The following is the first section of Chapter 5 of The Wisdom of Life:
Aristotle inadvertently said a sentence in Ethics, which I regard as the first rule of life wisdom. I'd better translate it into German: "Rational people don't want happiness, just want no pain." The truth contained in this sentence is that the essence of all happiness is negative, while the essence of pain is positive. For a detailed explanation and demonstration of this sentence, people can read my book The World as Desire and Representation, Volume I, Chapter 58.
Here I use a daily fact to explain this truth. If the overall health of our bodies does not enter our consciousness, our attention is always focused on the painful wounds. The general comfort in our life will disappear because of this little pain. Similarly, although all kinds of things are carried out and developed according to our ideas, as long as there is one thing that goes against our wishes-although it is only a trivial thing-this unpleasant thing will enter our minds; We will always think about this matter, and we will not think about other more important things that have happened as we wish.
In both cases, our intentions were hurt. In the first example, intention is objectified in the human body; In the second example, desire is objectified in human desire and desire. In both cases, we can see that the satisfaction of intention is always negative. The satisfaction we want is not directly felt by us, but only enters our consciousness by reflection and review at most. However, the resistance to the intention is affirmative, so this situation will be clearly stated. Every kind of pleasure is actually the elimination of resistance to desire and the liberation of desire. Therefore, the duration of each pleasure is quite short.
Aristotle's wonderful law quoted above is based on this truth. This rule teaches us not to focus on the pursuit of happiness and fun in life; It is to avoid countless evils in life as much as possible. If this road is not correct, then what Voltaire said can only be false-he said, "Happiness is just a dream, but pain is real." (1letter to the Marquis of florian in March 774), but in fact what Voltaire said is true.
Therefore, whoever wants to measure whether he has lived a happy life from the perspective of happiness theory needs to list the sins he has avoided one by one, instead of listing the happiness and fun he has enjoyed. Indeed, the happiness theory warned us from the beginning: the name "happiness theory" is only a euphemism; The so-called "happy life" should actually be understood as "reducing many unfortunate lives", that is, a barely tolerable life.
Indeed, life is not for us to enjoy, we must endure it and overcome it. This can be seen from the expressions in various languages, such as "de gere vitam" and "vita de funerals" in Latin. Italian "Siscama Cosi" (if you can survive these days); German "man muss Chen Su durchzukommen" (we should try our best to live a smooth life) and "er wird schon durch die welt kommen" (muddling along) and so on.
It is indeed a comfort to finally forget the burden of life when people are old. Therefore, the best wealth a person can get is that he has never suffered any great mental or physical pain in his life, rather than enjoying strong happiness. Anyone who measures whether a person lives a happy life according to the latter has adopted the wrong standard. Because happiness is and will always be negative; It is wrong to think that happiness can make people happy, and jealous people have this wrong idea-this is a punishment for their jealousy.
In contrast, the pain we feel is affirmative. Therefore, the degree of lack of pain is the standard to measure a person's happiness or not. If we can achieve a state without pain and boredom, we will really get happiness in the world, and everything else is illusory. From this we can infer that we should not buy happiness at the expense of pain, or even take the risk of pain, otherwise, we will pay positive and real things for those negative and therefore illusory things. But if we sacrifice happiness to avoid pain, then we will certainly gain something.
In both cases, it doesn't matter whether the pain comes after the happiness has passed or whether the happiness comes first. If people try to turn the painful stage of life into a happy Dojo, the goal is to have fun instead of getting rid of the pain as much as possible-many people are doing this-it is really a ridiculous thing to put the cart before the horse. No matter who, with gloomy eyes, regards this world as a kind of hell and deliberately builds a room isolated from fire in this world-then this person's mistake is not so absurd and outrageous.
A fool pursues happiness all his life, only to find himself cheated in the end; The wise try their best to avoid disaster. If a wise man can't achieve his goal, it can only be attributed to his luck, not his stupidity. As long as he gets what he wants, he certainly won't feel cheated, because the harm he avoided really exists in this life. Even if a wise man goes too far to avoid disaster and unnecessarily sacrifices the fun in life, in the final analysis, he has not really lost anything, because all the fun is illusory. It is superficial, narrow-minded and even ridiculous to feel sorry for missing the opportunity to enjoy.
Ignorance of this truth is the reason why we have suffered so many misfortunes, and optimism has contributed a lot to it. When we have no pain, our desire to move reflects all kinds of non-existent illusions of happiness and enjoyment to us; These flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water tempt us to follow suit. In this way, we have brought real pain beyond doubt. At that time, we will regret the pain-free state that we have lost-it is like a paradise that we rashly abandoned. We can only hope that nothing happened and would rather start all over again.
We always seem to be tempted by an evil devil, who uses the illusion of desire to guide us to abandon the state of no pain. In fact, the state without pain is the greatest happiness. Young people who don't think deeply think that this world is specially for people to play, and this world is the home where real happiness resides.
They think that people who can't get happiness are just not smart enough and flexible enough to get happiness. Novels, poems, and false behaviors made by the world for external face all strengthen this view. I will return to this point soon. After forming this view, people's life has always been a deliberate hunt for positive happiness, which is composed of positive happiness and pleasure. In this chase, people must take many risks.
Generally speaking, this pursuit of unreal prey will bring real and definite misfortune. All kinds of misfortunes are reflected in pain, illness, worry, anxiety, loss, poverty, shame and so on. The truth always comes late. But if people follow the rules I discussed here and aim at the goal of avoiding pain, that is, staying away from want, disease and all kinds of suffering, then this goal is real and we may gain something; Moreover, the less our life plans are disturbed by the illusion of chasing so-called positive happiness, the more we will benefit.
