See the axis · The meaning of life

Argument

Drying up the source of torment

We suffer not because life has no meaning, but from demanding one of it: peace comes when we cease to require of it what it cannot give.

Supports

Schopenhauer · The World as Will and Representation, Book IV · 1818

  1. The torment comes not from life lacking meaning, but from our demanding of it a meaning and a happiness it does not contain: it is insatiable willing that suffers, never satisfied.
  2. For the pursuit produces only an endless swing between lack and boredom: scarcely is one desire satisfied than another is born, and satisfaction is but a respite before the next torment.
  3. True peace is therefore gained not by satisfying one more desire, but by quieting the will itself: ceasing to demand of existence what it cannot give, and letting that thirst, which otherwise is reborn without end, come undone.

Therefore So, faced with the enigma, the lucid response is neither to decipher a meaning, nor to create one, nor to revolt, but to renounce: not to extinguish this or that desire, but to loosen the grip of the will itself, for a peace without illusion.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

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