When I read the book "The Wisdom of Life" by Schopenhauer, I was deeply touched by the first section of Chapter 5. Now I have sorted out the whole section, hoping to always remind myself of this simple and profound philosophy - "Life is short, contentment is always happiness"
The following is the first section of Chapter 5 of "The Wisdom of Life" Original text:
Aristotle inadvertently said a sentence in "Ethics". I regard this sentence as the first rule of wisdom in life. Let me translate it into German: "Reason "What people seek is not happiness, but the absence of pain." The truth contained in this sentence is that the essence of all happiness is negative, while the essence of pain is positive. For a detailed explanation and argument of this sentence, people can read Chapter 58 of Volume 1 of my "The World as Intention and Representation".
Here I use a commonplace fact to explain this truth. If the overall health of our body does not enter our consciousness, our attention will always be focused only on the painful injury. The general feeling of comfort in our lives can be wiped out by this small injury. Likewise, although everything proceeds and develops according to our ideas, as long as there is one thing that goes against our wishes - even if it is only a trivial thing - this unsatisfactory thing will enter our minds; We will always be thinking about this one thing, and will not think about other more important things that have happened as we wished.
In both cases, our intentions were harmed. In the first example, the will is objectified in the human organism; in the second example, the will is objectified in the person's desire and desire. In both cases, we can see that the question of willful satisfaction is always negative. The satisfaction we want is not directly felt by us. At most, it only enters our consciousness through reflection and review. However, the resistance to the intention is certain, so this situation will be clearly expressed. The generation of every pleasure is actually the elimination of the resistance to the will and the liberation of the will. Therefore, each pleasure lasts for a relatively short period of time.
Aristotle’s wonderful rule quoted above is based on this truth. This rule teaches us not to focus on pursuing the pleasure and joy of life; but to avoid as much as possible the countless evils in life. If this approach is not correct, then what Voltaire said can only be false - he said, "Pleasure is just a dream, but pain is real." (March 1774 Letter to Marquis Froian on the 16th), but in fact what Voltaire said is absolutely true.
Therefore, whoever wants to measure whether he has lived a happy life from the perspective of eudaimonism needs to list the disasters he has avoided, rather than the joys and pleasures he has enjoyed. Indeed, eudaimonia has warned us from the very beginning: the name "eudaimonia" is just a euphemism; the so-called "happy life" should actually be understood as "a life with many less unhappy lives", that is, it can still be managed A life of endurance.
Indeed, life is not for us to enjoy, we must endure it and overcome it. This can be seen from expressions in various languages, such as "degere vitam" and "vita defungi" in Latin (to live in peace, to overcome life); in Italian "si scampa cosi" (if you can survive) These days); in German "man muss suchen durchzukommen" (We have to try our best to get through life as smoothly as possible) and "er wird schon durch die welt kommen" (welt kommen) etc.
When people reach old age, they finally leave the burden of life behind. This is indeed a comfort. Therefore, the best luck a person can get is to live a lifetime without suffering any great mental or physical pain, rather than to have experienced intense pleasure. Anyone who measures whether a person has lived a happy life based on the latter is using a wrong standard. Because pleasure is and always is negative; it is a mistake to think that pleasure can make people happy, and jealous people have this mistake - it is the punishment for their jealousy.
In contrast, the pain we feel is certain. Therefore, the lack of pain is a measure of the happiness of a person's life. If you can achieve a state without pain or boredom, you will indeed have happiness in the world, and everything else is illusory. From this we can deduce: We should not buy happiness at the expense of pain, or even just risk suffering pain, otherwise we will pay the price of affirmation and happiness for something that is negative and therefore illusory. Something real. But if we sacrifice pleasure to avoid pain, we certainly gain.
In both cases, it does not matter whether pain comes after happiness has passed, or whether happiness comes first.
If people try to change the painful stage of life into a joyful ashram, aiming at having fun instead of trying to get rid of pain as much as possible - as so many people are doing - then it is really putting the cart before the horse. The most ridiculous thing. If anyone has a gloomy vision, regards this world as a hell in a certain sense, and deliberately builds a room in this world that is insulated from the fire - then this person's mistake is not so absurd. Outrageous.
