I think it depends on volition. — javi2541997

A definition of the term 'will to power.'
Will to Power is the first force that makes events happen. It is the internal will, which creates the need for a force to act. In this sense it is the ‘Will’, which dictates what the force should do.
You can pass an hour in despair or you can just decide to flip your tendency to experience that hour as a curse. The hour will pass regardless. I KNOW these words are easy to type and I KNOW it is almost impossible for some mind sets or mental ailments to just 'flip' despair into positive thoughts BUT that inability to fight despair and depression is not true for most people. Most people can successfully defeat despair and can learn and grow a great deal from it.
Bushido is not a way of being that I would ever recommend as it is (imo) based on blind obedience to the dictates of 'leaders.' But at least it demands that you fight and not just sit in a corner despairing your own existence while the time passes anyway. Life cannot be imposed on you as you have the ability to end it. If an individual lives life as a moment to moment curse then, unless there are clear medical reasons, they do so BY CHOICE. Do you not confirm this with your own viewpoint of:

Believe it or not one can decides if his life is worthy or not. I think it depends on volition. — javi2541997

Bushido is not a way of being that I would ever recommend as it is (imo) based on blind obedience to the dictates of 'leaders — universeness

No. Bushido is not a way based on blind obedience but loyalty. This is why I recommend more than ever they way of a samurai. We completely lost the basic sense of respect and honour. If we keep forgetting these antique doctrines we would end up in a pit full of corruption and liars.
Wait a minute... we are already sat in that pit.

I love how some posters think their moral claim against antinatalists is tell them to kill themselves (not talking about you, but one adjacent in this thread) :lol:. Somehow proof of the good of the world is measured in the ability for someone to make the choice not to violently end their own being. Strangely low threshold for “thus life being good”. :lol:.

No. Bushido is not a way based on blind obedience but loyalty. — javi2541997

Loyalty can be very very misplaced and those who feel strong or even manic devotion are easy meat for a secretly nasty leader to manipulate. How would you ensure your loyalty is deserved by those individuals you are loyal to?

Experiencing the good in life, nurturing it, helping others experience it and adding to it, negates any need to face such sad dilemma's as should a person end their own life.
I will leave such dilemma's to those who choose to live life as a curse.



Does Arthur have a wee Mona Lisa style enigmatic happy smile in this one?



As I said. You cannot impose life on an individual as a continuation.

Yeah. They suicide as a punishment (?) But I see it as a honourable act to not disappoint people and finish the average pain the life tends to give us.

How would you ensure your loyalty is deserved by those individuals you are loyal to? — universeness

It is deserved if they help me to become a better person. If they respect me. If they do not b*tch against me, etc... I mean all the basic characteristics from a loyal person, right? Sadly, we already lost the classical relationship about "master-student" or "sensei-gakusei" where there was a good loyalty among them because everything starts thanks to wisdom and this virtue necessarily needs to be taught by someone: thus sensei.

People change, good people can go bad and demand that you use your promised loyalty, your bushido/samurai based loyalty/devotion to act like a ninja / an assassin and sneak up on whoever your sensei tells you to and kill, like a good little loyal follower. If you don't comply then your sensei will get his/her other loyal followers to kill you and all your family. Have such situations ever arose in past history that you have heard of?

Do you think the loyalty shown by the Japanese people towards Hirohito was of great benefit to them? Did it result in the development of a fair and progressive Japanese society?
If WW2 had not happened, do you think Japan would have become a model nation for all others to emulate?

bushido/samurai based loyalty/devotion to act like a ninja / an assassin — universeness

First of all, you are confusing terms: "Bushido" is a way of living. Samurai is how we called the "warriors" in Western world. Ninja is private assassin.

If you don't comply then your sensei will get his/her other loyal followers to kill you and all your family. Have such situations ever arose in past history that you have heard of? — universeness

Yes, I am aware of these scenarios. My sensei would not have a problem in my quality of loyalty because I will never cheat on him. But I understand that if he starts not believing in me he wants to kill me. Rather dead than disrespect my sensei.

Do you think the loyalty shown by the Japanese people towards Hirohito was of great benefit to them? Did it result in the development of a fair and progressive Japanese society? — universeness

Hirohito was a very important emperor to Japan:
After WWII Japan became the second largest economy of the world.
Japan is one of the most important industrial countries nowadays.
Their culture and values are respected around the globe.
They demonstrate that with effort and patience you can achieve whatever they want. They recovered from a Nuclear attack and Fukushima accident. Amazing.
Hirohito was also a member of Nations Council which today is United Nations.

Well I don't go off topic but there are a lot of reasons of why Hirohito was important and why Japan is one of the top nations in the world. Their Bushido philosophy is what I have missed in my useless and poor country.

