Thread by @Khursheed_Ab

#Life
#Pain_versus_Boredom
#Contentment
1/6 In his 1819 masterwork, The World as Will and Representation, German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer laments: “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”
The pain Schopenhauer is here referring to is

2/6 that of unfulfilled desire — a longing for something we lack. According to Schopenhauer, this longing sets life’s dreary pendulum in motion. If only we could get that thing, we urge ourselves, we’d be content.

So we set about pursuing that thing and, at long last, fighting

3/6 spells of uncertainty and stress and misery— pain— we capture it. The thing is ours! But, unfortunately, the thing we set our hopes on doesn’t bring us the satisfaction we expected. In fact, it’s an utter anticlimax. This anticlimactic feeling swings the pendulum to boredom.

4/6 A big full close of it slaps us in the face: an impotent ache, a sensation of the worthlessness of existence— “a tame longing without any particular object,” as Schopenhauer puts it.

We cast about limply for a while. Bored out of our minds. But then what’s this? A new shiny

5/6 object of pursuit enters our line of Vision.Ah yes,we think: here we go. Fasten your seatbelts.This is the one.This time, with this new thing, we’ll get the satisfaction we crave. But of course, upon (painfully) obtaining the latest new thing, contentment eludes us once more.

6/6 The pendulum swings again. And again. And again.

To break free from this despairing rhythm, Schopenhauer suggests losing yourself in the creative process, or cultivating your appreciation of art, or even meditating your way to nirvana.