Arthur Schopenhauer Suffering

In his essays titled “On the Vanity of Existence”, “The World as Will and Representation”, and “On the sufferings of the world”, Arthur Schopenhauer discusses the inevitability of suffering in life, what causes it, and what we can do to ease it. In this case the suffering refers to our constant un-satisfaction with our lives because of our need to always have and want more. Throughout this essay I am going to be answering the questions of why suffering is inevitable and what we can do to ease our suffering. Schopenhauer states that our suffering is caused by our will as human beings, the fleeting nature of our lives, and the illusion that is our lives. He goes on to further state that we can ease the suffering of our lives through art, beauty, …show more content…
He states that “Every moment of our life belongs to the present only for a moment then it belongs forever to the past” (OVE, pg 28). In this quote Schopenhauer is pointing out that the futility of life comes from the fact that the present moment and all things in life are impermanent and ephemeral. Furthermore, setting and achieving goals is also futile because we may be happy when we achieve these goals but our happiness is ephemeral, meaning that it will fade away into nothing like smoke or fog. The happiness we feel fades away because we are never satisfied with our goals and will always be striving to something new after we get bored with what we have. In the essay “On the Vanity of existence” he states that if life “possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfil and satisfy us” (OVE, pg 29). This quote shows that life is futile because of our boredom, which is caused by the futile and blind pursuit of goals in life. In this case the blind pursuit of goals is known as the …show more content…
The will shows that suffering is an inevitable part of life because it is described as a blind and unrelenting force that causes us to set and strive towards goals that we eventually complete and soon after become bored and set another goal. This continues in a cycle of setting and completing goals with no true end in sight which ultimately causes suffering. The futility of life shows that suffering is inevitable because unlike time and space which are infinite our lives are finite. Furthermore, the present is seen as ephemeral and fleeting as it only lasts for that moment and then it is gone. This causes suffering in our lives because we live with the knowledge that our lives are meaningless and that nothing we do truly