Luciano Duarte | Literature and philosophy

The World as Will and Representation, by Schopenhauer

The World as Will and Representation… I think of this work always in dismay, because it violently attacked my already weak human dimension. The history is long… I remember that as soon as I started to study philosophy, the name Schopenhauer became recurrent. At first, I tried to study the history of philosophy, from a comprehensive perspective, to make it possible for me to structure a long-term study plan in order to initiate direct contact with the works. Whatever the source, there was the author directing bitter words to Schopenhauer, associating him with a radical pessimism, pointing the harmful bias of his work. Shortly thereafter, I read one or two books by Schopenhauer: I saw intelligence, but nothing so calamitous; I put it aside and carried on my studies. So I continued to listen to Schopenhauer, always Schopenhauer, and I remember reading an excellent essay by Thomas Mann, an author I hold in high esteem. Mann, in the essay, explores Schopenhauer’s influence on his own work, thanking for having read the philosopher early in his career. However, he classifies Schopenhauer’s work (whose heart is The World as Will and Representation) as a philosophy for “young people”, saying Schopenhauer then worked until the end of his days to justify, with “sinister fidelity”, a youthful philosophy. After that passage I completely lost interest in Schopenhauer, I ignored everything that Thomas Mann himself had said about the deep marks that Schopenhauer left on him for the rest of his life. I mean, I, in my early twenties, found myself immune to any kind of “philosophy for young people”, immune and disinterested. Then time ran. Further on, Nietzsche, who so often spelled the name of his illustrious countryman. Before Nietzsche, and even before studying philosophy, Machado de Assis, whose work held me and charmed me for years and years. When I study Machado de Assis by the critics, the scare: Schopenhauer’s notorious influence. Then I decide: I will read this The World as Will and Representation. Well… It is difficult to find words to describe this book and its reflections in my life. I recall Thomas Mann associating Schopenhauer with the search for death in life: perhaps it is a good definition for the work. What I can say is, for me, it was reading without return. There is evident wisdom in the book, which is but an extensive meditation. But this work, if read as one should read any work, with sincerity and giving credit to the author, is an authentic poison, and perhaps the most potent. There it is: I read The World as Will and Representation and I have esteem, admiration for Schopenhauer; but Schopenhauer, quite frankly, is no author to me, a born indifferent, incurable misanthrope, often accused of insensitive and with skepticism running through veins. Schopenhauer took care to atrophy my human dimension even more, exterminated my illusions, contaminated me forever. Nowadays it is fashionable to have “opinions”, “convictions”, read a book and say “I agree” or “I do not agree”. How easy it would be for my life if my mind were adept at such simplification… I would read The World as Will and Representation and say, with a finger up: I do not agree! After reading, however, I judged nothing had occurred. I continued my studies, I went ahead. I was immersed in some French authors. The months passed, and apparently, I felt immune to the philosophy exposed in the book. How naïve… It took me a year for me to notice echoing in my mind, every day, the words of this harmful book: “happiness is not to suffer”, “desire is an inexhaustible source of suffering”, “deny desire”, “deny life”… And I realized myself impregnated to the nail of indifference, oblivious to everything I once valued. I judged my acts and saw that there was nothing else that was dear to me as before, I became a tomb, distant from everyone, including the closest. I, who have never been a fan of myself, who have always judged myself harmful, pernicious, less human than the others; I, who have always been against my own instincts, having me in terrible esteem, measuring words all the time not to frustrate people, have seen the darkest and most unpleasant side of my personality strengthen and solidify in me, perhaps forever. All against my own will, imposed, driven by this damned The World as Will and Representation that, even if I try to deny, perhaps was the most impactful reading of my entire life.

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Very Simple Precept

I see my production swelling, the work of these days taking shape and, systematically, the progress appearing. Gone are 25,000 words that came out light, — please do not remind me of the review… — from seven hundred to a thousand per working session, with good days — and them has been the majority — adding two daily sessions, no major problems with the plot outlined, the characters taking dynamism, all going very well… I see that all this is due to a very simple precept: to sit and write. If I lose the morning, patience, but the night will never fail. And if I find myself unwell, again patience, but I have to write, because writing is an inflexible priority for me. So I can make progress, I find myself in just over twenty days with almost half a volume written — I know, I know, not yet revised… — and everything seems to be moving better and better. I do not know at what level the experience will carry my productivity in a few years, but for now I feel with manifest satisfaction.

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Publication: Act of Renounce

I see the publication as an act of renounce. Publishing is, briefly, giving up on improving a text. For my part I can say: all these notes are written on Saturday, or before: written during the week, while I try to sleep, then rewritten on Saturday and abandoned, obligatorily, on Sundays, when I schedule the publications. I always publish in dismay, determined to do better next week. And the same thing I say to the books: I have, after all, a volume of thirty short stories, which I cannot even look at and which I have not yet published for specific reasons. To me are dead lines, incorrigible, that will come out soon whether I agree with that or not. Poems finished, the same: I can not read them, disgusts me to have them in visual contact. And that is the only way I can work. If I could not forget the flaws of my works, ignore them, then I would certainly still be writing my first short story today.

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How to Deal with Creative Blocks?

Easy question and prompt answer. How to deal with creative blocks? Giving it due importance: none.

I even understand the terror of some writers with the white screen, the vacuum of ideas, such “creative blocks”. But I see this as an extremely fragile problem, likely to be broken with three beats on the keyboard.

What is so-called “creative blocks” is usually the set of psychological excuses that a writer repeats to himself for not writing.

As long as it is possible to begin a novel with “Once upon a time…”, a tale with “It was a sunny morning…”, an essay with “The object of this study…” or a dialogue with “How are you?”, creative block will never be a relevant problem.

But what happens, and the little practice has always supported me, is that the fingers activate the brain, and if they dare to type something like “Once upon a time…”, automatically the brain, irascible and relentless, will make immediate correction, so that even before the fingers finish their youthful intent, the phrase will already be properly reconstructed.

The brain is lord and stubborn broker of the fingers, but needs their stimulus to put itself to work. So, if a sunny day dawns, just for that, the brain will begin to paint it as it should be, and then the fingers, very agitated and hasty slaves, will have to review the work done badly or continue if it is good, which they will do with great pleasure, since they are made to hard work. In short: it all comes down to a matter of starting the movement.

Therefore, understanding “creative block” as a problem of the fingers, taking note that, when sitting down, he will immediately put himself to write, regardless of the emotional state, environment or motivation of the day, the writer can thus keep his spirits up for the terrible work that awaits him in the review, which will require everything possible to extract from his brain, tormenting him with the unattainable form, the failure in the rhythm of the text, the bad chaining of paragraphs, the word that escapes or does not express to him precisely… not to mention, of course, the extremely bitter feeling that will immediately sprout in his chest as soon as the brain begins to bring to life the lines written in a state of emotion.

This “creative block” is a problem that arouses laughter when the writer stakes goosebumps in front of a poorly written text, full of errors, long-winded, tedious, inexpressive, knowing that exactly this text took him tens of hours and constitutes, in short, the work of his life.

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