Gustav Wik

African Mirages Gustav Wik

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) was a German philosopher. His most important work is The World as Will and Representation, in which he characterizes phenomena of the world as coming from of a blind and insatiable inner drive of ours. The somewhat abstract philosophy of Schopenhauer soon became coined as philosophical pessimism, which also is the way was presented to the 20th-century Western world. In some textbooks though, he is also noted to be among the first thinkers to share and affirm essential tenets of Eastern philosophy. In "The World as Will and Representation," Schopenhauer presents the "Will" as a blind power that controls not only the actions of every individual but ultimately all observable phenomena of the world. He also sees human desiring, "willing" and craving, as the cause of our sufferings and pains. The person who is able to grasp that will stop perceiving the world's phenomenon as a mere presentation but is instead able to become one with these perceptions, so that they: "no longer separate the perceiver from the perception." After this merging with the world, she no longer views herself as an individual who suffers in the world but, rather, she becomes a "subject of cognition" to a view that is "pure, will-less, timeless," and where the essence of the world is shown. I would say that Schopenhauer understood the old texts derived from the Upanishads, Vedas, and the Buddha and that it was their message he wanted us to hear and grasp. Our scholars found many arguments against that view, and in lack of further avowals, they proclaimed his work has as "philosophical pessimism." Those who defined Schopenhauer as a pessimist, however, only shows their ignorance of the Indian's and the Buddha's joyful and happy message that; freedom from clinging and grasping takes away our suffering. Schopenhauer was a man of many words. In this book, I have focused on the message from "The World as Will and Representation," and have moreover condensed those words to a minuscule of what they once were. To illustrate them I have used old pictures from a trip I once made through West Africa and Sahara. Events confronting me during the trip, so many times forced to accept the world around me as it was, with no chance to "perceive its phenomenon as a mere manifestation." The compelled me to become one with my perception of them.