Old favourites: Essays and Aphorisms (1851) by Arthur Schopenhauer

In the history of ideas, the name Arthur Schopenhauer is indelibly linked with philosophical pessimism. True enough, Schopenhauer's vision of existence is unflinchingly tragic: "For the world is Hell, and men are on the one hand the tormented souls and on the other the devils in it." And yet, his synthesis of western philosophy with Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics offers not only ethical guidance, but even solace and redemption. Rereading him after a decade, I realised that such essays as On the Indestructibility of Our Essential Being by Death had helped dissuade my younger self from nurturing an excessive fear of death.

Schopenhauer despised writers who conceal shallow minds behind a veil of unintelligible language: if a writer is profound, he will seek the clearest possible expression of his ideas. The proof is in the prose: Schopenhauer’s limpid thoughts are a pleasure to read even for those lacking formal philosophical training. As with all true philosophers, his starting point is appalled astonishment at that elephant in every conceivable room, “the problem of existence” itself.

Essence of life

Schopenhauer argued that behind the world of appearances lies a unified reality which he calls “will”. The painful realm in which we fleetingly find ourselves alive is the ceaseless tumult of this blind and insatiable will. Desire is unsatisfiable, the essence of life is suffering, and the sole hope of redemption lies in ascetic negation of the will to live. Try to be patient and charitable toward your fellow human beings, because they are prisoners just like you are in the “penal colony” of the universe.

Nightmare metaphysics aside, there are misanthropic observations on psychology, religion, aesthetics and writing. Take this aperçu, as relevant in today’s book pages as it was in 19th-century Germany: “The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time . . . A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”