Bryan Alvarez

PHIL 3313

The Relationship between Suffering and the Vanity of Existence

To understand the relationship that Schopenhauer presents between the suffering of the

world and the vanity of existence we have to look introspectively and really understand what it

means to be a human being. Schopenhauer explains that living beings are in a constant struggle

with other living beings and the world around them, but also in the grand scope of the universe.

He also deducts that human beings in particular internalize this struggle on a deeper level; we

believe that our life has palpable value and that the things that happen to us happen for a reason.

Our human experience is undeniably tied with who we view ourselves as and who we

present to the world, however Schopenhauer identifies that the human experience primarily

revolves around suffering and the short breaks of pleasure we experience because of that

suffering. He states, “…all that is unpleasant and painful, impresses upon us instantly, directly

and with great clarity” (Schopenhauer 41), Schopenhauer presents the idea that though our only

escape from suffering is pleasure, those moments of pleasure themselves perpetuate our suffering

because they [moments of pleasure] are the thing we are always striving to achieve. He contrasts

this concept of the suffering of the world with the vanity of existence with the fact that all living

beings will cease to exist eventually. We as humans will perish from this earth just as all other

living beings will and have, but we unlike other living beings are in touch with our emotions and

sensations of pleasure and pain. Schopenhauer believes that our existence is vain especially

because of this reason. He explains that despite forming our own picture of the world, and having

personal values and unique perspectives that are formed by our reality, our existence is
meaningless, as,” That which has been no longer is; it as little exists as does that which has never

been” (Schopenhauer 51). This alludes to the idea that despite our lives being the sole experience

we have of the universe, that ultimately the human experience is relative and no more significant

than any other living being regardless of how profoundly we may be tied to our quest for a

deeper meaning.

Schopenhauer expands upon the vanity of our existence by explaining that we as humans

experience suffering generally as the norm, not the exception. He questions the possibility of a

true utopia in which humans no longer feel pain, and suffering isn’t present. He explains that if

every conflict humans had in their lives were resolved that we as a species would be no better for

it, rather, “… in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves, some would

fight and kill one another, and thus they would create more suffering than nature inflicts on them

as it is” (Schopenhauer 43). Schopenhauer uses this belief to establish the notion that the

suffering we experience happens for no reason other than we create our own problems out of

necessity. He goes on to explain how boredom and want are on the opposite ends of the spectrum

regarding human life, how we strive to satisfy this want in life to avoid the boredom we would

experience without suffering as that very suffering is the reason our wants exist. We use this

pursuit of pleasure to try and justify our suffering because we don’t want to accept that our

suffering is in vain; we don’t want to believe that our lives don’t have a deeper meaning and that

ultimately our existence on Earth and in the universe was for nothing. Which is precisely what

Schopenhauer is presenting when he writes about the vanity of existence. He ultimately believes

that since all human experience is relative and individuals can only experience their own lives in

the first person, that our suffering isn’t interconnected with the universe but is instead a vessel

for human beings to express the will to live as a temporal body and connect with other humans
rather than with the universe itself. And that this expression of the will to live is no more

significant than the expression by any other living being, despite humans assigning a misguided

deeper purpose to their feelings of pain and suffering.

The Relationship between the Will and Appearance

Schopenhauer presents the Will to life as an unwavering power within us that trumps our

reason, logic, morality, and values. A force that thrusts us as living beings forward through our

tumultuous existence in the universe. Schopenhauer firstly presents the duality within every

living thing based on its appearances and the thing in itself. The thing in itself is presented as the

physical denomination of a living being and is described by Schopenhauer as a temporal state for

the metaphysical denomination of a living being, the appearances we as humans use as our

perception of the universe and our place in it. Schopenhauer explains that the difference between

the thing in itself and the appearances it uses to rationalize its existence are subjective and that

every living being assigns different meaning to the things around them, as the thing in itself

exists independently of our perceptions and not vice versa.

Schopenhauer further presents these distinctions within living beings by exploring why

humans in particular amplify their experiences and appearances. He explains that humans have

an innate capacity for curiosity and seek answers for questions we may be destined to never

understand, he states, “We complain of the great darkness in which we live out our lives: we do

not understand the nature of existence in general: we especially do not know the relation of our

own self to the rest of existence” (Schopenhauer 57). Schopenhauer understands that because

living beings are temporal, we as humans often seek explanations for our existence or why things

happen to us and explains that we use appearances to try and piece together the puzzle of our

human existence. However, he believes that because each human’s experience within the
universe is unique and individualistic, that this appearance is subjective and that we cannot

project these experiences on the world as this appearance only exists within ourselves and is

distinct from the universe in itself. Therefore, the contrasts go a step further and boil down to

how we rationalize and live with our existence through appearances and manifestation of the will

to life.

Schopenhauer explains that this Will demonstrates the existence of life more accurately

and isn’t subjective to those that experience life. He believes that the Will acts independently of

our human desires and is actually the driving force behind our most natural instinct, to procreate.

