Reality is more complicated than the Sisyphus story though. Whether you interpret the boulder as one's dreams or just basic striving for survival as per @Cavacava, Sisyphus cannot move the boulder up the mountain alone. He must burden other people to do so, consenting or not, who at the same time, are also preoccupied with rolling their own boulders up the mountain. When he gets his boulder to the top and see it roll down again, can you still imagine Sisyphus happy to repeat the process all over again?

Well, I'm with you in that I find anyone in camp 1 suspect. Suffering is a fundamental part of life. I tend to view suffering in two basic categories:

1) Suffering as currency
There is an unavoidable baseline of suffering. The more you try to avoid it, the more ubiquitous it becomes (e.g. boredom, restlessness). If you fall into the habit of avoidance, this can becomes quite pernicious. Avoidance is the wrong strategy. This baseline suffering is biological currency that can be exchanged for pleasure. Meet it head on with physical exercise, strategically directed toil, and to do good for others if you have anything left to burn. That's how you cash it out.

2) Suffering as tragedy
This is the gratuitous suffering that I'm sure we mostly agree about. This is where you find the horrors of life that give the antinatalist position any bite at all. Statistically, it's virtually inevitable that life involves some of this. It's possible to get luck or unlucky here and, on one extreme end of the spectrum, it's hard to make the case that such an unlucky life is worthwhile. That's a fuzzy line to draw and folks draw it in different places. Where you draw the line, along with your sensitivity to risk, should guide certain moral decisions like whether to have kids. Having kids is a very serious gambit. Using your own subjective threshold and risk aversion to make this decision for others is the big mis-step of antinatalism. It's simply uncompelling to them.

we have to push to survive — Cavacava

Survival is much easier. Most people struggle with affairs that involve more than just survival - the achievement of pleasure, etc.

Beyond Good and Evil 56: — Cavacava

Nietzsche had it wrong. He fell in the camp that tried to justify life. That's the wrong camp. The right camp is the camp that doesn't need to justify life at all - the camp for which the justification of life is a non-question. Some deny life, others affirm it - but to be a true man, neither deny nor affirm.

I find less and less to admire in Nietzsche, a man profoundly sick - tormented - by an obsession of justifying life - affirming it he called it. Pah! Whosoever is bothered enough to affirm life is already sick. The cure from pessimism and the life-denying attitude isn't the affirmation of life. It's the rendering of the question useless. How?

By realising how little you matter. By letting go of egoic desire. Buddha, whom Nietzsche mocked, was unperturbed. For him there was no need to justify life in the first place. The Stoics had it right too. Don't desire what you can't have, and you have conquered Fortune.

He must burden other people to do so, consenting or not, who at the same time, are also preoccupied with rolling their own boulders up the mountain. — OglopTo

I don't call an association of people a burden. If we didn't associate with other people, we would have a much harder time.

When he gets his boulder to the top and see it roll down again, can you still imagine Sisyphus happy to repeat the process all over again? — OglopTo

Absolutely! Because it's not the event of reaching the top that matters, but the process of getting there. Over and over.

1) Suffering as currency
There is an unavoidable baseline of suffering. The more you try to avoid it, the more ubiquitous it becomes (e.g. boredom, restlessness). If you fall into the habit of avoidance, this can becomes quite pernicious. Avoidance is the wrong strategy. This baseline suffering is biological currency that can be exchanged for pleasure. Meet it head on with physical exercise, strategically directed toil, and to do good for others if you have anything left to burn. That's how you cash it out.

2) Suffering as tragedy
This is the gratuitous suffering that I'm sure we mostly agree about. This is where you find the horrors of life that give the antinatalist position any bite at all. Statistically, it's virtually inevitable that life involves some of this. It's possible to get luck or unlucky here and, on one extreme end of the spectrum, it's hard to make the case that such an unlucky life is worthwhile. That's a fuzzy line to draw and folks draw it in different places. Where you draw the line, along with your sensitivity to risk, should guide certain moral decisions like whether to have kids. Having kids is a very serious gambit. Using your own subjective threshold and risk aversion to make this decision for others is the big mis-step of antinatalism. It's simply uncompelling to them. — Roke

3) Suffering as Rewarding in and of itself
What about this one?

