Arthur Schopenhauer was born on this date in 1788. I don't imagine he was given to the celebration of birthdays for reasons that may be gleaned from this YouTube reading by D. E. Wittkower.
It is an accurate and pleasant reading of the whole of "The Vanity of Existence" (from Parerga) with only one insignificant divergence from the English text as presented in The Will to Live: Selected Writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, ed. Richard Taylor, pp. 229-233.
Listening to another read is inferior to careful and meditative reading and re-reading by oneself in solitude with pen and notebook at the ready.
It does little good to listen to philosophy being read or even to read it oneself. One needs to work through a text slowly, pondering, comparing, re-reading, reconstructing and evaluating the arguments, raising objections, imagining possible replies and all of this while animated by a burning need to get to the bottom of some pressing existential question. You must bring to your reading questions if you expect study to be profitable.
If one fails to enter into the dialectic of the problems and issues one will come away with little more than a vague literary impression. But real study is hard work demanding aptitude, time, peace, and quiet, a commodity in short supply in these hyperkinetic and cacaphonous times. Back in the day, old Arthur was much exercised by "the infernal cracking of whips" as he he complained in his classic "On Noise." What would he say today? Could he survive in the contemporary crapstorm of hiphop horseshit kaka-phony?
So turn off that cell phone before I smash it to pieces!
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