The Art of Being Happy

In the introduction Schopenhauer treats «wisdom of life» as almost synonymous with eudaimonia and expects of it neither Stoic renunciation nor Machiavellianism: the first is too hard for the ordinary person, the second is at the expense of others' happiness and the ordinary person lacks the intelligence it requires. Eudaimonia lies between the two — teaching how to live with as little suffering as possible, without great renunciation. The basic thesis: absolute happiness is impossible, only a state «of relatively less pain» can be expected; but understanding the subject can help us reach the happiness life permits.

The author lists the main elements of happiness: first a cheerful temperament, second bodily health, third inner peace, and fourth, to a small degree, external things (Epicurus's grouping «natural and necessary / natural and not necessary / neither natural nor necessary»). The rules of life will be divided into two groups: conduct towards ourselves and conduct towards others. Schopenhauer himself admits that it will be easier to write these rules down «at random» first and then gather them under headings — the fragmentary character of the book comes from here.

Rule No. 1 — «We were all born in Arcadia»: we come into the world with expectations of happiness and pleasure and keep this foolish hope until fate shows us that everything (even our arms, our nose) belongs to it. Experience teaches us that happiness and pleasure are an illusion shown from afar, while pain and suffering are real. So the wise man «pursues not what is pleasant but what is free of pain»; the best thing in life is a painless, quiet, tolerable existence, and one must not spoil it with longing for imaginary pleasures or fear of a future in fate's hands. Rule No. 2 is short: avoid envy; «nothing is so implacable and merciless as envy, yet we constantly try to arouse it». With quotations from Seneca: «you will never be happy while a happier man torments you».

Rule No. 3, «Acquired character», is the widest part. After Kant's «empirical and intelligible character», a third character gained only through life experience. Until a person knows what he wants and what he can do, «like children at a fair he grabs at everything», draws zigzags and reaches nothing. Schopenhauer says: only he who chooses what suits him alone and renounces everything else shows character; «as fish are at ease in water, birds in air, the mole under the earth», each person is at ease only in his own atmosphere. To imitate another's qualities is «far more humiliating than wearing another's clothes». The style is harsh, dense and aphoristic; every sentence refers to a classical source (Seneca, Aristotle, Homer) and demands attention from the reader.

• The fragmentary «rules» format allows each rule to be read separately
• Aphoristic style: short sentences and sudden similes (the caged elephant, the fish in water)
• Greek and Latin quotations (Aristotle, Seneca, Sophocles, Ovid) give the text a philosophical frame
• The author openly states his incompleteness: he intends to write the rules at random first and order them afterwards