Nope, don't buy that one. Please don't reward anyone.

Please don't reward anyone. — Roke

I didn't say causing suffering is rewarding, so don't strawman.

I don't call an association of people a burden. If we didn't associate with other people, we would have a much harder time. — Agustino

How do you view it then when you ask favors of other people, demanding some or much of their time that they'd rather spend on something else?

How do you feel that your consumption of material goods is possibly result of the exploitation of people?

I have a feeling that you'd say that this is simply the natural order of things; that I should trust on the ability of people to fend for themselves; that they can rise above the suffering inherent in the system; and eventually perpetuate the system for another iteration, because why not? Nothing in particular and the universe doesn't care anyways.

Suffering as Rewarding in and of itself — Agustino

How about the people who succumbed to despair (and disrepair) and failed to rise above their suffering? Where's the suffering-reward or cost-benefit duality in that? Are they simply collateral damage for other people to self-realize?

. Buddha, whom Nietzsche mocked, was unperturbed. For him there was no need to justify life in the first place. — Agustino

Actually Nietzsche spoke admiringly of the Buddha, although in my view his interpretation was incorrect. He described Buddhism as the 'sigh of an exhausted civilization' and described Nirvana as total non-existence, which is an understandable error but an error nonetheless.

Furthermore the entire point of the Buddhist teaching is that there is indeed 'an end to suffering'. The 'extinction' that Nirvana refers to, can be interpreted as the extinction of the sense of 'I and mine', a relinquishment or letting go of one's ego. And that is not too far removed in spirit from the Christian principle 'he who looses his life for My sake'...Of course the ego will do anything in its power to avoid that, but that is what the meaning is.

How so? — Agustino

Because we must image it like that! I mean it contains the assumption that there's an obligation to answer in a certain way and so it restricts the answers to the questioner's agenda.
In other words, I don't imagine Sisyphus being happy when he needs to restart doing the same job he just finished, yet I was almost tricked into doing just that by the question's presupposition that I must.

I don't think Sisyphus is miserable just because his efforts produce no results, but also because they are not valued by anyone. As I understand, Camus proposes that is Sisyphus who values his own struggle but how can he? Isn't it senseless? Unless, I guess, it's not the struggle that he values but what it allows him to do, like breathing helping one meditate.

This would be similar to what I said before:

but I don't think living is the point in life but nourishing and cherishing what is of value to the particular individual — Noblosh

Well, I'm with you in that I find anyone in camp 1 suspect. Suffering is a fundamental part of life. — Roke

Hey we agree on something.

1) Suffering as currency
There is an unavoidable baseline of suffering. The more you try to avoid it, the more ubiquitous it becomes (e.g. boredom, restlessness). If you fall into the habit of avoidance, this can becomes quite pernicious. Avoidance is the wrong strategy. This baseline suffering is biological currency that can be exchanged for pleasure. Meet it head on with physical exercise, strategically directed toil, and to do good for others if you have anything left to burn. That's how you cash it out. — Roke

A part of this is the procedural inauthentic decisions I discussed in the OP. There is a certain repetitiveness to things. Much of life is repetitive procedural acts of habits to maintain some avenue of established living. I would consider this nothing much different than sleep-walking. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the necessity of it for survival and maintenance of one's comfort. However, I would not give short thrift to this idea, as much of the "currency" you discuss is not as abundant as you might at first think. The absurd instrumentality of it is telling you something. The angst is telling you something.

Also, this is not a binary sort of suffering but a spectrum. It's not that you are bored or you're not, but you experience certain kinds of boredom- some more profound than others. It's not that you experience things as pristinely good, but it's good surrounded by not as good, or dull, or frustrating, or annoying, or etc. etc. It's much more of a kaleidoscope of experiences and less of a light switch- suffering torturous pain/not suffering. You don't need to be tortured and some saintly martyr, living through pain, to be suffering. Sometimes the subtle is all it takes.