BANZAI.

If life sucks so much explain these :smile: :wink: :lol: :rofl: ?

Schopenhauer was saying that suicide shouldn't be condemned or made illegal (if they survive?). That's people's right. But he was actually not a strong advocate for it, and he was pretty "anti-life". His reasoning was nuanced. If someone "willed" their own death, then even ones own death was an act of "will".. Thus, suicide of the body isn't getting rid of will. Rather, ascetic denial of will does.

Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment—a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer. — Schopenhauer- On Suicide

And conversely, whoever is oppressed with the burden of life, whoever desires life and affirms it, but abhors its torments, and especially can no longer endure the hard lot that has fallen to himself, such a man has no deliverance to hope for from death, and cannot right himself by suicide. The cool shades of Orcus allure him only with the false appearance of a haven of rest. The earth rolls from day into night, the individual dies, but the sun itself shines without intermission, an eternal noon. Life is assured to the will to live; the form of life is an endless present, no matter how the individuals, the phenomena of the Idea, arise and pass away in time, like fleeting dreams. Thus even already suicide appears to us as a vain and therefore a foolish action; when we have carried our investigation further it will appear to us in a still less favourable light. — Schopenhauer- WWR

Far from being denial of the will, suicide is a phenomenon of strong assertion of will; for the essence of negation lies in this, that the joys of life are shunned, not its sorrows. The suicide wills life, and is only dissatisfied with the conditions under which it has presented itself to him. He therefore by no means surrenders the will to live, but only life, in that he destroys the individual manifestation. He wills life—wills the unrestricted existence and assertion of the body; but the complication of circumstances does not allow this, and there results for him great suffering. — Schop- WWR

He only approves of ascetic denial of will which leads to a suicide...

There is a species of suicide which seems to be quite distinct from the common kind, though its occurrence has perhaps not yet been fully established. It is starvation, voluntarily chosen on the ground of extreme asceticism. All instances of it, however, have been accompanied and obscured by much religious fanaticism, and even superstition. Yet it seems that the absolute denial of will may reach the point at which the will shall be wanting to take the necessary nourishment for the support of the natural life. This kind of suicide is so far from being the result of the will to live, that such a completely resigned ascetic only ceases to live because he has already altogether ceased to will. No other death than that by starvation is in this case conceivable (unless it were the result of some special superstition); for the intention to cut short the torment would itself be a stage in the assertion of will. — Schopenhauer- WWR

Some like to schop till they drop. :roll:
The full variety of music offers much more than personal interpretations of the musings of any single musician. You have to be alive to enjoy the music.

Yeah cause that’s it. I’ve never presented any of my own thoughts :roll:. I’m just answering misconceptions on his philosophy of suicide.

His reasoning was nuanced. If someone "willed" their own death, then even ones own death was an act of "will".. Thus, suicide of the body isn't getting rid of will. Rather, ascetic denial of will does. [...] — schopenhauer1

Good quotes from Schopenhauer, indeed. But I want to add to his arguments some brief comments: we can also see suicide as an aesthetic act of purity. The individual can commit it justifying such act with the aim of preventing dishonour or being sorry to all of those we owned respect and condolences. I think is one of the main acts to show the purest respect you have both to yourself and others. Committing suicide with this purpose can allow to get some "redemption"

The Japanese have always been a people with a severe awareness of death. But the Japanese concept of death is pure and clear, and in that sense it is different from death as something disgusting and terrible as it is perceived by Westerners. — Yukio Mishima.

But we can also see it as an act of liberation from community or society. When there are a lot of issues we tend to protest, right? Well there were a lot of unknown heroes or "seppukunin" who committed suicide in a symbol of protest. For example:

His name was Kozaburo Eto. This young student killed himself on february 11th, exactly the Constitution’s day. He did it lonely in the darkness of his job staying apart from television or looks. It was a solemn and respectful act. This was the main critical action against politics I ever seen in my life. — Yukio Mishima, the way of samurai, pages 81 and 82.

Even through sarcastic jest, the lost boy may finally see some light.

Well today I am in Hades contemplating ending my life. And trust me I have done my best to learn and I do my best to be of service to others. I suppose I could think of all those who would prefer I stay alive, but I am kind of stuck on family issues and at the moment nothing else seems to matter. Besides, I am old and I don't want to live with Alzheimer's disease, nor without my sight and hearing, and in general the increasing problems with my mind and body, and I am not accomplishing what I want to accomplish regarding democracy and education so what is the point of living now? To me, death means no more fear and no more pain, and that seems pretty good to me. Another plus, I would no longer be part of the scarcity and global warming problems.

