I observed once to Goethe, in complaining of the illusion and vanity of
life, that when a friend is with us we do not think the same of him as
when he is away. He replied: "Yes! because the absent friend is
yourself, and he exists only in your head; whereas the friend who is
present has an individuality of his own, and moves according to laws of
his own, which cannot always be in accordance with those which you form
for yourself."
Schopenhauer
Translated by T. Bailey Saunders
Existence - system of null-functions activated into partial non-nullity by ignorance.
The Void, of which it cannot be said that it is or is not, nor that it has consciousness or has none, while it denies absoluteness to any experiential value (alike to being and to consciousness) cannot be identified. And that is the doctrine of not-self (anatta) as I see it in one aspect at present. This voidness cannot be “is-ed” and so introduced into the worldly scheme, except as the denial of absoluteness of all particular values. It has no more effect on ordinary life than the theory of relativity. But just as that theory completely alters calculation of enormous speeds, so, as I see it, this void-element completely alters calculations of extraordinary situations, of death (as killing, suicide or the partner of old age). N.T
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