Category: Notes

He who sinks his teeth into Stoicism, the French moralists, Eastern philosophy, and especially Schopenhauer, should pay only one homage to his buried humanity: remain silent and never, ever expose the learned philosophy to an ordinary human being. It is perfectly possible to achieve the annulment of feeling and detachment, complete indifference to the outside world; but one has to be a scoundrel not to experience insurmountable remorse after inoculating such philosophies into an innocent mind. They have the power to devastate after causing an atrocious shock for which there is no cure and no way back. The vast majority of people are not ready and do not deserve to have their innocence destroyed by the weight of such thoughts.

There is nothing less poetic and divine than remorse, that stabbing and invincible pain that sets in to hurt. To experience it is to allow the mind to blacken and the sight to catch only the unpleasantness in everything. It is like a dense force that pulls the spirit down in all circumstances. Curious to confront it with the repeated Buddhist recommendation to break and destroy attachments completely. I do not remember seeing them discoursing on the remorse resulting from the suffering generated by such an operation. Perhaps, it will be with effects and healing foreseen on this infinite path of self-annihilation. I am not sure that such a path leads to nirvana when traveled to the end; however, I do know what monsters it is capable of producing…

Once absorbed, Schopenhauer’s philosophy remains like a black lamp that the mind cannot turn away from. There is a magnetism about it, a dark attraction that always makes sure to draw attention to itself. And then it shows itself, always wise, true and unpleasant, as pushing with irrefutable arguments the conduct advocated by its creator. One can say what one wants about Schopenhauer, but one cannot deny his force.