Why You Grow Bitter As You Get Older — Arthur Schopenhauer

0:01 Why do some people grow bitter with age?

0:04 Why do some older adults seem cranky, as if they’re simply done with life?

0:10 Is life actually getting worse, or do we just begin to see it differently?

0:16 When we see older people who seem a bit distant, down, or even bitter,

0:21 it’s easy to say they have only themselves to blame and that they

0:26 should simply “be positive.” But maybe

0:28 their bitterness wasn’t entirely their fault.

0:31 Maybe it’s the result of life’s illusions about happiness;

0:36 illusions that have begun to wear off with age.

0:40 For the pessimistic philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,

0:43 it’s not all that surprising that people aren’t too thrilled about life anymore.

0:49 Because if we’re really honest, isn’t life, by and large, a disappointment?

0:56 This video explores why people become bitter as they get older,

1:00 based on Schopenhauer’s philosophy.

1:02 My name is Stefan.

1:04 If you enjoy my work, you can subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.

1:08 You can also support me on Patreon, and my books are available on Amazon.

1:13 Thank you, and I hope you’ll enjoy this video.

1:26 In our younger years, life seems to play a curious trick on us.

1:31 Our future looks bright, filled with endless opportunities.

1:35 Time and space stretch out before us, and we’re excited about what’s to come.

1:42 “In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life,

1:45 we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised,

1:50 sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting

1:53 for the play to begin.” ..as Schopenhauer put it.

1:56 When we are still young, we see ourselves flying airplanes,

2:01 living in dream houses, and being part of happy families.

2:05 We imagine our lives to be fulfilling…

2:08 and that our happily-ever-after is waiting for us around the corner.

2:14 And we may also find ourselves idealistic about the world around us.

2:18 I certainly was when I was younger,

2:20 believing that the adults had been doing it all wrong,

2:23 and that we, the younger generation,

2:26 would clean up the mess and make the world a better place.

2:30 Maybe we had seen too many Disney movies.

2:33 Or maybe we were shielded from the darker aspects of life.

2:37 Or maybe, as children, we’re simply more inclined toward hopeful thinking.

2:43 Whatever the reason,

2:44 Schopenhauer considered this ignorance of the future a blessing.

2:48 Because if we had really known, we’d have seen what we are:

2:54 “innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life”.

2:59 We’d see that life’s misery is not an exception,

3:03 but an inherent condition of being human.

3:06 And that, of course, isn’t a nice prospect,

3:09 and would destroy our youthful enthusiasm.

3:13 Yet, blissfully unaware,

3:14 we plunge into life with great expectations and even greater desires.

3:20 But it doesn’t really play out as we had hoped.

3:24 And we most likely collected a fair share of painful experiences,

3:28 some of which happened many moons ago, though we still carry them with us.

3:34 As we grow older and encounter more hardships,

3:37 life begins to feel like nothing more

3:40 than an unfortunate episode between birth and death.

3:45 And so, over the years, we become bitter and even feel cheated.

3:50 And we ask ourselves: “Why am I not happy?

3:54 Where did I go wrong?

3:56 Did I miss something?” Schopenhauer’s essays in Studies in Pessimism

4:02 explain why life often ends up so unsatisfactory for us.

4:08 And that this isn’t necessarily our fault.

4:15 I was talking to a childhood friend, a while back,

4:18 and although I forgot how we arrived at this topic, he said,

4:22 and I’m paraphrasing: “No matter the person you encounter today,

4:26 it will never be like the first time you fell in love.

4:29 And every time you meet someone new,

4:30 the feeling just gets less and less intense.” During that conversation,

4:35 we came up with other examples:

4:38 a first gaming console, a first car, a first house:

4:44 experiences that hit hard the first time,

4:47 but with each repetition, become a little less intense.

4:51 I thought about it afterward, and it seems to be a common experience

4:55 that the same pursuits bring less and less satisfaction over time,

4:59 while the desire for them remains.

5:02 And here’s where things take a darker turn.

5:06 Whether or not the intensity fades, the desire itself seems to persist.

5:12 How many people keep chasing the high of falling in love,

5:17 even though it always fades, and often results in painful heartbreak?

5:21 And it’s not just falling in love that’s fleeting:

5:25 most forms of pleasure are temporary,

5:27 and often take quite some effort to attain.

5:30 So why do we keep chasing them?

5:33 According to Schopenhauer,

5:34 we keep chasing because of the irrational force within us: the will to live.

5:40 Because of the will to live, we are always driven to desire something.