This leads us to what we are trying to accomplish. When you have a child, most likely it will fall into the procedures of its cultural milieu. Much of it's life will be first developing habits (tweaking every so often for obvious reasons) and then executing them. I am not saying that this should not happen- it is a necessity, just that much of our life is just that, repetitive actions to get by. What this also leads to is that we do not really know why Sisyphus needs to keep rolling the rock. I mean waking up every day is hilariously absurd.. We go to sleep, repeat our patterns, find nuggets of amusement or engagement to a mild degree to keep our angsty minds entertained and repeat. What are we trying to accomplish except experience itself? Just the insatiable need to experience and see others experience? Again, the absurd is telling you something, the angst is telling you something.

Now, in our free time we have chances for "flow" experiences (the stuff you were talking about.. funny how exercise is the best you can think of :D). We also have chances for forming strong relationships. Also on top is learning, music, art, accomplishment, and contributing to some grand project. Down the list a bit is sensual pleasures and entertainments of a whole variety. So one can say that this is the heart of what is supposed to make existence worth it. Right?

Given the option of giving a new person the "opportunity" for the worth it moments knowing that much of their life is just following procedures, and that much of the worth-it experiences are at a cost of a kaleidoscope of not as worth-it spectrum experiences, contingent harms of a host of varieties, knowing that there are chances for suffering-as-tragedy as you call it, knowing that each day is absurdly repetitive, NOT being born costs NOTHING and leads to no bad for any future particular person, knowing that no one needs to exist in the first place. We are just too self-reflective to be "in the moment" at all times.. Instead we are acutely existentially aware of the absurdity. We want the procedures to absurdly continue. It's that angst that you may feel even after accomplishment.. that "what is it really all for" feeling... I'm following this to its logical conclusion. Again, the absurd is telling you something, the angst is telling you something.

Let me tell you this, is NOT having future people that terrible? Other than this pops a bubble in people's ideal life with a family (and possibly using other people as a means to this end), what harm does it do to not have a child? It does no harm. No one needs to experience anything. No one needs to accomplish anything. Now that we, the already-born are here, sure we want to see the worth-it moments maximized. But, as the already-born, would you say that much of human life is worth-it moments? I'm sorry but it is not designed that way. We are supposed to develop habits to sleep-walk through most of it.. the worth it moments get entangled with frustrations and annoyances anyways, and there are chances for great suffering for the unfortunate. In Schopenhaurean terms, we are striving-but-for-nothing.. Manifestations of the general Will that is insatiable. Agustino's point is that we cannot stop it.. No doubt.. this was Nietzsche's point too.. But neither do we need to embrace it as they are saying. We may not ever be able to deny it either and live like an ascetic as Schopenhauer prescribed. This may be impossible from the start. However, we may at least just recognize it for what it is. I prefer Schopenhauer's method as its a rebellion and not being complicit more than we already are. One less person spared the absurdity. Again, it's that "angst" at the end of all things.. I'm following it to its conclusion.. bearing out the fruit of what its really telling you.. The absurd, repetitive, never satisfied feeling.

Now, in our free time we have chances for "flow" experiences (the stuff you were talking about.. funny how exercise is the best you can think of :D). — schop

You completely missed my point. Exercise is not the good stuff of life, it's one of the proper ways to "spend suffering". I consider the endorphins (short term) and increased fitness (long term) to be the general payoffs for that. But, importantly, I also suggest that the suffering aspect of exercise, should you forgo it, will rather sneakily present itself in some other way regardless. That full spectrum of boredom, among other things, is what happens when you try to avoid suffering instead of spending it.

Arguments will not convince you. Experience might. I'm really just making a general recommendation as to how you might go about gaining this insight that many antinatalist opponents (believe they) have. If laundry detergent choices are part of your suffering, your overall strategy could use some work.

