WAITING WITH SCHOPENHAUER

Rufus Rey C. Montecalvo I remember reading Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation' while waiting for my flight home inside this huge and clean and air-conditioned airport. There were people milling about with their luggage and their relatives. There were people sitting and listening through their Iphones and mp3 players the newest music and other things. It was a bright beautiful day, and from the glass side of the airport I could see the long stretch of cement tarmac where there were a few landed planes. There was a plane readying for take-off, and it went faster and faster and then lift off... The sky was a clear blue with a few scattered cotton ball clouds. I saw some birds, white large birds flying far up the sky. I wished then that the moment be preserved, that I would just be there sitting and staring and reading and contemplating... But I had some trouble understanding Schopenhauer. He goes at length to describe the internal aspects of cognition, which reminds me a lot of the buddhist explorations on the inner workings of the mind. Much has already been said about the influence that Eastern, specifically Hindu and Buddhist philosophy had on Schopenhauer's thought. Such as the bleak picture of mankind and future of humanity. Of the ceaseless desire, of boredom, of the sufferings that human beings are born into and die out of. What was I doing reading him anyway? What did I intend to find? For one I was searching for a certain aesthetic. That moment for example, leafing through the old decaying pages of the volume of Schopenhauer, hearing the muffled sounds of the people and the machines and the music and the announcements. There was

an inherent sad beauty in that moment, knowing that it would not last, that I was just there waiting for my plane to land. (see 'wabi-sabi') Schopenhauer, or rather the English translation of Schopenhauer was long-winded, full of long sentences that go on for entire paragraphs. There are the references to Kant, which because I am only slightly familiar, I could not really understand. Clearly the stuff was way over my head. But I reasoned, I would read this for its literary value, not just the philosophical knowledge. The use of images by Schopenhauer is really good, when he goes medical-anatomical for example, describing the process of cognition, of consciousness of human beings. Here and there, Schopenhauer can be funny though I forget specific examples. What I remember though are specific 'feeling-tones' which are those hues or shades of emotions you feel about something. It is highly subjective and personal though I would try my best to describe it. There was that moment when I started imagining the cosmos, all those mechanical analogies used by ancient astronomers and astrologers regarding the structure of the universe while reading the paragraph which was about how human beings see things, how human beings experience themselves seeing/experiencing things. The universe, as it were, is contained within one's head. Looking at all the people milling about, at the plane flying, at the sky and the clouds, I realized that everyone of them was inside my head. Then I started remembering all the things I had read regarding the philosophical idea of 'solipsism' which is: "the world is my idea" as the first line of 'the world as will and representation' goes. A better, I thought, formulation would be the image of Vishnu dreaming the world into existence. You see, according to Hindu mythology, (there is a very nice account by Joseph Campbell regarding this myth), we are all just figments/fragments of Vishnu's dream. The whole world, the whole universe is just Vishnu's dream. "The world is my dream" or to create a more transgressive formulation: "The world is my hallucination." Then I rather felt overwhelmed by all these thinking and took a break. I looked at the clouds some more, at the tall foreigners walking with their families to the counters, at the busy busy airport people guiding, directing, inspecting, all the things. Then I looked for more interesting passages from the book. I realized that it would be impossible for me, given the limited time that I had to really delve into Schopenhauer's thoughts, besides the actual difficulties of the text itself. Tiring, I closed the book,

rested my eyes and waited some more.

Feb 21, 2012