5:45 And soon after we get what we want, we grow bored with it.

5:50 The novelty wears off, and we desire something new.

5:53 At the same time, we grow up with the illusion of lasting happiness.

5:57 But when all is said and done, we never really reach it.

6:02 And eventually, we end up disappointed and frustrated with life,

6:06 “shipwrecked” as Schopenhauer called it,

6:09 arriving in the harbor “with masts and rigging gone.” When we’re older,

6:15 we have made so many attempts to get something we believe will

6:18 make us happy that some of us begin to see through the game.

6:22 As opposed to the young versions of ourselves,

6:25 full of expectations, we now see past the illusions.

6:29 Life, as it turns out, means ongoing dissatisfaction, with no lasting solutions.

6:35 The old tricks promising lasting happiness don’t work anymore.

6:40 As Schopenhauer wrote: “He who lives to see two or three generations is like

6:46 a man who sits some time in the conjurer’s booth at a fair,

6:50 and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession.

6:54 The tricks were meant to be seen only once;

6:58 and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive,

7:02 their effect is gone.” End quote.

7:06 So maybe that’s why my friend has started to notice

7:09 that whatever once made him happy no longer does,

7:14 at least not to the same degree.

7:19 Meanwhile, the longing remains.

7:23 One thing we learn as we get older is that misfortune often runs deep.

7:28 And it seems to overshadow the satisfaction we have experienced so far.

7:34 More optimistic-minded individuals would likely disagree,

7:37 asserting that the enjoyment in life actually outweighs the pain.

7:41 But Schopenhauer fired back at such claims

7:44 by making a comparison between two animals, one eating the other.

7:49 Which one has a more intense experience?

7:52 The one enjoying the eating of the other animal,

7:56 or the animal suffering the pain of being eaten alive?

8:00 And if that example doesn’t cut it,

8:02 let’s take an honest look at our own experiences.

8:06 There are countless things that can make us cry out and scream in agony.

8:10 But how many can overwhelm us with pleasure in the same intensity?

8:15 The severity of pain compared to pleasure is not surprising, though,

8:19 as Schopenhauer observed that pain is a positive experience;

8:23 “it makes its own existence felt,” as he put it.

8:27 Pleasure, contentment, and happiness, on the other hand,

8:30 are merely the absence of pain,

8:33 the brief relief we feel when a desire is fulfilled,

8:37 while pain itself is deeper, stronger, and far more enduring.

8:42 Emil Cioran, another pessimistic philosopher,

8:45 very much influenced by Schopenhauer,

8:47 didn’t write his work, On the Heights of Despair, without reason.

8:51 He, too, recognized that suffering carries far more weight than pleasure.

8:57 And so, falling in love, for instance,

9:00 isn’t a positive experience that adds something,

9:03 but more of a painkiller, temporarily freeing us from our suffering.

9:07 The more intensely we fall in love, the stronger the effect.

9:11 Now, when we’re older, we often have experienced a lot of suffering,

9:16 and much of it cuts deep, and sometimes we never really recover from it.

9:21 We’ve spent our whole lives putting out fires under the guise of pleasure,

9:26 fun, and happiness, and we repeatedly burned ourselves in the process.

9:30 So, is bitterness a surprise then?

9:33 Or is it a logical outcome of expecting much from life,

9:39 only for it to be painfully underwhelming?

9:44 Before the play ends, we may realize it sucked and won’t get any better.

9:50 And so, we’ve seen enough.

9:52 The sham has been exposed;

9:54 our tickets were a waste of money, and we feel ripped off.

10:00 During this emotional rollercoaster ride without safety bars,

10:03 we’ve accumulated enough pain that it’s started to weigh on us,

10:08 especially when misfortune keeps coming, adding to our bitterness.

10:12 We might still experience enjoyable things, maybe even fall in love,

10:17 but these just aren’t enough to find

10:20 relief from all the baggage we’re carrying around.

10:23 Schopenhauer wrote that, in our later years,

10:26 the disappointment of life begins to dominate our feelings,

10:29 and we find ourselves longing for a time when life still felt full of hope:

10:35 the moments before the curtain was raised.

10:38 But our tragic human condition also makes way for something else,

10:44 what Schopenhauer called “the most necessary thing in life”:

10:48 tolerance, patience, regard, and love of neighbor.

10:51 Our experiences can make us bitter,

10:54 but they can also deepen our empathy for our “fellow sufferers”.

11:00 Because in the end, we’re all in this together.

11:08 Thank you for watching.