We as humans tend to overexaggerate our role in the universe because all we know is the life we

are living; we obsess over finding true purpose to continue through different struggles during our

temporal time on Earth. Schopenhauer believes this is misled and credits our existence to the

indestructibility of the Will and its ability to overcome the obstacles that we put in the way of our

continued survival. He presents this by rationalizing how the Will trumps our better judgement

on bringing children into a world dictated by suffering. He believes this concept is self-evident,

the cost and sacrifice necessary to raise children in and of itself would discourage reasonable

beings from taking on a voluntary burden when we as humans are already plagued by

unvoluntary burdens. But he uses this to further strengthen the motive of the Will, which is to

preserve the existence of the living being, which primarily consists of procreating. Humans

however once again use appearances in their worldview to justify this without giving all credit to

the Will, we form social constructs that either affirm or deny the Will. We interpret emotions of

infatuation to try and explain our feelings of love for one another which inevitably result in

procreation which affirms the Will without us understanding exactly why, especially when it

comes to deciding who to procreate with. On the other hand, we can choose to deny the Will,
which in turn goes against everything our appearance of the universe tells us to do.

Schopenhauer states, “…thus this denial of the will to live is for us, who are phenomena of

volition, a transition to nothingness” (Schopenhauer 61). Therefore the denial of the Will,

although leading us to nothingness, ultimately frees us from the subjective view of the universe

that is imposed on living beings and humans in particular and delivers us from perpetual

suffering.

The Concept of Action

Arendt presents the concept of action in a very complex web of relations with the two

other forms of human activity, labor and work. She acknowledges that all 3 combine together to

create the unique human experience that we craft for ourselves in the world we exist in. Action is

presented as the revealing quality of human activity that gives men the faculty to distinguish

themselves not only from everything around us, but more importantly from our fellow man.

Arendt explains that everything in the world is unique and different, she believes that ‘otherness’

is the primordial basis for everything in the universe including humans, the things we interact

with every day, and certainly other living beings. We are distinct from the things in our world

that paint the portrait for our reality, but more importantly we are distinct from other animals

because of man’s ability to act upon the world around him. Truly we are more than our physical

specimen, we have unique intersocial characteristics that build the idea of humans as a ‘who’

rather than a ‘what’. Because of this ability, we are able to act and distinguish ourselves from

members of our own species as unexchangeable beings. She explains that unlike labor and work,

we cannot predict the outcome of our actions on the world, and that these actions produce an

infinite and ultimately undefinable number of re-actions from the humans that experience it in

the public sphere. She states about man, “The fact that man is capable of action means that the
unexpected can be expected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely improbable.

And this again is possible only because each man is unique…” (Arendt 178).

Arendt credits action (& speech) as the driving force of the human condition, she believes

that action is the only form of human expression that transcends the monotony of labor and work

and simply preserving human life; that action is the reason we are human and we would cease to

be human without it. Arendt describes a life without action as, “…literally dead to the world; it

has ceased to be a human life because it is no longer lived among men” (Arendt 176). This quote

communicates Arendt’s point the best to me because she truly believes that without the innate

ability of humans to act and unpredictably affect the world they live in and the beings that live

within it with them that we would cease to be human at all. Her concept of human togetherness

stems from the truth that humans are driven towards relationships with others because of our

actions and how they are viewed when others when acting upon each other. She believes that

these relationships are the best outlet for humans to free themselves from the shackles of their

otherwise monotonous existence of simply meeting their everyday needs. Humans distinguish

themselves from other animals more deeply than animals distinguish themselves from other

things because of this reason. All living beings go through the struggle of preserving their life,

labor, so we are not distinct in that aspect, but humans differ in the manner that we create work

for ourselves by crafting the objects we interact with everyday to create this idea of worldliness.

Meaning we take labor a step forward by creating more of it to shape our world around us which

triggers a human’s sense of curiosity which leads to the decision for us to act upon the world

around us to distinguish ourselves from all things living or not, and especially from other

spontaneous humans. For this reason, Arendt arrives at the conclusion that action is the most

human form of endeavor.

 In my opinion, Arendt’s strongest argument for action being the major life force for the

human condition lies with the fact that throughout our lifetime we are persistently distinguishing

ourselves among our peers. And the more we do that, the greater this idea of the uniqueness of

human beings becomes self-evident. We increasingly expose more of our human condition the

more we interact within the public sphere with other human beings who act upon their world and

reject the unfulfilling and impending doom of a life primarily destined for labor and work.

