Chapter 3 On the Nothingness of Existence

This hypocrisy is manifested in the entire way of existence of things. Compared with the infinity of time and space, human life is limited: the fleeting moment as the only way of existence, everything depends on each other and relativity; In eternal hope and never-satisfaction; in ever-present desires never fulfilled; in the long battles that make the history of life, and cease because every effort is thwarted by difficulties until conquered.Time is a thing in which everything passes; time is a mode in which the will to live—that is, a thing in itself, and therefore perishable—shows that it can strive without effect; time It is an active force that annulls and loses all of its value every moment, everything that we have grasped.

What existed in the past will no longer exist now, and in an instant next time, it will inevitably become what once existed.Therefore, some important things in the past are lighter than the less important things in the present.This is because the latter is a reality which is related to the former as a thing is to nothing. People are extremely surprised to find that they suddenly exist after thousands of years of silence.Its existence is very short, followed by a long period of silence.Heartfelt about this, suddenly on the contrary, feel that it is not true.People with superficial knowledge have a hunch that the nature of time is an ideal thing. This ideality of time and space is the key to the secret of all true metaphysics. Order, this is what makes Kant great.

We can only account for the existence of a moment in the individual events of life.After that, it has existed.Therefore, at dusk, we often feel that life is shortened by another day.We might even go mad when we see how quickly our brief time passes, if we were not silently aware of eternal youth in the furthest reaches of life, and so often hope to find in youth the hope of rebirth. the point. All these thoughts, as said above, do lead us to believe in the belief that it is wisest to make immediate gratification the highest end of life.I think this is the only reality, and everything else is just a game of thought.On the other hand, this perception might be called utterly foolish, since things which, like a dream, cease to exist after a moment and then disappear altogether, are not worth our serious effort.

The entire basis of our existence is based on the present—that is, the present that often passes in an instant.The nature of human existence is to take the form of eternal motion, without any slack, although we look forward to even a moment of rest all the time.We are like those who are sprinting down a mountain, and we must go quickly down.Once it stops, there is a possibility of falling; or it is like a stick standing on the fingertips of a person; or it is like a planet, if it does not gallop forward according to the orbit, once it stops orbiting, it will fall on the sun.Restlessness is the hallmark of existence.

In this world, everything is restless, everything is in motion, and nothing can remain unchanged in a turbulent whirlpool of change.People living in such a world are like acrobats walking a tightrope. If they want to maintain neutrality, they have to keep moving—in such a world, there is no happiness imaginable.As Plato said, the only form of existence is constant change and never stops, so how can happiness last forever?First, although man has no happiness, he has to spend his whole life fighting for it, pursuing the happiness he imagined, but rarely achieves the goal, and even if he achieves the goal, he often disappoints people.Most people are like a small boat drifting in the vast sea. When it reaches the harbor, its sails and masts are gone. Secondly, no matter whether there has been happiness or hardship before, the result is all It is the same, for his life is but an instant that so often passes away, and the present is past.

At the same time, it is astonishing that in the human world, as in the common animal world, there are only two factors that produce and maintain constant motion and restlessness—namely, diet and the sexual instincts of men and women, and perhaps boredom. It will also have a slight impact on movement, except that there is no driving force anymore.It is also inconceivable that on the stage of life, these driving forces that are sufficient to form the devices that produce stage effects, once the devices are made to function, what kind of strange scene will be produced. On closer inspection, it is found that those inorganic substances exhibit a constant conflict between the chemical forces, resulting in their decomposition.In addition, if matter is impermanent, organic matter cannot exist without the help of external forces. This is the kingdom of finiteness; Sustained by anything, this is the realm of eternal tranquility, in a state of timelessness and changelessness, one and the same.A negative understanding of this aspect constitutes the tone of Plato's philosophy.It is the way to this kingdom that is opened by the denial of the will to life.

The spectacle of life is like a poorly made picture on a mosaic of bricks, which cannot produce any effect when viewed close up, but its beauty can only be appreciated when viewed from a distance.Therefore, to obtain what you desire is to discover its emptiness.Although we often look forward to living in good things, at the same time we often feel regret and hope that the past can be restored.We see the present as a temporary endurance, and use it only as a means to our ends.For this reason, most people, if they look back at their dying moments, will find that they have always been provisional, and they will be surprised to find that what they neglected and slipped away without enjoying is precisely Who can't say what they hoped for in life, and they were fooled by hope all their lives until they flung themselves into the arms of death.

Besides, what an insatiable animal man is!Every time a desire is fulfilled, the seeds are planted for the next one.Therefore, all the wills that belong to the individual have unlimited desires.Why is this so?The real reason for this is simply because the will is by its very nature the master of the whole world, and everything else is an appendage, and nothing can satisfy the will except the infinite whole.Therefore, when the will as the master of the world appears in individual form, it will arouse our sympathy, and we often feel how little it has gained, so that it can only maintain its own body. This is why human beings are so miserable. reason.

Life simply appears as a task—I mean only the task of survival, that is, earning a living.Once this task is completed, life becomes a burden, so there is a second task, which uses the existing living conditions to relieve the feeling of boredom.This is like a falcon hovering above our heads, once it finds the carefree little life on the ground, it immediately swoops down.The first task is to get something, and the second task is to get rid of the emotion of satisfaction, otherwise, life is really a burden. Human life is certainly a fault, the reasons for which are easily apparent, but it should be remembered that man is a complex of desires which are seldom satisfied, and which, if satisfied, appear to be painless, except Falling into boredom, nothing else remains.This is a direct proof that life itself has no real value, and is boredom the emotion of the emptiness of life?If life—our desire to exist, the very nature of our existence—had any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom; So what else can cause us to desire?But in reality we take no pleasure in existence except by competing for one thing, or by engrossing ourselves in some purely intellectual interest.The former, the shortening of distances and the overcoming of difficulties, can make the object appear to us as if it could satisfy us--which is but an illusion that really disappears as we approach; the latter , we are like the audience watching a drama, we must step out of the stage of life and observe it from the outside.Even carnal pleasure itself means nothing but struggle and longing, and when the goal is achieved, the joy ends.Whenever we are not at the mercy of these things, and when things take their course, we see clearly the emptiness and worthlessness of our existence, which is what it means to be bored.To chase after the very strange, and to pursue it with great urgency—it is human nature, an innate, unalterable nature—suffices to say that when we interrupt the natural course of anything terribly dull, it is What a joy!

The full expression of this will to live is the organic organization of man, with its ingenious and intricate mechanisms, which must at last be reduced to ashes, and perish with itself and all its struggles--such is nature's grossly crude way, It declares that all struggles of the will are, by their very nature, frivolous and useless.If life itself contains some kind of value, if it contains some kind of absolute, it will never end in pure nothingness. If we don't look at the world as a whole, especially if we don't look at the generations of people as living in a moment and then dying; , as in comedy, how absurd it all looks!It is like a drop of water under a microscope full of caterpillars; or like a piece of cheese covered with maggots invisible to the naked eye. Seeing them fighting each other so busy in such a small area, what will we do? Belly laugh ah!Whether under the microscope or in the brief moments of human life, such grisly activities are always brought to comic effect.

However, our life only looks so huge under a microscope.Life is just a small point, but this point becomes huge in the lens of the huge efficiency of time and space.