The Panthéon's Rousseau coffin is exquisitely conceived, and a hand is stretched out in the coffin, clutching a torch of intense flame, symbolizing the fire of Rousseau's thought that ignited the French Revolution.
Spengler wrote in The Fall of the West: "Socrates, Buddha, and Rousseau, the three representatives of civilization, each buried a spiritual depth of thousands of years. The earlier British historian Lord Acton argued even cooler: "Rousseau's pen has had more influence than Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and anyone else in history." ”
Today, Rousseau lies quietly in the Pantheon in Paris, France, and is buried with Voltaire in the most central and prominent position in the entire tomb. Today I push Rousseau's essay "Why People Suffer", to see how this great philosopher understood the pain of being born as a human being.
It is impossible for us to know what absolute happiness or absolute suffering is like, which is all mixed together in life; in which we do not appreciate pure feelings, in which we cannot feel two different moments in the same situation. Just as our bodies change, so do the emotions of our minds. Everyone has happiness and suffering, but to varying degrees. Whoever suffers the least is the happiest; whoever feels the least pleasure is the most pitiful. There is always more pain than pleasure, and this is a difference that we all share. In this world, people's happiness can only be viewed negatively, and the standard of measurement is: people with less pain should be regarded as happy people.
All feelings of suffering are inseparable from the desire to be free from suffering, and all ideas of pleasure are inseparable from the desire to enjoy pleasure; therefore, all desires mean a lack of happiness, and when we feel a lack of happiness, we feel pain, so our suffering arises from the disproportionate proportion of our desires and abilities. A man with feelings will become a man of absolute pain when his abilities expand his desires.
So, where is man's wisdom or true path to happiness? Correctly speaking, it is not about reducing our desires, because if our desires are less than our abilities, then our abilities are partially idle and unusable, and we cannot fully enjoy our existence; nor is it about expanding our abilities, for if our desires increase in the same greater proportion, then we will only suffer more; therefore, the problem is to reduce those desires that exceed our abilities, and it is to bring about a full balance between the powers and the wills. Therefore, only when all the forces are used can the mind remain quiet and the human life can be organized.
Nature always does what is best, so it arranges people in the first place. Initially, it gave him only the desire necessary to sustain his survival and the sufficient ability to satisfy that desire. It stores the rest of its abilities in the depths of the human mind and exerts them only when needed. Only in the primitive state can the ability and desire be balanced, and the person does not feel pain. Once the underlying abilities begin to work, the imagination that is most active of all abilities awakens and develops ahead of the curve. It is this imagination that shows us the realm of good or bad that we may attain, and it is our hope that we have the hope of satisfying our desires, so that our desires are more nurtured.
But the target, which at first appeared to be within reach, fled so swiftly that we could not catch up; when we thought it was catching up, it changed its appearance and appeared far ahead of us. We can no longer see where we have walked, we no longer think about it; the wilderness yet to be trekked is expanding again. Therefore, we are exhausted and do not reach the end; the closer we are to enjoyment, the farther away happiness is from us.
On the contrary, the closer a man gets to his natural state, the less different his abilities and desires become, and therefore his journey to happiness is not so far away. His suffering is the slightest only when he seems to have nothing, because the cause of suffering is not the lack of something, but the need for those things. The real world is finite, the imaginary world is endless; we cannot enlarge one world, we must limit another; for it is precisely because of the only difference between them that the sufferings which cause us great suffering arise.
Apart from physical strength, health, and conscience, the happiness of life varies according to each person's opinion; apart from physical pain and the reproach of conscience, all our suffering is imaginary. One might say that this principle is well known; I agree with it; but the practical application of this principle is different, and what is being discussed here is entirely a question of application.
What do we mean when we say that man is weak? The word "weak" refers to a relationship, a relationship of survival that we use to express. Anyone whose physical strength exceeds its needs, even an insect, is very strong; whose physical strength exceeds its physical strength, even if it is an elephant, a lion, or a victor, a hero, a god, is also very weak. Angels who do not understand their own nature and act arbitrarily are weaker than happy mortals who live according to their own nature and peacefully. The person who is satisfied with his present strength is the strong; if he wants to act beyond the power of man, he becomes very weak.
Therefore, do not think that by expanding your faculties, you will increase your physical strength; if your pride exceeds your physical strength, you will reduce your physical strength. We have to measure our range of activity, and we have to stay in the center of that range like a spider in the center of a web, so that we can always meet our own needs and will not complain about our weakness, because we have no feeling of weakness at all.
Text | Jean-Jacques · Rousseau
Figure | Henry · Rousseau