Awesome — I so appreciate this perspective on Schopenhauer. In particular I noticed Wignall’s comment: “So many people are, deep down, afraid of their own minds. Afraid of distressing thoughts, uncomfortable emotions, or painful memories. And so, they construct a life that, at its core, is almost entirely motivated around the principle of staying so busy that they have no time to be alone with their thoughts.”

Now that people are self-isolating due to the CoronaVirus, they can no longer keep their own thoughts at bay, they can no longer put off reading that “good book” and they can no longer avoid the thinking and reflecting that’s always been out of reach because of our busy-ness. For some people this is a bit of a hardship. Painful even. We’ve resisted being with ourselves for so long. But for others, it’s a Godsend, quite literally. The opportunity to watch the buds on a tree unfurl in green-ness. To think our own thoughts far from the fray. To consider what we might really like to do and who we really are. It’s an unsought gift — I only wish it didn’t come to us at the expense of so much suffering worldwide.

Here’s another Schopenhauer quote (I believe). : “Marriage is like sticking your hand into a bag of snakes and hoping to pull out an eel.”