John Vespasian

Contrarian personal development in Schopenhauer

How I put an end to my overthinking

Lessons from history about recovery

Controversial lessons from history about happiness

The link between success and sequentiality

Top 5 personal development insights drawn from history

Top 5 lessons from history about success

High productivity despite setbacks and failure

Five things more important than motivation

How philosophy multiplied my profits

Personal development in adverse circumstances

The most extreme challenge is letting go

Top productivity habits from great philosophers

How Aristotle helped me vastly improve my productivity

How Taoism saves me an hour a day

How Montaigne turned pessimism into optimism

How Schopenhauer reduced stress

How Schopenhauer got rid of anxiety

Five areas in which humans are much better than AI

The genius of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) also shows in his unique idea of justice. On the one hand, he regarded it as highly desirable in society. Civilization cannot exist without a consistent protection of life, liberty and property. On the other hand, Schopenhauer acknowledged that human life inevitably entails injustice; sometimes injustices are caused by errors and mistakes; on other occ...

In the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), we find a unique combination of realism and empathy. His books show that Schopenhauer was fully conscious of the advantages of industrial societies. They offer individuals far more chances than agrarian, immobile, medieval structures. At the same time, Schopenhauer was aware that perfection cannot be expected from any justice system. Judges and...

According to most philosophy books, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was profoundly pessimistic. However, when you look into the details of his life and his works, you will see that the truth goes in the opposite direction. Historians tell us that Schopenhauer was confronted with a series of personal tragedies that rendered him pessimistic, but is this really true? Indeed, his father passed away wh...

The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) places history on a secondary plane. Schopenhauer didn’t give history a central role because he did not consider that humanity should achieve any goal beyond the happiness of the individual. Schopenhauer believed that an eternal life force (“the will”) drives all creatures towards self-preservation and reproduction, but the influence of the will do...

The reflections of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) are to be found in his work “The world as will and representation.” I consider equally interesting the observations contained in his “Aphorisms on the art of living,” published in 1851. In contrast to Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), Schopenhauer is not a philosopher of history. He didn’t develop an all-inclusive vision of history nor theorised about...

Happy people do not waste their time telling the world how happy they are, and Taoists are not an exception. Neither Lao-Tzu, Yang-Tzu or Chuang-Tzu made any effort to gain adepts to their philosophy. They simply wrote down or dictated their insights, making them available. If you want to adopt their ideas, or some of them, great; and if you don’t, it is also great. Taoists don’t fundamentally car...