waiting with schopenhauer

8/3/2019 Waiting With Schopenhauer

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WAITING WITH SCHOPENHAUER

Rufus Rey C. Montecalvo

I remember reading Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation' while waiting for my flighthome inside this huge and clean and air-conditioned airport. There were people milling about with their

luggage and their relatives. There were people sitting and listening through their Iphones and mp3players the newest music and other things. It was a bright beautiful day, and from the glass side of theairport I could see the long stretch of cement tarmac where there were a few landed planes. There was aplane readying for take-off, and it went faster and faster and then lift off...

The sky was a clear blue witha few scattered cotton ballclouds. I saw some birds,white large birds flying farup the sky. I wished then thatthe moment be preserved,

that I would just be theresitting and staring andreading and contemplating...

But I had some troubleunderstanding Schopenhauer.He goes at length to describethe internal aspects ofcognition, which reminds mea lot of the buddhistexplorations on the inner

workings of the mind. Muchhas already been said aboutthe influence that Eastern,specifically Hindu andBuddhist philosophy had onSchopenhauer's thought.Such as the bleak picture ofmankind and future ofhumanity. Of the ceaselessdesire, of boredom, of thesufferings that human beings

are born into and die out of.What was I doing readinghim anyway? What did Iintend to find?

For one I was searching for acertain aesthetic. Thatmoment for example, leafing through the old decaying pages of the volume of Schopenhauer, hearingthe muffled sounds of the people and the machines and the music and the announcements. There was


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an inherent sad beauty in that moment, knowing that it would not last, that I was just there waiting formy plane to land. (see 'wabi-sabi')

Schopenhauer, or rather the English translation of Schopenhauer was long-winded, full of longsentences that go on for entire paragraphs. There are the references to Kant, which because I am onlyslightly familiar, I could not really understand. Clearly the stuff was way over my head.

But I reasoned, I would read this for itsliterary value, not just the philosophicalknowledge. The use of images bySchopenhauer is really good, when hegoes medical-anatomical for example,describing the process of cognition, ofconsciousness of human beings. Hereand there, Schopenhauer can be funnythough I forget specific examples. WhatI remember though are specific'feeling-tones' which are those hues orshades of emotions you feel aboutsomething. It is highly subjective andpersonal though I would try my best todescribe it.

There was that moment when I startedimagining the cosmos, all thosemechanical analogies used by ancientastronomers and astrologers regardingthe structure of the universe whilereading the paragraph which was abouthow human beings see things, howhuman beings experience themselvesseeing/experiencing things. Theuniverse, as it were, is contained within

one's head. Looking at all the people milling about, at the plane flying, at the sky and the clouds, Irealized that everyone of them was inside my head.

Then I started remembering all the things I had read regarding the philosophical idea of 'solipsism'which is: "the world is my idea" as the first line of 'the world as will and representation' goes. A better, Ithought, formulation would be the image of Vishnu dreaming the world into existence. You see,according to Hindu mythology, (there is a very nice account by Joseph Campbell regarding this myth),we are all just figments/fragments of Vishnu's dream. The whole world, the whole universe is justVishnu's dream. "The world is my dream" or to create a more transgressive formulation: "The world ismy hallucination."

Then I rather felt overwhelmed by all these thinking and took a break. I looked at the clouds somemore, at the tall foreigners walking with their families to the counters, at the busy busy airport peopleguiding, directing, inspecting, all the things. Then I looked for more interesting passages from thebook. I realized that it would be impossible for me, given the limited time that I had to really delve intoSchopenhauer's thoughts, besides the actual difficulties of the text itself. Tiring, I closed the book,


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rested my eyes and waited some more.

Feb 21, 2012

waiting with schopenhauer

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