Wow, you completely missed the point of my last post and thus I have nothing more to say unless you want to address what I have brought up and not distill it down to laundry detergent so you can make rhetorical points. This is smug and uncharitable and you know it. Very troll-like too.

I think you are correct that most of life is a repetition of boring events. We go through the motions of life out of habit and inertia. In my own experiences, what makes life vibrant and fulfilling is usually precisely what is not the case: possibilities. Anticipation gives life its color, the expectation of a future metamorphosis keeps us going, even if this future never actually materializes.

For example, I may program and code, with a cup of coffee next to me and earbuds in, listening to some sort of space ambient music or science-fiction music. It really pulls me out of "reality" and into a different one, the world of the what-if. What if I was on a space-faring vessel, exploring some distant star cluster, away from the political bullshit on Earth, the impending environmental disaster, the rampant suffering and decay? I think people live in this world of the what-if more than actual "reality". They spend more time dreaming than acting, because dreaming doesn't come with limitations. People take drugs to escape reality. They browse social media to escape their responsibilities.

I think, even if we can formulate a coherent philosophical pessimism that denounces "life", phenomenal existence, or whatever, we'll all have "good" days, where the world seems a bit more welcoming than usual. We get seduced into loving the world even if there's that little whisper in the back of our minds reminding us of the antelope being eaten alive in the savanna, the inevitable heat death of the universe or the fact that I didn't study for my exam this coming Wednesday. And I guess I would say that this is just who we are, it's in our nature to do this. It reminds me of Werner Herzog's brief bit about the harmony of the universe, and how he loves the forest even against his better judgment.



Probably a generic rule of thumb of the cosmos would be that it cannot satisfy everyone. For every state of affairs, there's always going to be someone for whom it doesn't quite live up to expectations or requirements. The affirmative attitude marginalizes these people, making it seem as though it is their fault that they find existence to be faulty.

Part of the Heideggerian care structure is the world, which is defined as the system of purposes and meanings that organizes our activities and our identities and within which things make sense to us. There are ready-at-hand entities (equipment), that have a reference towards-which (work), which is for-the-sake-of-which (a possibility of Dasein's Being), or for-Others, etc. The angst, the anxiety, comes from the moments when we ask for what sake do we ourselves exist and do all the things we do. It's a void of meaninglessness in which the nothing "nihilates" our contextual meaning, our world. Nothing matters anymore, it's all just very ephemeral and pointless.

The absurd, repetitive, never satisfied feeling. — schopenhauer1

which is a consequence of a deep cognitive flaw....

I think it is indisputable that Nature seems to give rise to endless forms. It has a kind of exuberance or fecundity about it, whereby endless forms arise, and as we now know, evolve and die out.

It seems 'western Man' has become so alienated from nature that she is no longer alive to that creative nature which has given rise to her in the first place. So cut off, like a stagnant pond separated from the river, is occupied with algal blooms and organic matter until it becomes a bog and dies. That is the fate of the 'individual' when the very cultural roots which gave rise to the idea of the person in the first place are cut off.

And at what cost?

Having to bother other people and add to their problems and suffering, directly or indirectly...
Consuming resources that other people could have used instead... — OglopTo

Precisely. To live is to be "guilty." A world without exploitation is a world with defecation (an impossible dream, life being what it is.) And of course we prefer to keep scarce resources to ourselves, where I include our loved ones as part of these selves. I don't deny that the safe and well-fed person will probably feel generous toward strangers, but there's plenty of self-righteous, sentimental posing to be had on this issue, too.

As others have argued, the desire for perfect innocence is a desire for the grave. I wrestled with that desire intensely once and came out much freer and fiercer on the other side. Life is war. I prefer this war in its sublimated manifestations. I fight for a life of love, creativity, pleasure. This might require moments of hatred, destruction, and pain. Sometimes the ugly has to step in for a moment to maintain the usually beautiful.

