sit too long and meditate on nothingness all day. We have to get up. The agenda of survival and our own dissatisfied minds makes it the case. You can try to distract from this point by bringing up some "higher truth" of "attachment" versus the action itself, but I think my point still remains. Not sure if you will make that move (usually attached to Buddhist concept of suffering) but just addressing it now in case.

You don’t want to hear my philosophy - you want me to tell you who I think is to blame for this situation we’re in. But I’m not laying blame. If you were interested in my philosophy at all, you would have been reading what I actually wrote, instead of reducing all my words to some moralistic stance you can argue against. If you genuinely want to hear my philosophy, then go back and re-read my posts, and then discuss those words, rather than what your mediating self feels that I’m saying.

All I get from your philosophy is we are in the great "collaboration" scheme. That doesn't tell me much. It's like saying, "The world is made of fluctuating X". That doesn't tell me much as far as what I am discussing. String theory, for example, doesn't really tell me anything other than perhaps some scientific points about how we can interpret the makeup of the universe given the evidence and math that we have at the moment and through our historical development.

I don't know if I addressed anyone with my post as a response. My post was rather a reflection of my thoughts starting from the point of the quote. — god must be atheist

You are right. You weren't addressing to someone in particular. I was misled by your quoting me.

So, getting back to your previous post ...

They say boredom is the forerunner to depression. — god must be atheist

The distance from boredom to depression is very long. There are a lot of emotional states in between. The main of them, in order of decreasing "livingness" are: antagonism, hostility, anger, hate, anxiety, fear and grief. Next come depression and apathy, about which I talked earlier in this thread. This is not a theory. I have seen them occurring a lot of times when I was working on the subject of emotions and helping persons getting up these states.

A healthy person deals with boredom much like he deals with any other displeasure — god must be atheist

This is right and it is very important as a remark for this particular topic, which treats boredom as something special. All emotions are part of the human condition! Only that the lower you are on the emotional scale, the more difficult is to work out things and esp. getting up. I'm sure you have seen that a lot of times in your environment. It has to do though with the ability and mental state of the individual. Some can regain their regular mood easier than others after this has been dropped for various reasons.

So,based on the above statement of yours, my extension of it, as well as other things that have been said in this thread, we can say that no particular emotion or emotional state can be considered to be "at the heart of the human condition"!

OK, since you look for a serious confrontation on the subject, I will point out the weaknesses and unsound points in your long quote of Schopenhauer. I do that, and put extra time on this, only because it's your topic. Otherwise, I don't even see the need for it ...
I hope that my time is not wasted!

1) "man is a compound of needs and necessities": This is an absurd notion. Man does not consist of needs, he is not needs. He has needs.
2) "even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness": Too vague, an "empty" statement. What needs are (to be) satisfied? Some of them in particular? The more important ones? All of them (which is just impossible)?
3) "nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom": A totally arbitrary, skewed, biased conclusion. And more importantly, it does not reflect what actually happens in life. How often can you see such an ending, a course of action, a result? But most importantly, can anyone satisfy all his needs? Almost impossible, I think.
4) "This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself": Well, nothing has been proved based on the above. Then, the belief that "existence has no real value in itself" is shared by a lot of people --including myself, I am "the first" to tell that life has no purpose in itself-- but this has nothing to do with any kind of emotion. You don't have to reach despair to realize that! It' a rational conclusion, reachable by simple logic.
5) etc.

Well, I don't have so much time to spend to take on more points ... You see, when one's basic assumption or (pro)position is false, based on a fallacy or otherwise, then one statement-argument after another that are used to support it just fall apart.

Then, all that is mentioned in Schopenhauer's quote, are based mainly on concepts and not life itself. Actual experience is missing. I could dare say that rational thinking is missing or faulty too, as I have shown out in these 4 points of mine.

Instead, I have talked about my experience on the subject of emotions, what has happened to me, but mainly to people I have worked with and help them in handling their emotions. The data from all this, paired always with critical reasoning, are more valuable than just an analysis based mainly on concepts and very little on experience.

