Most people spend their entire lives running from a truth that Schopenhauer had the courage to state plainly: existence is suffering, and no amount of achievement, pleasure, or distraction will change this fundamental fact. This is not depression talking. It is not nihilism. It is the logical consequence of everything Schopenhauer demonstrated about the nature of will and desire. If the will is a blind, insatiable force that drives all living things, and if desire by its very nature arises from lack and deficiency, then suffering is not an accident that befalls unlucky individuals. It is the permanent condition of...