What Goethe said in Affinity coincides with what I said here. Misintal always works for the happiness of others. He said: "if a person tries to get rid of some evil, he always knows his purpose clearly;" But if a person always wants something better than what he already has, then he is quite blind. "This reminds people of a wonderful French proverb: good is a good enemy. Indeed, even the basic idea of cynicism comes from this truth. I analyzed this point as desire and representation in Chapter 16 of Volume II of The World. Don't cynics abandon all happiness because they consider the pain that is more or less intertwined with these happiness? For a cynical philosopher, avoiding pain is more important than getting happiness. They understand the negative nature of happiness and the positive nature of pain. Therefore, they made unremitting efforts to escape the disaster. In order to achieve their goals, they think it is necessary to abandon all pleasure consciously, because they know that pleasure hides the trap of planting people and makes people become prisoners of pain.
Of course, as Schiller said, we were all born in the Acadia Plateau; In other words, we all came to this world with the hope of happiness and happiness, and made them come true with foolish hopes. However, on the whole, fate will come soon. It grabs us rudely and teaches us that nothing belongs to us, but everything belongs to fate, because fate not only has indisputable rights to our property, our wives and children; Even our hands and feet, eyes and ears, and the nose in the center of our face belong to it. In any case, it won't be long before we get the experience and understand that happiness and happiness are just a layer of morning fog. We can only see it from a distance, and once we get close, it disappears.
In contrast, pain and suffering are both concrete and real. We can feel them directly, without illusions and expectations. If the lessons we get can bear fruit, then we will stop chasing happiness and enjoyment and pay more attention to how to block the road of pain and suffering as much as possible; We will realize that the best thing the world can give us is nothing more than an anodyne, quiet and tolerable existence; We must limit our expectations and demands on the world, so that we can be more confident to realize them. The safest way to avoid unhappiness is not to ask for happiness.
Marx, a friend of Goethe's youth, realized this because he wrote: "Our excessive expectation of happiness has destroyed everything in this world, and the degree of destruction is consistent with the degree of our dreams. Anyone who gets rid of excessive expectations and doesn't expect more than what he already has can live safely "(the corresponding of MEK). Therefore, we should adjust our expectations of happiness, property, status and honor to a moderate and appropriate scale, because it is the desire and struggle for happiness and glory that brings great misfortune. Therefore, it is wise and reasonable to reduce our desires, because a rather unfortunate life is easy; In contrast, a fairly happy life is not only difficult, but even impossible.
Poets who preach the wisdom of life have every reason to sing like this:
Whoever fully accepts the teaching of my philosophy and therefore knows that our whole existence is actually a kind of thing inferior to nothingness, and the highest wisdom of mankind is to deny and resist this existence, then he will not have great expectations for anything and any situation; We will not enthusiastically pursue everything in this world, nor will we strongly complain about the failure of our plans and careers. On the contrary, he will remember Plato's teaching: "No one or thing deserves our excessive worry."
Let's read Anvari's motto for the rose garden:
It is particularly difficult for people to accept this view of health because the world I mentioned earlier is false. We should have known such a lie since childhood. Many people's luxury and brilliance are just a facade, just like the decorative foil of the opera house, but they lack the key core. For example, those hanging pennants, ships decorated with crowns, decorated lanterns, cheers and shouts, drums and horns are just masks and facades to show people's joy, and this lively surface is a happy hieroglyph. But it's hard to find joy in such a lively scene.
Joey refused to show up at the festival. If it does appear, it usually comes quietly and unobtrusively; Everywhere I go, it is the most common and everyday environment and occasion. It won't appear in those glorious occasions anyway. Joy is like Australia's golden sands: they are scattered everywhere, without any rules and laws. Finding them is purely accidental, and only a few can be found at a time, because they rarely gather in large numbers.
All the lively and exaggerated pretenses mentioned above are aimed at creating the illusion of joy in people's minds and prompting people to believe that there is joy here. Happiness is like this, and so is sadness. How sad and sad the long, slow-moving funeral procession looks. There is no end to the carriages in the queue. But look inside! It's all empty. The deceased was actually sent to the cemetery by the coachman of the whole city. This picture can tell us what friendship and respect are in the world! These are all falsehood, hypocrisy and emptiness of personnel.
Another example is the grand occasion of wedding and the temple fair in Yixiang. On the surface, people are in high spirits and immersed in a noble and pleasant atmosphere, but usually, restraint, embarrassment and boredom are the real guests present. Where people gather, it is where hooligans gather, even if people's chests are covered with medals. A really good party, no matter where it is, is bound to be quite small. Most of the splendid and lively holiday scenes are empty, and there will always be some disharmony, because these holiday atmospheres are really incompatible with our poor and miserable life. This contrast illustrates the facts more clearly. On the surface, these lively parties will have a certain effect, which is the purpose of these parties. Therefore, Shang Fuer put it quite beautifully: "Our so-called social activities-parties and salons-are a tragic drama and a bad drama; It is boring and boring, and it is temporarily supported by machinery, clothing and packaging. "
Similarly, bachelor's colleges and philosophy chairs are just external facades, and they seem to be the embodiment of truth; But again, truth usually refuses to appear in these places and throws it elsewhere. Church bells, pastor's costumes, pious expressions, funny actions-these are all makeup jobs and pious masks. Therefore, we can almost regard everything in the world as a hollow stone. Nuts themselves are rare, and nuts hidden in stones are even rarer. It's usually a matter of luck to find it elsewhere.