What forces create a philosopher? Is it the way they are raised, or do they have a special innate talent like a composer? How much does the real world impact their world view? I remember a story from one of my philosophy professors who when we were discussing Kant’s idea of transcendental idealism, said that after an evening of feasting and drinking, Kant walked home in the rain carrying a birdcage over his head thinking it was an umbrella. For all of his philosophy, Kant lived in the real world.
Philosophers like the rest of us must face reality. My personal favorite, Nietzsche suffered severe bouts of migraine’s, depression, and more but saw them as the price he had to pay for his struggles and his battle of the will. Yet other philosophers seemed, like many of us, to preach one way of life but to live another, more decadent, earthly life.
The attached article brings us the life of Giacomo Leopardi, a little known poet and philosopher whose life and outlook on life was difficult and to say the least, negative. He somehow manages to make Schopenhauer look like an optimist as he sees life as alterations between boredom and suffering. The only positive he found was that some art, not all of art, but a very narrow sliver of “genius” art could provide solace for his soul.
The product of a strict upbringing, his brilliant mind lead him to excessive study which in turn twisted his body so that any cardinal pleasure was denied to him. Crippled, at the will of his tyrannical parents, he slipped further and further into a view of life that was devoid of any positiveness. Whereas Nietzsche stove to embrace the battle of life despite his view of the end, Leopardi accepted his view of life and imposed upon himself a mental austerity that lead to desolation.
I offer the attached article not for your pleasure, but perhaps as a reminder that when the world seems to be crashing in around your ears, your life offers you so much more if only you step forward to grasp it.
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/04/nihilism-for-the-ironhearted