The Discovery of the Telescope and the Modern Age

Arendt credits three events with marking the beginning of the modern age, the European

discovery of the new world, the Protestant reformation, and Galileo’s discovery and use of the

telescope. And while she acknowledges the importance of the first two thoroughly, she believes

that Galileo’s discovery and the repercussions of his discovery is the paramount cause of the

alienation humans face in their own world. She states, “this love for the world, on the contrary

was the first to fall victim to the modern age’s triumphal world alienation” (Arendt 264),

referring to the unknown consequences that Galileo’s work of creating the telescope generated in

the world we inhabit. Arendt explains that this discovery of the telescope made concepts such as

the heliocentric theory much more accessible to humans because we could recognize through our

own senses that our understanding of the world was merely one piece of the whole. This fact

alienates us from our world because we can know choose a point of view within the universe to

look at our world from. Essentially disconnecting ourselves from the only existence we knew of

prior to the discovery of the telescope. Arendt points this out by saying, “It means that we no

longer feel bound even to the sun, that we move freely throughout the universe, choosing our

point of reference wherever it may be convenient for a specific purpose” (Arendt 263).
 According to Arendt, this discovery has found a new ‘Archimedean point’ within our

universe that we have moved our world to, but she explains that by doing this we have lost our

place in the world because of it. This is the main source of our alienation from the world we have

created around us through work and action, which is ironic because work and action are what

keep us tethered to our world and make us human. She goes on to explain that because of the

extent of our technological advancement and the unexpected consequences brought upon by

human actions that we will only further alienate ourselves as we gradually align ourselves more

as inhabitants of this earth rather than as having a place in it. Arendt strengthens this point by

relating the concept of Cartesian doubt to our internal struggle with alienation from the world we

create and live in. Our concept of the world is purely illusory and when we start to question the

validity and integrity of our senses, we lose the only world view we had until the discovery of

the telescope. Arendt states, “If the human eye can betray man to the extent that so many

generations of men were deceived into believing that the sun turns around the earth, then the

metaphor of the eyes of the mind cannot possibly hold any longer…” (Arendt 275). She believes

that if the reality of the world and of human life can be speculated upon through Cartesian doubt,

that nothing in this world therefore can be known for certain. This alienation is the worst kind for

a conscious being to experience, how do we come to terms with the idea that everything around

us including the lives of others may not necessarily be reality despite these things being our

whole world. However, these feelings of self-doubt elicit a reaction from humans; we come to

the realization that if we cannot trust our thoughts and perception of the world, then we must do

in order to know. We must resort to the strongest aspect of the vita activa, which Arendt has

recognized as action. Our actions are the one thing we can rely on to truly experience the

physical world as we know it. However she also acknowledges that because human action has
unpredictable outcomes, we may bring upon another event like the discovery of the telescope

and further alienate ourselves to the point where even our ability to act becomes detrimental to

the welfare of the human race, stating, “It is quite conceivable that the modern age- which began

with such an unprecedented and promising outburst of human activity- may end in the deadliest,

most sterile passivity history has ever known” (Arendt 322).

The Vanity of Existence

The idea that I found most insightful was Schopenhauer’s belief in the vanity of

existence. I believe he has sound reasoning and invokes introspection within the reader and

forces us to confront the reality that our life truly is full of suffering and pain with small glimpses

of what we believe life should be about. That being moments of pleasure and joy instead of pain

and suffering. Schopenhauer presents the concept of, “…continual becoming without being; in

continual desire without satisfaction; in the continual frustration of striving of which life

consists.” (Schopenhauer 51) and that resonated deeply with me. I’m a person who’s very

interested in self improvement and becoming the best version of ourself for our ourselves. I am

also invested in the belief that despite our lives being our magnum opus, we shouldn’t take

ourselves too seriously. I believe Schopenhauer, despite being pessimistic and downplaying the

true importance of human life, realizes this and takes it a step further by deciding that our

existence is in vain. At the end of the day, he’s right, once we cease to exist there is no further

expanding of the story, we don’t take anything with us after death [that we know of]. We live our

lives at an unrelenting pace expecting the suffering or potential joy of tomorrow without ever

stopping to realize that everything we do is meaningless in the grand scope of the universe. All

that is left of us is the impact we make on each other as humans and even then, once those

humans cease to exist our legacy we left behind disappears into the background of the universal
human experience. Schopenhauer uses this to justify his idea that our man-made morals that

make us who we are and what distinguishes us among men ultimately is hollow because it ceases

to exist along with us when we die.

Despite Schopenhauer’s pessimism I think the human race can learn a lot from the

concept of vanity within our existence. I think instead of feeling hopeless and lost within our

lives because we suffer for no reason, that we should use it as fuel to try and pull others out of

nihilism. We should reject the notion that life is meaningless and that our existence is in vain

while striving towards reducing the needless suffering of the world. This is a lofty objective, but

I align my belief with Schopenhauer that we should resist striving towards only feelings of great

pleasure and embrace the suffering we face in our daily lives to reduce our pain and make our

lives worth living. Because I believe that this is achievable, I believe that we as humans are

capable of much more than we think we are and if we embraced our everyday struggle and

created our own justification for suffering, that we could break the shackles of vanity and rise

above this notion that we exist for no reason other than suffering.