Life is war. I prefer this war in its sublimated manifestations. I fight for a life of love, creativity, pleasure. This might require moments of hatred, destruction, and pain. Sometimes the ugly has to step in for a moment to maintain the usually beautiful. — visit0r

As they say, nature is violent in its indifference.
Sharing a quote/speech I encountered earlier this week because, why not? :)

The Story of My Life

By Clarence Darrow

I am inclined to believe that the most satisfactory part of life is the time spent in sleep, when one is utterly oblivious to existence; next best is when one is so absorbed in activities that one is altogether unmindful of self.

I am satisfied that no one with a moderate amount of intelligence can tolerate life, if he looks it squarely in the face, without welcoming whatever soothes and solaces, and makes one forget.

Nothing is so cruel, so wanton, so unfeeling as Nature; she moves with the weight of a glacier carrying everything before her. In the eyes of Nature, neither man nor any of the other animals mean anything whatever. The rock-ribbed mountains, the tempestuous sea, the scorching desert, the myriad weeds and insects and wild beasts that infest the earth, and the noblest man, are all one. Each and all are helpless against the cruelty and immutability of the resistless processes of Nature.

Whichever way man may look upon the earth, he is oppressed with the suffering incident to life. It would almost seem as though the earth had been created with malignity and hatred. If we look at what we are pleased to call the lower animals, we behold a universal carnage. We speak of the seemingly peaceful woods, but we need only look beneath the surface to be horrified by the misery of that underworld. Hidden in the grass and watching for its prey is the crawling snake which swiftly darts upon the toad or mouse and gradually swallows it alive; the hapless animal is crushed by the jaws and covered with slime, to be slowly digested in furnishing a meal. The snake knows nothing about sin or pain inflicted upon another; he automatically grabs insects and mice and frogs to preserve his life. The spider carefully weaves his web to catch the unwary fly, winds him into the fatal net until paralyzed and helpless, then drinks his blood and leaves him an empty shell. The hawk swoops down and snatches a chicken and carries it to its nest to feed its young. The wolf pounces on the lamb and tears it to shreds. The cat watches at the hole of the mouse until the mouse cautiously comes out, then with seeming fiendish glee he plays with it until tired of the game, then crunches it to death in his jaws. The beasts of the jungle roam by day and night to find their prey; the lion is endowed with strength of limb and fang to destroy and devour almost any animal that it can surprise or overtake. There is no place in the woods or air or sea where all life is not a carnage of death in terror and agony. Each animal is a hunter, and in turn is hunted, by day and night. No landscape is so beautiful or day so balmy but the cry of suffering and sacrifice rends the air. When night settles down over the earth the slaughter is not abated. Some creatures see best at night, and the outcry of the dying and terrified is always on the wind. Almost all animals meet death by violence and through the most agonizing pain. With the whole animal creation there is nothing like a peaceful death. Nowhere in nature is there the slightest evidence of kindness, of consideration, or a feeling for the suffering and the weak, except in the narrow circle of brief family life.

Man furnishes no exception to the rule. He seems to add the treachery and deceit that the other animals in the main do not practice, to all the other cruelties that move his life. Man has made himself master of the animal world and he uses his power to serve only his own ends. Man, at least, kills helpless animals for the pleasure of killing, alone.

For man himself there is little joy. Every child that is born upon the earth arrives through the agony of the mother. From childhood on, the life is full of pain and disappointment and sorrow. From beginning to end it is the prey of disease and misery; not a child is born that is not subject to disease. Parents, family, friends, and acquaintances, one after another die, and leave us bereft. The noble and the ignoble life meets the same fate. Nature knows nothing about right and wrong, good and evil, pleasure and pain; she simply acts. She creates a beautiful woman, and places a cancer on her cheek. She may create an idealist, and kill him with a germ. She creates a fine mind, and then burdens it with a deformed body. And she will create a fine body, apparently for no use whatever. She may destroy the most wonderful life when its work has just commenced. She may scatter tubercular germs broadcast throughout the world. She seemingly works with no method, plan or purpose. She knows no mercy nor goodness. Nothing is so cruel and abandoned as Nature. To call her tender or charitable is a travesty upon words and a stultification of intellect. No one can suggest these obvious facts without being told that he is not competent to judge Nature and the God behind Nature. If we must not judge God as evil, then we cannot judge God as good. In all the other affairs of life, man never hesitates to classify and judge, but when it comes to passing on life, and the responsibility of life, he is told that it must be good, although the opinion beggars reason and intelligence and is a denial of both.

