About Love: Wille zum Leben or as Schopenhauer may say, “It’s 100% Natural!”

The next time you see Handsome Bob and Plain Jane holding hands and evidently in love, slowly recall the name of Arthur Schopenhauer before you inevitably silently mutter in surprise, “Why her?”. The logical next question is, ‘Who is Arthur Schopenhauer?’ He was one brainy dude, a philosopher actually, and rather a crusty one as history announces, but a thinker known for a perceptual clarity which has attracted and influenced many other thinkers.Now Schopenhauer or let’s call him Mr. S, says that when two people fall in love, the real purpose is…um, procreation and furtherance of the species.

Mr. S' work in ‘The World as Will and Representation’ proclaims that all human effort is designed towards furthering a will (or desires in common parlance), which tragically is destined to be unsatisfied. This discontentment later leads to pain and suffering. Here’s what Mr.S says about love.

• Mr. S calls love ‘wille zum leben’ or ‘will to live’. The romantic condition is by extension of this ‘will’, just as inevitable as feeling hungry or thirsty.
• Nature succeeds in pulling wool over lovers’ eyes by deceiving them into thinking that the love and companionship of their mates are essential for their lives’ happiness. When in fact as Mr. S says, it is not so…you’ll be unhappy with or without your loved one. Yes, love as Mr. S puts it, is nothing but Nature’s deception.
• Guys look for complementary physical features (mainly) like a sharp nose, nice eyebrows while girls typically look for ruggedness, strength and security. In other words, we search for the most ideal mate so that the offspring from such a union leads to a perfect specimen (imperfect love with perfect result, result here is a baby).
• Mr. S also has a comforting word for people who get dumped – your partner’s rejection is not necessarily a condemnation of you personally; it is just that he/ she has found a better mate who can produce a more perfect specimen. Gee, I don’t how rejected lovers are meant to construe this as comforting.
• Once the baby comes in, Nature’s agenda is fulfilled. The physical attraction now being thoroughly worn down, the two people formerly in love, are destined to spend an unhappy existence together or, just part ways.
• Since we look for complementary mates, short girls will fall in love with tall guys and yada-yada. Hence, the first question in this piece, ‘Why her?’

I feel a natural (that word again!) tendency to dismiss these basifications as hokum but I will not. Empirical evidence is just too strong for casually tossing out whatever Mr. S has to say. Further the interpretation of desires as the root of all disenchantment is a philosophy which has been expounded by far too many sources for it all to be just a single man’s ravings. There is a remarkable congruence between Mr. S’s words and the ascetic teachings of Hinduism and the core beliefs of Buddhism.

The remarkable thing about stuff in life is this – if you think long and deep enough, everything can be reduced to insipid, dull details. There is this wonderful moment in the film Local Hero (1983), when a knowledgeable scientific sort explains the phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis to a layman as ‘high energy protons spilling into the earth’s atmosphere..’ and the wonderstruck guy is just too amazed at the colourful display overheard. It is not important to the guy how the Aurora has been formed, perhaps what is important for him and for us too I guess, is just to be present there in that silvery moonlight when that display occurs. I feel the same way about love.