For my final, I am considering writing about the part of Schopenhauer’s On the Suffering of the World that we had read. I think that Schopenhauer brings an interesting perspective about suffering, one that is positive rather than negative. Suffering becomes necessary for humanity to thrive which means that we should not necessarily reject it. One can however argue that they can go through life without suffering. I plan to examine how we can approach suffering in our practical lives while analyzing Schopenhauer’s perspective. Mainly I aim to consider two possibilities, the route using stoicism and to embrace and accept the extremes of pleasure and suffering. Some of Nietzsche's work echoes the second possibility which I plan to discuss within my essay.
In terms of the Schopenhauer's view of suffering, I don't think the majority of people would not naturally hold that view. Likely we would want to avoid suffering and prefer it not to exist (at least at that moment that we are considering it). There exists a question on how we came to see suffering as such a repelling force. Is it the case that suffering is universally or objectively “bad” or could it be subjective? Like the question of morality, could we even make such a statement about truth to suffering? Intuitively it does not seem like we can look for an answer somewhere else like from a God (and especially not the omni-benevolent one that Descartes hints at). As Nietzsche has mentioned, “God is dead” and we have to make our own values whether it be about morality or the nature of suffering. I think it would be interesting and perhaps necessary to examine how suffering becomes internalized and whether we can use either perspective of suffering to help guide our view of the human value and life (this would be an extension to the initial discussion of the two possibilities).