Intellectually, I am satisfied that life is a serious burden, which no thinking, humane person would wantonly inflict on some one else.

Anticipation gives life its color, the expectation of a future metamorphosis keeps us going, even if this future never actually materializes. — darthbarracuda

It's funny, I wonder if anyone else experiences that phenomena of having that feeling of anticipation around 11am on Saturday where they are most full of ideas and connections.. then to have it fade completely by 4pm that very same day.. as a sham and illusory.

For example, I may program and code, with a cup of coffee next to me and earbuds in, listening to some sort of space ambient music or science-fiction music. It really pulls me out of "reality" and into a different one, the world of the what-if. What if I was on a space-faring vessel, exploring some distant star cluster, away from the political bullshit on Earth, the impending environmental disaster, the rampant suffering and decay? I think people live in this world of the what-if more than actual "reality". They spend more time dreaming than acting, because dreaming doesn't come with limitations. People take drugs to escape reality. They browse social media to escape their responsibilities. — darthbarracuda

Escaping reality is a very large part of getting by for most. Drugs, getting lost in music, etc. For many, getting lost in video games and sports are time-sucking but escapist in its own way. On the other end of the spectrum, perhaps logic puzzles and math are an escape? Is entertainment itself just an escape or do you think it has to be a certain kind of day dreaming that is particularly escapist? For example, listening to music and being carried away to a more ideal world. If you think about it, it is the experience of the present time itself that we usually can't stand. We are always trying to get caught in some way to escape the present. We get caught up in our own thought-fantasies, we look for flow activities to increase alpha-wave concentration, we plan for future events that we anticipate. We meditate and try to achieve some sort of calm. We try to sleep. The usual mode of being does not seem as comfortable though. In fact, to achieve peace, we must simply learn to sleep-walk efficiently..

This brings up Platonic Idealism in general. The idea that the world of ideas, imagination, is much greater than the physical realm of "shadows on the wall". However, this may be truly Platonic Irrealism as mostly it is the fantasies playing out, not "Real" ideas that are causing the shadows we are contemplating.

There are ready-at-hand entities (equipment), that have a reference towards-which (work), which is for-the-sake-of-which (a possibility of Dasein's Being), or for-Others, etc. The angst, the anxiety, comes from the moments when we ask for what sake do we ourselves exist and do all the things we do. It's a void of meaninglessness in which the nothing "nihilates" our contextual meaning, our world. Nothing matters anymore, it's all just very ephemeral and pointless. — darthbarracuda

Yes we need to get caught up in something. If we get stuck on our own existence- broken tool-mode, we cannot handle it for too long it seems. Does that sound about right?

I'm a big fan of Clarence Darrow.. He does a good job countering those who want to say that nature is good simply because it's nature. Certainly a great avenue to pessimism. My interest in this thread is coming from a similar avenue, that of absurdity- specifically absurd repetition. It can definitely tie in with nature, which is full of repetition. Just the Earth rotating and revolving, the sunrise and sunset, the sleep cycle (for those without chronic insomnia), the getting up to repeat basic hygiene habits, the going to work, the driving to work, the going through the motions at work, the going home and finding x,y,z entertainments and repeat. I would imagine it is not cultural contexted either- the opposite end of the spectrum I am sure is full of repetition, maybe more so. Here I mean hunter-gatherer based tribal cultures. The feeling of angst comes at those moments after you felt accomplishment (caught the prey, completed the task, created the widget, helped that person,etc.) and wondering what that matters as the next day comes, and the next, and the next. It's more than anxiety of death, it's anxiety over the burden of pointless moving forward, to repeat the same.

