The Dark Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German Philosopher known for his deep philosophical reflections. For Schopenhauer, the underlying force of reality is the Will (also called will to live or will to life), which is the essence of existence. It is an unconscious and blind desire that restlessly strives for more activity. The will is the tornado that swirls inside of us and throws us from one place to the other, it is the source of our insatiable appetite that results in strife and misery. But if the world is will, it must be a world of suffering. Each individual bears within himself a disruptive contradiction; the realised desire develops a new desire, and so on endlessly. For Schopenhauer, life is evil because pain is its basic stimulus and reality. Pleasure is merely a negative cessation of pain. As soon as suffering ceases, we are overcome by boredom, in other words, more suffering. Boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence. Schopenhauer’s writing is far