263 / Will And Representation

I am back to wrestling with slippery philosophical concepts that seem determined to escape my fixed grip of full comprehension. Wouldn't it be easier just to go to the movies?

According to Arthur Schopenhauer, "the world is my representation." He goes on to say, "this is a truth valid with reference to every living and knowing being, although man alone can bring it into reflective, abstract consciousness." Man alone can say, thus, what is "very serious and grave if not terrible to everyone: ... 'the world is my will."

I think I like the concept (if I really do have some sort of tenuous grip on what Schopenhauer is talking about). The "world," as he sees it, exists only within our understanding, and is a "re-presentation" of the data of our senses.

Is there room, then, to understand the world differently, and thus to transform our reality? I am taking Schopenhauer's advice, and am reading his book for a second time. That's what he says you have to do, with The World As Will and Representation!