Fools pursue happiness in life, but in the end find that they have been deceived; while wise men do everything possible to avoid disaster. If a wise man fails to achieve his goal, it can only be attributed to his luck, but it has nothing to do with his stupidity. As long as he gets what he wants, he will definitely not feel cheated or deceived, because the harm he has avoided definitely exists in this life. Even if a wise man goes too far in order to avoid disaster and unnecessarily sacrifices the pleasure and pleasure in life, in the final analysis he has not really lost anything, because all pleasure and pleasure are illusory. To feel sorry for missing an opportunity to enjoy something is superficial, narrow-minded, and even ridiculous.
Lack of awareness of this truth is responsible for much of our misfortune, and optimism has contributed to it. When we are not in pain, our eager desires reflect to us all kinds of illusions of happiness and enjoyment that do not exist; these flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water tempt us to follow them. In this way, we invite suffering that is unquestionable and real. At that time, we will lament the loss of the pain-free state - it is like a paradise that we have abandoned lightly. We can only hope in vain that nothing happened, and would rather start all over again.
We always seem to be tempted by an evil devil, who uses the illusion of desire to lead us to abandon the state of no pain. In fact, the state without pain is the real and greatest happiness. Young people who do not think deeply think that this world is specially designed for people to have fun, and this world is the home where real happiness resides.
They believe that those who cannot achieve happiness are just not smart enough and flexible enough in achieving happiness. This view is reinforced by novels, poetry, and the false behavior that people in the world commit all the time for the sake of external appearance. I will come back to this point shortly. After forming this point of view, human life has been a deliberate hunting for certain happiness, and this kind of happiness is composed of certain pleasure and entertainment. In this pursuit, people must take many risks.
Generally speaking, this pursuit of imaginary prey will bring real and certain misfortunes. Various misfortunes manifest themselves in pain, illness, trouble, sorrow, loss, poverty, shame, etc. The truth always comes late. But if people follow the rules I am discussing here and aim their lives toward the goal of avoiding pain, that is, of avoiding want, disease, and suffering of all kinds, then this goal is real and we may be able to gain something. ; And the less our life plans are disturbed by the pursuit of the illusion of so-called certain happiness, the more we benefit.
Goethe’s words spoken by Mittler in Affinity coincide with what I am saying here. Mittler always worked for the happiness of others. He said: "If a person is trying to get rid of some evil, he always knows his purpose clearly; but if a person always wants to get better than what he already has, thing, then he is quite blind." This reminds one of the wonderful French proverb: Better is the enemy of good. Indeed, even the basic ideas of the Cynics are derived from this truth. I have already analyzed this in Chapter 16 of Volume 2 of "The World as Intention and Representation". Isn't it because the Cynics reject all pleasures and pleasures because they consider the pain that is more or less entangled with these pleasures? For the Cynic philosophers, avoiding pain is more important than obtaining pleasure. They understand the negative nature of pleasure and the positive nature of pain. Therefore, they always try their best to avoid disasters. In order to achieve their goals, they believe that it is necessary to consciously abandon all pleasures and pleasures, because they know that pleasures hide traps that make people become captives of pain.
Of course, as Schiller said, we were all born on the Akadian Plateau; that is to say, we all came to this world with the hope of happiness and joy, and we all hold the hope of achieving success one by one. Foolish hopes of turning them into reality. However, generally speaking, fate comes soon. It grabs us roughly and teaches us: nothing belongs to us, everything belongs to fate, because fate not only affects our property, wives and children It has indisputable rights; even our hands and feet, our ears and eyes, and the nose in the middle of our face belong to it. In any case, it won't be long before we gain experience and understand that happiness and joy are nothing but a layer of morning mist that we can only see from a distance and disappear as soon as we get closer.
In contrast, pain and suffering are both concrete and real. We can feel them directly, without illusions or expectations.
