Perhaps Schopenhauer Never Met An Advocate for Sustainability, Peace and Justice

Listening to The Writer’s Almanac just now, as I try to do every morning, I learned that it’s Arthur Schopenhauer’s birthday – a man best known, I believe, for having taken pessimism out of the hands of the amateurs and developing the gloomiest possible perspective into a true art form. And from his portrait here, he certainly looks the part, doesn’t he?

Here are a few of his observations:

• Man has no free will; the sense we have to the contrary is an illusion.
• People cannot be improved.
• Life is essentially suffering, caused by the desire for the unobtainable.
• Death is the aim and purpose of life.
• To live is to suffer, the triumph of death is inevitable, existence is a constant dying.

Holy mackerel. Thanks a bunch for the wisdom.

Fortunately, there are those among us who see a meaning and a purpose to our lives. I take enormous satisfaction in my attempts – some admittedly more successful than others – to make the world a better place. I have to think that the vast majority of advocates for sustainability, peace and justice share that perspective with me.