THE SCARIEST PHILOSOPHER OF ALL TIME

[Music] nowadays the internet is flooded with nihilistic anti-humor that revolves around the theme of never wanting to be born certain philosophers do come close to the sentiment expressing pessimism and misanthropy here and there however there is perhaps no thinker who has expressed a deeper obsession with despair death and anti-natalism than emil chiran the intellectual who always sided with the devil this video is brought to you by the ridge wallet it's light sleek and industrial it doesn't fold or awkwardly bulge in your back pocket and it seriously changed my whole pocket situation most people are still using wallets designed in the 90s carrying around old receipts pictures of their acts and gift cards in an unorganized mess not the ridge wallet though this wallet holds up to 12 cards plus room for cash and there's over 30 colors and styles including carbon fiber and burnt titanium the durable material means each wallet comes with a lifetime warranty you could buy this one wallet and carry it for life if this wasn't enough to win you over yet check out their 30 000 5 star reviews the ridge team is so confident that you'll like it that they'll let you test drive it for 45 days you can send it back for a full refund if you don't love it get 10 off today with free worldwide shipping and returns by going to ridge.com sisyphus that's ridge.com sisyphus and use code sisyphus link in description born in austria-hungary in 1911 present-day romania chiran never found any reason to like his heritage he would come to describe romanians as mediocre slow resigned understanding and would later on float around the idea of writing a philosophy of failure specifically addressed to the failure of romania in continual rebellion against my ancestry i have spent my whole life wanting to be something else spanish russian cannibal anything except what i was in university taran would study philosophy becoming acquainted with the works of kant schopenhauer and nietzsche as well as to meet the russian philosopher shestov who taught shiran the important fact that life is arbitrary this would reflect insurance personal belief taken as an axiom the inconvenience of existence his bitter feelings towards life were channeled into his grad thesis on henri bergson in which he argued that bergson failed to comprehend just how tragic life was in order to write such depressing pieces tran needed to feel sad at the age of 23 he notes that i've never been able to write otherwise than in the midst of the depression brought about by my nights of insomnia for seven years i could barely sleep i need this depression and even today before i sit down to write i play a disc of sad gypsy music from hungary this unique productivity hack being very sad and sleepless was likely complimented by his hobby of strolling through graveyards the cemeteries for chiran were perfect for meditation and pondering some visits appeared to provide him ample material i was alone in that cemetery overlooking the village when a pregnant woman came in i left it once in order not to look at this corpse bearer at close range in order to ruminate upon the contrast between an aggressive womb and the time-warned tombs between a false promise and the end of all promises his first book on the heights of despair was published in 1934 and met with critical acclaim more importantly chiran notes that the book saved him from offing himself seeing writing as an alternative to simply dying a year after his book came out displaying a saddened and angered man sick of life his mother reportedly told him that if she had known how miserable her son would have been she would have aborted him taran found great relief in being told this thinking to himself i'm simply an accident why take it all so seriously unfortunately like quite a few intellectuals of the time duran expressed approval for the development of far-right movements regarding the night of the long knives he stated that what his humanity lost if the lives of a few imbeciles were taken he also came out as a self-described hitlerist and supported the iron guard as he gained further notoriety and published more books all surrounding the same topics chiran grew to dislike his youthful interest in fascism in the 1970s he outright stated that his support of far-right regimes were the worst folly of my youth if i am cured of one sickness it is surely that one he would revise several of his works at this time usually editing out any lines that would appear sympathetic towards totalitarianism in 1973 he published the trouble with being born a book that largely discusses the possibility that life is a failed project at best and an insufferable mistake at worst is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home he asks after several years of living in isolation in the latin quarter of paris duran planned to off himself with his partner simone however the onset of alzheimer's led to serious complications causing him to forget important memories in his life as well as words and conversation the evidence of the saddened decay is best represented in a supposed encounter a passerby had with taran around this time who supposedly asked him are you taran by chance to which he responded i used to be he would die in 1995. three major themes pervade his lyrical and anti-structural philosophy pessimism anti-humanism and failure his pessimistic attitude is best reflected in his preoccupation with the inevitability of death going against socrates idea that philosophy can train one for their eventual demise instead chiran argues that reason doesn't stand a chance against death largely due to the very shaky foundations of reason itself the reductiveness of biology the destabilization of language and the overall moral relativism that characterized the 20th century are all challenges to reason as a universal shield to the tragedy of life one simply cannot reason their way out of the fact that they will die of course we try to do so by attaching ourselves to lifelong projects passions and an embrace of life itself nonetheless as taran writes when consciousness becomes independent of life the revelation of death becomes so strong that its presence destroys all naivety all joyful enthusiasm and all-natural voluptuousness equally empty are all man's finalizing projects and his theological illusions even stoicism a philosophy that embraces death is a motivational force and the acceptance of death doesn't make the cut chiran argues that reflecting on death just isn't the same as actually dying man accepts death but not the hour of his death to die anytime except when one has to die this turmoil surrounding our eventual departure is depressing to say the least however for tran life itself is even worse the world begins and ends with us only our consciousness exists it is everything and this everything vanishes with it dying we leave nothing then why so much fuss around an event that is no such thing being born is just a terrible accident leaving us in a state full of frustration and regret shame and doubt that we call existence even worse nothing tells us that there is a point to it so why bother we do not rush towards death we flee the catastrophe of birth survivors struggling to forget fear of death is merely a projection into the future of a fear which dates back to our first moment of life at this point charan ventures close to an embrace with buddhism the notion of the depleted ego of embracing a state of nothing that frees us from both pleasure and pain however he also demonstrates a remarkable awareness regarding the fact that he is permanently linked to a western philosophical tradition that is fundamentally based on the presence of a philosophical ego due to this chiran believes that he can never truly transcend his roots and hence turns away from buddhism in the end sharan argues that it is better to be an animal than a man an insect than an animal a plant than an insect and so on salvation whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy above all chiran is the philosopher of failure he sees failure everywhere from the romanian people that he despised being a part of to humanity itself as a failed project before being a fundamental mistake life is a failure of taste which neither death nor even poetry succeeds in correcting certainly the fact that much of his life was spent in poverty as well as the fact that he attached himself far too intimately with failed political projects could be seen as the sources of his taste for failure nonetheless if there is a positive point to turan's work it is perhaps his humorous affinity towards failure almost as if not living up to one's expectations was the natural state of things reframing our very existence as an aberration as something fundamentally failed and seeing god as an amateur craftsman is almost a relief life isn't to be taken all too seriously so i stress yourself over working towards the highest of hopes and expectations of others and society and even oneself the only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster if we succeed there are no further surprises we are superior to whatever occurs we are invincible victims so in the strange optimism springing forth from the dark torment of turan's pessimism he asks us what are you waiting for in order to give up you

Channel: Sisyphus 55

Views: 728,612

Keywords: 2020-07-22

Id: YxEes567rzw

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2020