As others have argued, the desire for perfect innocence is a desire for the grave. I wrestled with that desire intensely once and came out much freer and fiercer on the other side. Life is war. I prefer this war in its sublimated manifestations. I fight for a life of love, creativity, pleasure. This might require moments of hatred, destruction, and pain. Sometimes the ugly has to step in for a moment to maintain the usually beautiful. — visit0r

I've had that impulse at times.. If life is absurd, why not try to be absurdly good? Bring as much joy as possible to others, help them out as much as you can, etc. It's still an interesting idea.. However, somehow this also plays into the nihilistic burden and angst as well. You are helping others in order to help others in order to help others, etc.. it's like walk on a path with the same scene for miles and miles and miles..It's all absurdly repetitious. Besides this, there are the realities of adversity that simply bring one right back into self-interested mode.. Maybe one can train to get over this and just help again, but it's a constant battle. Either way, it all becomes enveloped in the absurd repetitious nature of life.

So what's your vision of an ideal world? Tribal society and the lifestyle this entails?

I don't think there is much point in speculating about 'an ideal world'. On a practical level, Planet Earth, is clearly imperiled on multiple fronts - political, economic and ecological. On one hand, I think we should be aware of how or own conduct and choices plays into the systems that are creating those crises, but to really do that conscientiously or thoroughly would result in a lot of pretty tough lifestyle decisions. So one should try and be a good 'global citizen', but then, I still buy factory-farmed food in plastic wrap, which probably undercuts that. So what would be involved in really changing the trajectory of current affairs would be a very difficult undertaking I imagine.

On the other hand, the task of philosophy as such is to attain a state of equilibrium, harmony, emotional balance, and so on - the traditional ethics. That is a rather different matter to effecting social change, although it can be related. But in my case, I have pursued that through meditation and study of the philosophical traditions associated with that. I suppose, to extrapolate from that, that if more people pursued such an understanding, then it would have a ripple effect, in that many of the compulsions, neuroses, and obsessions that often generate social problems would be dissipated by such a way of life.

On the other hand, the task of philosophy as such is to attain a state of equilibrium, harmony, emotional balance, and so on - the traditional ethics. That is a rather different matter to effecting social change, although it can be related. But in my case, I have pursued that through meditation and study of the philosophical traditions associated with that. I suppose, to extrapolate from that, that if more people pursued such an understanding, then it would have a ripple effect, in that many of the compulsions, neuroses, and obsessions that often generate social problems would be dissipated by such a way of life. — Wayfarer

I suppose the problem you discount is humans are always at a disequilibrium. We have the ability to self-reflect- to bring things to a a meta-level. Even if you blame civilization and not our cognition for this ability, it's there nonetheless, and it is not going away. We are aware of the absurdity of repetition.. Where some see great comfort in cycles, I see great despair. We must get caught up in meditation because the regular mode of living is not satisfying. We must get caught up in projects the mere present does not seem to be as desirable. Schopenhauer's Will is a metaphor for that striving that is without real goal or end.

I suppose the problem you discount is humans are always at a disequilibrium — schopenhauer1

And the possibility you reflexively discount, it seems to me, is that you don't have to be. I think what you're referring to is a meta-cognitive deficiency, it's not something intrinsic to life itself. It's a form of maladjustment, to put it bluntly.

Schopenhauer sought transcendence of the ordinary condition in the aesthetic sense - but also recognised the renunciation of the will, which he associated with asceticism. He was not entirely mistaken in that, indeed I think of Schopenhauer as a great philosopher. But I think temperamentally he lacked what we now know as 'EQ'. Also I think he lacked any exposure to people who really exemplified the kind of renunciate spirit that he professed to admire.

Buddhists are very well aware of the trap of trying to escape from reality by spacing out or pursuing some special experience. Indeed one of Buddhist author Pema Chodron's books is called 'The Wisdom of No Escape' which is about that very point. The first thing a Buddhist meditation teacher ought to say is 'nothing to see here'. And that 'nothing' is precisely what you then sit with.