— javi2541997

Is correct about the complexity of our states of mind.
I believe it was Plato's parents who intentionally ended their lives. I have read the opinion that it is the duty of the elderly to end their lives. That is not because life sucks but being old and having family issues can suck.

Even through sarcastic jest, the lost boy may finally see some light. — universeness

Indeed you might.

That is not because life sucks but being old and having family issues can suck. — Athena

:up: :100: Fantastic! You understand me! We have common opinions!

Typed like a lost boy would.

Does the 'something really cool could happen and you will miss it,' not do anything for you?
I am always amazed by some of the cases of people I have read about who live with disabilities that would probably overwhelm me yet they still fight so hard for every moment of life.
What do you think of a life such as Helen Keller's?

Danke for the snapshots of Schopenhauer's thoughts on the issue.

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this book Crime and Punishment - I've had it since 2001 or thereabouts but never got past the first 20 or so pages. From the reviews I read the story revolves around a guy who wants to murder just for the heck of it - in the Belgium & the Netherlands this would be zinloos geweld. There's the real life counterpart in the murder of Bobby Franks (1924).

My question is is there a book on (fictional even) or an actual case of someone who suicided for no apparent reason other than s/he just wanted to?

My question is is there a book on (fictional even) or an actual case of someone who suicided for no apparent reason other than s/he just wanted to? — Agent Smith

Have you never seen the strange (and generally panned) movie Zardoz with Sean Connery:
Trailer Below:

Nope, I haven't seen this Sean Connery flick, but it looks interesting.

Ok, ok, I suck, but Thanatos sucks too! — Phanes (Greek god of life)

After all, if the world is absurd, and everything we do is absurd anyway [...] — Kierkegaard

The word "absurd" seems to suggest something more than funny. I mean it seems to be saying "yeah its funny but then that it's no laughing matter". I recall an interview of a college student who replies to a question with this: I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Someone suggested that if you feel this way, do both (if you can), like how the girl who gets crowned Miss Universe/Miss World sheds tears of joy.

But I digress, oui? Let's return to life sucks :grin:. It does (sometimes) and it doesn't (sometimes). From that point on, we hit a wall - an analysis paralysis follows because we fail to grasp the subtleties and nuances of life vis-à-vis the joy-sorrow duality. There's hardly anything subtle about a vulture waiting for a toddler to breathe his last from starvation & thirst though.

On the reverse side there's pure joy, experienced by all at some point in their lives - orgies/haute cuisine/etc. - that obviously more than makes up for the suffering we endure.

Too much? Apologies, I'm only trying to make sense of the world we share.

If try to calculate how many days life sucks and doesn't, I bet that we would have more days of life sucking. Most of the days of our lives are even normal or ordinaries. I think we can label happy days as "extraordinary" and I even feel this is the common thought. The pure joy, beautiful experiences, laughing, etc... only happens in a while...

I like the Kierkegaard's thought about absurdity or reductionism. But on the other hand, I personally think that suffering is not absurd at all. We are so brave to keep living in this life full of uncertainty and subterfuges. I would call this state of mind as perseverance rather than absurd.

If try to calculate how many days life sucks and doesn't, I bet that we would have more days of life sucking. Most of the days of our lives are even normal or ordinaries. I think we can label happy days as "extraordinary" and I even feel this is the common thought. The pure joy, beautiful experiences, laughing, etc... only happens in a while...

I like the Kierkegaard's thought about absurdity or reductionism. But on the other hand, I personally think that suffering is not absurd at all. We are so brave to keep living in this life full of uncertainty and subterfuges. I would call this state of mind as perseverance rather than absurd. — javi2541997

Is life = suffering? Are they the same thing? I'd bet my bottom dollar that no, they're not. From that simple realization we come to the obvious conclusion - we can make life suck less and if we stay on course, in a coupla centuries life probably won't suck at all or won't suck as much. We're in the process of ethicization of the world and I reckon at some point we can cash it in.

I disagree. They are exactly the same thing and we are condemned to suffer during the transition of our lives. Sorry to be pessimistic but either I do not know how to make life "suck less" neither I see good causes around us. It is literally the opposite. We no longer have good reasons to believe that the world would become a better place in the future.

I disagree. They are exactly the same thing and we are condemned to suffer during the transition of our lives. Sorry to be pessimistic but either I do not know how to make life "suck less" neither I see good causes around us. It is literally the opposite. We no longer have good reasons to believe that the world would become a better place in the future. — javi2541997

I'm most disappointed that you don't share my perspective on the matter! Do you sense a contradiction in my proposal to make life less unbearable? If yes, where exactly am I asking for a sqaure circle? If no, ...