If the lessons we learn can bear fruit, then we will stop chasing happiness and pleasure, and focus more on how to block the path of pain and suffering as much as possible; we will realize the best that this world can give us. A good thing is nothing more than a pain-free, tranquil and existence that we can barely endure; we must limit our expectations and requirements for this world, so that we can be more certain to realize them. And the safest way to avoid being unhappy is not to ask for happiness.
Goethe's friend in his youth, Meck, recognized this, because he wrote: "Our excessive expectations of happiness destroy everything in this world to the same extent as our dreams." If anyone gets rid of excessive expectations and no longer expects more than what he already has, then he can live in peace and soundness" ("Meck Correspondence"). Therefore, we should adjust our expectations for happiness, property, status, honor, etc. to a moderate and appropriate scale, because it is the desire and striving for happiness, glory, and pomp that brings great misfortune. Therefore, it is wise and reasonable to reduce our desires, because a relatively unhappy life is easy; in contrast, a relatively happy life is not only difficult, but even impossible.
The poet who preaches the wisdom of life definitely has a reason to sing like this:
If anyone has fully accepted the teachings of my philosophy, and therefore knows that our entire existence is actually worse than nothing, thing, and the highest wisdom of man is to deny and resist this existence, then he will not have great expectations for anything or any situation; he will not passionately pursue everything in this world, nor will he complain strongly about our plans failure and career failure. On the contrary, he will keep Plato's teachings in mind: "No one or thing deserves our undue worry."
Let's read Anvari's aphorisms for "The Rose Garden":
The reason people find it particularly difficult to accept this view of health is precisely the falsehood of the world that I mentioned earlier. We should have been aware of this hypocrisy from our earliest days. Many people's luxury and splendor are just facade, like the decorative foil of an opera house, but the key core is lacking. For example, those hoisted pennants, ships decorated with flower crowns, lights and festoons, cheers and shouts, and salutes of drums and horns - these are just a cover and facade to express people's joy. This bustling surface is a hieroglyph of joy. But it is difficult to find joy in such a lively scene.
Joy refuses to show up on festive occasions. If it does appear, it will usually do so quietly and uninvited; wherever it goes, it will be in the most ordinary, ordinary environments and occasions. Show up for the occasion. Joy is like Australia's gold dust: they are scattered everywhere without any rules or laws, and finding them is purely a matter of chance, and only a handful can be found at a time because they rarely gather in large numbers.
The purpose of all the lively and exaggerated pretenses mentioned above is to create the illusion of joy in people's minds and encourage people to believe that joy exists here. Happiness is like this, and sadness is not like this. The long, slow-moving funeral procession looked so sad and desolate. The carriages lined up in the procession had no end. But look inside! It's all empty. The deceased was actually taken to the cemetery by coachmen from all over the city. This picture can tell us what friendship and respect in the world are! These are also the falsehood, hypocrisy and emptiness of human affairs.
Another example is the grand scene where guests are packed with guests and dressed in fragrant hair. On the surface, people are in high spirits and immersed in a noble and happy atmosphere, but usually, restraint, embarrassment, and boredom are the real guests present. The place where everyone gathers is the place where scoundrels gather, even though people's chests are full of medals. The really good gatherings, wherever they take place, are necessarily quite small. Most of the brilliant and lively festive scenes have an empty core, and some kind of disharmony will always appear, because these festive atmospheres are really incompatible with our poor and suffering lives. This contrast tells the truth of the matter more clearly. If you take it at face value, these lively gatherings will have a certain effect, and that is the purpose of these gatherings. Therefore, Chamfort said quite beautifully: "What we call society - the party, the salon - is a miserable drama, a bad drama; it is boring, boring, and relies on the temporary support of machinery, clothing and packaging. . ”
Similarly, academic colleges and philosophical chairs are merely external facades that appear to be the embodiment of truth; but again, truth usually refuses to appear in these places and finds its way elsewhere. The church bells, the priest's clothes, his pious expressions, his antics - these are all window dressing, a mask of piety. For this reason, we can regard almost everything in the world as a hollow kernel. The kernel itself is very rare, and the kernel hidden in the kernel is even rarer. It can only be found elsewhere, and usually by luck.