120 philosophical essays you must read in your life

Chapter 112

Chapter 6 Section 16 The feeling of love is subordinate to rational consciousness

[Russia] Tolstoy
A rational person cannot live only for the purpose of life.The reason for the impossibility is that the road is blocked, and all the goals pursued by animal people are obviously impossible to achieve.Rational consciousness points to other goals, which are not only attainable but give complete satisfaction to man's rational consciousness.But at first, under the influence of the erroneous theories of the world, man thought those aims were incompatible with his life.

No matter how hard he tries to recognize his rational ego, he cannot feel in his rational ego the thirst for life that he feels in his animal self. .The rational me seems to observe life passively, but it does not live itself, and has no desire for life.The rational me has no desire to survive, but the animal me has to suffer, so there is only one way left—to escape from life.

This is how contemporary negative philosophers approach problems casually.They deny life, but live as usual and do not take every opportunity to renounce life.Suicides then come to seriously address the problem, renunciating a life that means nothing to them but evil.

For them, suicide is the only way out of the irrational life of contemporary human beings.

The thesis of pessimist philosophy and the most common suicide is this: there is an animal I who has a desire to live.I, who have the desire to survive, can’t be satisfied; there is another principle, love, and only this is love, and human life lies in this.

This love, in which life lies, appears in the human heart as an inconspicuous shoot appears among a mass of weeds like it.It is precisely the weed of human sexuality that is called love.At first, one would think that this tiny sprout would one day become a big tree, which would be filled with birds, just like all other sprouts.One would even prefer the shoots of the faster-growing weeds, and let the only shoot of life die.More often, however, something worse happens: people hear that among the sprouts there is a real, most vital sprout called Love, and they trample it to death, and start to breed other miscellaneous sprouts, And call the miscellaneous sprouts love.Worse than this: people pulling up the real shoot with rude hands, crying, "Oh, here it is! We found it, we know it now, and we'll make it grow. Love! Love! What a noble sentiment, and here it is!" So they planted it, improved it, took possession of it, and kneaded it, so that the shoots died before they could bloom.So some people say: all this is nonsense, absurdity, and boring sentimentality.

The bud of love is weak when it first appears, and it cannot stand the touch. Only when it grows, it becomes extremely powerful.All the above-mentioned people do can only make it suffer.All that the bud of love needs is that it should not be shut out from the sunshine of reason, which is the only thing that makes it grow.

【Together with you】

Natural desire and blind emotion are very destructive to love.Irrationality has a strong stifling effect on the growth of love.The growth of love is like a sprout full of hope. What it needs is the warmth of spring, the nourishment of rain and dew, careful care and rational support.

It is because of you that the breath of summer dulls me; it is because of you that I look again for signs of burning desire, to watch shooting stars, and to watch everything that falls.

(End of this chapter)