In search of the true path

Abstract

We all have to believe in something, or at least have some sort of code by which we live our lives. This is what makes us civilised or at least puts us on a higher plane than the animals. Somehow, religion never seemed to work for me and I turned expectantly to philosophy. Although much of what the great philosophers say is fairly helpful on a personal level, most of them were a pretty miserable lot. You could not, for example, imagine having a good evening down the pub with Aristotle or Nietzsche–and as for Schopenhauer! However, to be completely honest, I have always had a perverse admiration for old Arthur Schopenhauer because he was so awful. A short biographical entry in a recent reference book describes him thus: “Throughout his unhappy life his disposition remained dark, distrustful, misogynistic and truculent”. So there you have him, the archetypal angry young man, angry middle-aged man, and, finally, angry old man, with only his pet poodle as a companion. However, it was not all Arthur's fault, his family were fairly dysfunctional and his father died suddenly, possible a suicide, when he was only 17.