Because I have an idea that you missed most of my posts in this thread, I will only mention here that I have shown that all the human feelings/emotions are equally offered for handling. Boredom is just one of them, as I said in the beginning. There's no special feeling/emotion that dominates. Some are more easy to handle than other, and some individuals can handle them more easily than other.

So, the final conclusion, based on a host of things that I --and others-- have written in your thread, and which is worth mentioning it again, is that "no particular emotion or emotional state can be considered to be "at the heart of the human condition".

(I hope that this time you'll take more seriously what I have to say than the first time! :smile:)

OK, since you look for a serious confrontation on the subject, I will point out the weaknesses and unsound points in your long quote of Schopenhauer. I do that, and put extra time on this, only because it's your topic. Otherwise, I don't even see the need for it ...
I hope that my time is not wasted! — Alkis Piskas

Oh boy, I get to discuss things with you :roll:, the almighty Alkis who's gonna really show me how it is!

1) "man is a compound of needs and necessities": This is an absurd notion. Man does not consist of needs, he is not needs. He has needs. — Alkis Piskas

Yes, you show how you don't know much about Schopenhauer. Look up his idea of Will. But also, you might not want to take his statements as "literal". He is describing the condition of being a human with needs and wants.. It is an essential part of the conscious person living in the world.

2) "even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness": Too vague, an "empty" statement. What needs are (to be) satisfied? Some of them in particular? The more important ones? All of them (which is just impossible)? — Alkis Piskas

Well yes, because you can put any need or you want in there and it results in the same thing. Once you obtained a goal, filled your belly, gotten your pleasure, etc. then what? Well, he claims..a restless dissatisfaction (i.e. his view of boredom).

3) "nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom": A totally arbitrary, skewed, biased conclusion. And more importantly, it does not reflect what actually happens in life. How often can you see such an ending, a course of action, a result? But most importantly, can anyone satisfy all his needs? Almost impossible, I think. — Alkis Piskas

You REALLY don't understand Schopenhauer so I might stop it right here but.. Schop thinks that behind everything is a striving Will. However, one doesn't need to buy his metaphysics to understand his epistemology. We as humans experience a wide range of preferences we'd like satisfied.. We get hungry, we generally like not being too cold or hot, etc.. we work towards goals in our society to get that. In an industrial society that might look like work and consumption for goods and services. But then we aren't just robots that work and that's it.. We have a dissatisfaction with just BEING, we must DO SOMETHING.. ANYTHING AT ALL. So you do X, Y, Z. He is interested why we need to do any activity, any goal, and thing at all in the first place.

4) "This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself": Well, nothing has been proved based on the above. Then, the belief that "existence has no real value in itself" is shared by a lot of people --including myself, I am "the first" to tell that life has no purpose in itself-- but this has nothing to do with any kind of emotion. You don't have to reach despair to realize that! It' a rational conclusion, reachable by simple logic. — Alkis Piskas

No it's not just that. He's saying that BEING isn't enough for us. We are dissatisfied with just BEING. We must do "something". This dissatisfaction with just being is akin to what he means by boredom. It is an existential type of boredom that he is discussing, not just being "bored" as an emotional state of being temporarily not interested in something. It is a general dissatisfaction.

Instead, I have talked about my experience on the subject of emotions, what has happened to me, but mainly to people I have worked with and help them in handling their emotions. The data from all this, paired always with critical reasoning, are more valuable than just an analysis based mainly on concepts and very little on experience. — Alkis Piskas

Yeah and none of it gets at what he's talking about. Your idea of boredom and how he is using it (in a more existential way) are just different. You are trying to conflate the two, or diffuse it into your idea of "one emotion of many" and he is talking about the restless/dissatisfied animal/human nature that is at the heart of motivations. There is something missing that we are always needing to fulfill, otherwise we would have no need for need or want.

Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing.
— Alkis Piskas

To me that sounds like depression. — Tom Storm

Or maybe the widely held and tabooed assumption that life is for eating, drinking, and making merry, is not justified.