Aug 15, 2025

As I mentioned in my previous writing, I have my own take on the idea of opposites and contradictions — especially the claim that opposing conditions make us more productive. My view is rooted in a deeper belief: the desire to occupy ourselves until the moment we die. To me, this "time-occupying" impulse — the drive to enrich each passing moment and increase the meaning we give to life — is life itself.

I believe that opposites will always exist, and that life only becomes meaningful when we accept all of them. Of course, no one actively seeks misery. Yet the chase for happiness is perhaps the most painful evidence of our own unhappiness.

Schopenhauer defined pain as the awareness of suffering, longing, deprivation, and lack. He described boredom as a kind of dissatisfaction born of comfort and desire. In his view, our lives swing back and forth between these two states. Once a desire is fulfilled, another begins to take root: the unemployed suffer from joblessness; the employed, from tedium. The pain of love, the boredom of companionship; the pain of loss, the boredom of victory; the pain of slavery, the boredom of freedom…

Although this cyclical view is often labeled pessimistic, it could also be described as life’s constant act of running — a perpetual motion. And that, in itself, is not pessimistic. Even if people think Schopenhauer’s philosophy is pessimistic, movement and energy are among life’s greatest truths — and that is anything but pessimist.

For me, the “Schopenhauer Pendulum” is not simply about revealing how life cycles between pain and boredom. It’s also a bitter remark about the repetitive nature of our existence. As time moves forward, it sets things into motion, pushing them toward change. If change is inevitable, then I reject the idea that the same experiences must repeat themselves endlessly.

Schopenhauer saw art as one of the few ways to escape this cycle. Art lifts us out of our desires and allows us to view the world from a different perspective. According to him, music and literature are the most powerful forms of art.

First, we desire. Schopenhauer calls this very act of wanting pain. When a desire is fulfilled, boredom sets in — a boredom born from dissatisfaction with what we’ve attained. We also carry the belief that boredom will inevitably return. In this sense, reaching victory is the greatest defeat.

Yet, this philosophy also shows that life is not about the victories we achieve, but the journey itself. Wherever and however a person finds themselves, they will live. Old age will bring with it great disappointments, filled with the unfulfilled wishes of the past.

Still, everything comes down to time. The Schopenhauer Pendulum is a philosophy I cannot fully conclude — even today. But “willing to will” is merely a waste of time. Goals, aims, desires — they will always persist. And the belief that they will one day bring us happiness is a dangerous distraction. An awareness of time reveals that life’s desires and goals are often not true wants at all. This is why I cling to my own idea of opposites. The real act of wanting is not wanting.

Time moves ahead of us, and what we want in any given moment depends on that moment itself. If we accept that people are constantly changing, then it’s no surprise that when we achieve something, we may no longer be the same person who once desired it. That realization might be what drives us into boredom. This is where Schopenhauer’s philosophy stumbles, at least for me.

Why we want what we want — even why we do what we do — often reveals itself only later. Since we cannot live unaffected by our surroundings, our lives are shaped by the ways we are influenced and transformed. If we truly reflect, this awareness becomes something we discover only in hindsight.

My opposites theorem (no matter how much Schopenhauer has occupied my mind) is this: at every moment, we choose between two opposing states. There are always two, and we choose one based on the needs of the moment — then we tell ourselves, this is what I decided to do.

Curiosity, love, passion, intellectual pursuits, sports, art, science — all of these are ways of passing the time. If we find ourselves saying “time flew by,” perhaps we haven’t given ourselves enough time for self-discovery. Yet those who deepen the moment and make it productive can reach life’s greatest pleasures. But this only exists in the moment. At another time, it becomes a longed-for absence — and therefore, a source of pain. Those who deepen such activities enrich the “now” and, in that moment, live and die within it.

If we speak, let us speak as if the conversation will never end.

If we write, let us write as if the words will never run out.

If we listen, let us remember every word.

If we wonder, let us produce enough questions to fill our curiosity.

After all, aren’t we already living as if we will never die?
If we remembered death at every moment, wouldn’t each moment become more worth living?

Science is busy finding evidence for the questions asked in order to create a new word. Yet scientists, caught up in the equations they use to test each answer through trial and error, fail to notice how many years have passed, their mouths watering with anticipation.But every question, in that "moment", occupies them endlessly.. The artist draws and draws, perhaps makes a thousand sculptures — how many can they truly remember? But every statue is shaped in its details in that very moment. The artist has deepened the moment so much that they lose themselves in it.

Schopenhauer’s pendulum gives us the perception that achieved goals will remain unforgettable. Dissatisfaction with a city belongs to that very moment. The desire that arises is not from the dissatisfaction with what we have or from boredom, but from the urge that change brings. Character generates desire as a result of the contrast between the new and the old. It is the desire of the new, of the “self” in that very moment.

Life is not best represented by a pendulum or by Jörmungandr, the Norse serpent biting its own tail. Time is the true shaper of life. Change will not necessarily lead us to happiness — that’s not my claim — but happiness is not a destination. It is a product of the moment. Desires, the longing for satisfaction, the longing for happiness — these belong to the future. And life cannot be truly defined by planning for the future.

Desires simply fuel the act of imagining — only because that moment demands it. Art is not made by rigid planning. It’s not, “I will draw a bird.” It’s picking up the brush and seeing what happens. And when someone asks, “Why did you paint me?” the only true answer might be, “I don’t know — we’ll see.”

Time pushes us toward what we can do. In any given moment, our character expresses itself through what it is capable of doing. Even boredom is an act of capability — if we are bored, it is because we are capable of being bored.

Focusing on the present and recognizing what we can do right now wears down the very memory of desire. And if what we do in the moment lingers in our minds, it becomes a memory, a pleasure. The pain comes when we realize we cannot return to it. Pain belongs neither to the past nor the future — it exists outside of time. I’m not saying pain cannot be felt; It is the product of the idea that situations in which we cannot exist in pain will not cause us suffering. Even if it feels early to define it this way, I will do so., and that is why it hurts.

So while Schopenhauer’s pendulum sometimes makes sense to me, my own ideas grow stronger with each passing day. Life does not simply swing from pain to boredom; the illusion that we have total control over our desires is what wastes our time. And this illusion slows down productivity in the moment and places us under the perception of time’s dominance.