In an 1)admittedly rather unromantic field, Schopenhauer is the one philosopher who seems to understand the 2)intensity of what we feel when we fall in love. He thought we were absolutely right to build our lives around love, nothing else in life was quite as important. But the mistake he thought we made was to imagine that happiness had anything to do with it.
Schopenhauer was born in Danzig in 1788 but spent most of his life in Frankfurt. From an early age he looked a lot for happiness.
He was intelligent, confident, good-looking and, after his father died when he was 17, extremely rich. But success with women 3)eluded him.
In 1821, at the age of 33, he did meet a woman who liked him, a 19 year-old singer called Caroline Maduog. But he was never comfortable enough in the relationship to settle down, he told her that two people to get married means to do everything possible to become an object of disgust to one another. After ten stormy years, the relationship broke up. Schopenhauer continued to search for love but with ever less success.
In 1831, he developed a passion for Flora Vice, a beautiful spirited girl who had just turned 17. During a boating party in attempted to charm her, Schopenhauer started talking to her about his philosophy. He smiled and offered her a bunch of grapes. Flora later 4)confided in her dairy, "I didn't want them. I felt 5)revolted because old Schopenhauer had touched them, so I let them slide quite gently into the water behind me."
So how could this romantically hapless philosopher have anything wise to tell us about love? Well, for a start, he tells us that love is not a 6)trivial subject, we shouldn't see it as a 7)distraction from more important or grown up concerns. It's no accident that love is such an overwhelming emotion, but it can take over our lives and fill our every waking moment. And Schopenhauer urges us not to be too hard on ourselves for the obsession and despair it can drive us to when it goes wrong, to be surprised at how much rejection hurts is to ignore just what acceptance would have involved. "Nothing in life is more important than love," wrote Schopenhauer, "because nothing less than the survival of our species is 8)at stake."
We imagine when we fall for someone that we are finding a partner whose going to make us happy, but Schopenhauer saw it very differently.
He thought that we put ourselves through the 9)subconscious phone calls and the expensive candle lit dinners for one reason only: an overwhelming biological drive to 10)propagate the species. He called it "The Will to Life": Love is a 11)cunning ruse designed by biology to push us towards having children. However romantic we like to think we are, we are all essentially slaves of "The Will to Life."
It might seem odd to say that Schopenhauer could ever have anything helpful to tell us about love, given that he was such a misery himself, but I think he has some very consoling thing to say. Firstly, he tells us that we simply have no choice but to fall in love, biology is stronger than reason and so we are not unhappy by accident. In essence, we are just like all the other creatures in the zoo: we're 12)impelled to find a mate to 13)spawn 14)offspring and to bring them up and only a force as strong as love could get us to do so.
A traditional view is that this couple will live happily ever after. The 15)cynical modern view is that they're doomed to 16)recrimination and a quick divorce.
Schopenhauer asks us to consider a different view: that happiness is simply not the point anymore than it is for porcupines or monkeys. To hear that happiness was never really part of the plan, the darkest thinkers can, sometimes, 17)paradoxically be the most cheering.
"If God made this world," he said, "then I would not like to be the God. Its misery and distress would break my heart."
Schopenhauer was born in Danzig in 1788 but spent most of his life in Frankfurt. From an early age he looked a lot for happiness.
He was intelligent, confident, good-looking and, after his father died when he was 17, extremely rich. But success with women 3)eluded him.
In 1821, at the age of 33, he did meet a woman who liked him, a 19 year-old singer called Caroline Maduog. But he was never comfortable enough in the relationship to settle down, he told her that two people to get married means to do everything possible to become an object of disgust to one another. After ten stormy years, the relationship broke up. Schopenhauer continued to search for love but with ever less success.
In 1831, he developed a passion for Flora Vice, a beautiful spirited girl who had just turned 17. During a boating party in attempted to charm her, Schopenhauer started talking to her about his philosophy. He smiled and offered her a bunch of grapes. Flora later 4)confided in her dairy, "I didn't want them. I felt 5)revolted because old Schopenhauer had touched them, so I let them slide quite gently into the water behind me."
So how could this romantically hapless philosopher have anything wise to tell us about love? Well, for a start, he tells us that love is not a 6)trivial subject, we shouldn't see it as a 7)distraction from more important or grown up concerns. It's no accident that love is such an overwhelming emotion, but it can take over our lives and fill our every waking moment. And Schopenhauer urges us not to be too hard on ourselves for the obsession and despair it can drive us to when it goes wrong, to be surprised at how much rejection hurts is to ignore just what acceptance would have involved. "Nothing in life is more important than love," wrote Schopenhauer, "because nothing less than the survival of our species is 8)at stake."
We imagine when we fall for someone that we are finding a partner whose going to make us happy, but Schopenhauer saw it very differently.
He thought that we put ourselves through the 9)subconscious phone calls and the expensive candle lit dinners for one reason only: an overwhelming biological drive to 10)propagate the species. He called it "The Will to Life": Love is a 11)cunning ruse designed by biology to push us towards having children. However romantic we like to think we are, we are all essentially slaves of "The Will to Life."
It might seem odd to say that Schopenhauer could ever have anything helpful to tell us about love, given that he was such a misery himself, but I think he has some very consoling thing to say. Firstly, he tells us that we simply have no choice but to fall in love, biology is stronger than reason and so we are not unhappy by accident. In essence, we are just like all the other creatures in the zoo: we're 12)impelled to find a mate to 13)spawn 14)offspring and to bring them up and only a force as strong as love could get us to do so.
A traditional view is that this couple will live happily ever after. The 15)cynical modern view is that they're doomed to 16)recrimination and a quick divorce.
Schopenhauer asks us to consider a different view: that happiness is simply not the point anymore than it is for porcupines or monkeys. To hear that happiness was never really part of the plan, the darkest thinkers can, sometimes, 17)paradoxically be the most cheering.
"If God made this world," he said, "then I would not like to be the God. Its misery and distress would break my heart."
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