❝ QUOTE
The most dangerous man is one who is satisfied in the presence of themself
—> Unattributed (if someone finds out who said this lemme know).
Nicotine, snacks, drugs, alcohol, doom scrolling - all great distractions from being with ourselves.
I’m working on getting away from cheap dopamine. I want to work on projects that don’t give me immediate dopamine but will payoff in the long run —> reading more books, using my headphones less, spending less time on social media, and dating apps.
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🎙PERSON: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known as the “Philosopher of Pessimism” and the “Philosopher of Artists.”
I’m not going to bore you with every detail of Schopehauer’s life. We’d be here all day and I got shit to do and you got a life to live.
Instead, I am going to tell you who Artur Schopenhauer is, his core beliefs, and why you should care about him.
Many people think Schopenhauer was a depressed dude. A sick, pessimistic mfer. I thought the same thing before writing this piece.
He spent a lot of time alone (which philosopher didn’t), held a pessimistic worldview, and is often attributed with this quote:
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
You gotta be okay with yourself before you can give yourself to others.
But depressed and nihilistic aren’t the right adjectives for Schopenhauer.
Just look at his daily schedule.
7 am wakeup call
Coffee
Write until noon
30 minutes practicing the flute
Lunch
Read
Daily 2 hour walk
Read some more
Concert (our boy loved music)
Dinner
Bed time
He also abandoned the routine from time to time to receive visitors. Kind of jealous of Arturro’s life.
Most people think Schopenhauer was nihilistic because Nietzsche (every modern day rebel’s favorite philosopher) got depressed from reading his work. Lil Frederick couldn’t handle Art’s truth serum.
You know what, I don’t blame Lil’ Frederick. Schopenhauer’s philosophy isn’t going to be on the make a wish foundation shelf any time soon.
His central idea is that everything in the world is united by a will to live. Sounds neutral, but then he hits you with —> The “will to live” is both infinite and meaningless.
Schopenhauer believed, “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”
The will unconsciously drives us toward everything we do in life. Arthur describes it as a "blind incessant impulse without knowledge."
Schopenhauer believed we strived for pleasure and the avoidance of pain to satisfy our desires and the pendulum. But this was temporary. After the feeling of pleasure we fall right back to boredom and look for the next painful journey that, if completed, will satisfy our desires.
The cycle of satisfying our desire never ends. Until of course, we die. Since every life ended with death, Schopenhauer believed, no matter how successful you were at avoiding pain and satisfying your desires, we all ended up at the same ends.
You could find relief from the pendulum through:
1/ Self-Denial → Minimize our natural desires for the sake of achieving a more tranquil frame of mind.
2/ Art → A view of a beautiful landscape, a timeless painting, or a fulfilling song.
He was one of the first western philosophers to express the idea of self denial - a pillar in Eastern Philosophy. The crazy thing is he wrote about self-denial before ever reading any Eastern Philosophy.
But, once he discovered the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism he couldn’t satisfy his own desires for knowledge. He called the translations of, Upanishads (Hindi religious texts), “the second greatest pieces of writing to exists, behind only the originals.” He read two chapters every night until his death.
I don’t know why the softer side of Schopenhauer is ignored in the modern zeitgeist. He performed positive acts and held charming moral codes:
Donated his estate to help disabled Prussian soldiers and the families of those soldiers killed
His ethics on animal treatment were ahead of his time. He praised the British for their humane treatment of animals.
Believed by harming others you were harming yourself
What does Schopenhauer teach us?
Be conscious of your desires and your pursuits of desire.
Use art and nature to fight pain and boredom.
✍🏼 WORD: Chthonic
concerning, belonging to, or inhabiting the underworld.
The investment banker was a chthonic creature in the pitch meeting.
Such a good word if you can figure out how to pronounce it.
📊 POLL:
Starting today, I’m including an Instagram poll question I ask my followers every Thursday.
Why am I doing this? I want to incorporate more personal experiences in the newsletter. I think this is a good start, beucase it lets me talk about a topic I’m interested in and gauge the cultural zeitgeist with my 1776 (shoutout America) Instagam followers.
I ran this poll in December.
There is a trend on the internet where women say they don’t want their man to have any social media presence.
I don’t believe this is actually what women want, but an attempt to protect their ego.
Here’s why:
Most men don’t have much of a social media presence. I’m not counting a bi-yearly Instagram post sufficient for “large social media presence.” 85% of men don’t care about building a brand on social media, and 95% of them don’t post everyday.
Women equate no social media presence with loyalty and discipline. In my experience there is no correlation. If anything, no social media presence => shadiness and laziness. Because not posting means keeping your life a secret and social media is HARD (again, why most people don’t do it).
By saying you like men with Ghost Recon social media’s you distinguish yourself. Now, more and more woman are hopping on the bandwagon (evident by my poll). Which means, in reality, this is popular, not anti-culture. Plus, high value men tend to post more on social media, because it’s good to express your thoughts AND build your internet brand.
Conclusion: Post on social media. You can build your brand. You can meet link minded people. You can meet a partner. You can make money. You can pretty much do everything available in the modern age of internet.
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