He's given his heart, his kindness, his very soul. And in return, he feels only rejection and confusion. In the silence of his despair, he wonders, "Why is my suffering never enough?
" Little does he know, a 19th century philosopher has an answer. Over a century ago, Arthur Schopenhauer issued a warning to men about the true nature of women and the inevitability of suffering in a man's life. His words are a cold splash of water, a brutally honest mirror held up to our modern illusions.
And yet, within that harsh truth lies a promise. The very pain we dread can become the making of our sovereignty. In an age long before dating apps and relationship gurus, Schopenhau dissected the relationship between the sexes with scalpel-like precision.
He did not sugarcoat or play polite. He spoke of women in terms so stark that they still shock us today. One need only look at a woman's shape to discover that she is not intended for either too much mental or too much physical work.
He writes, "She pays the debt of life not by what she does, but by what she suffers, by the pains of childbearing, and by subjection to man. The greatest sorrows and joys or great exhibition of strength are not assigned to her. Here, Schopenhau sets the stage.
In his view, woman's role is fundamentally different from man's. She endures the pains of bringing forth life and owes a cheerful subordination to man while man is destined to face the great trials of strength and sorrow. Schopenhau's essay on women was no joke or satire.
It was, as one commentator noted, the expression of his serious convictions. He gazed unflinchingly at what he saw as the faults of female nature. To him, women remain eternally childlike, childish, foolish, and short-sighted.
In a word, big children all their lives. This was not petty insult for its own sake, but a declaration that women live in the present, concerned with small immediate things, unlike a man who can broaden his mind to past and future. Such claims sting, but Schopenhau believed facing these hard truths was better than living in comforting delusion.
Imagine a polished mirror that shows every floor in harsh light. That was Schopenhau's view of womanhood, a mirror reflecting uncomfortable details that many would rather ignore. According to Schopenhau, nature equipped women very differently than men.
If man's power lies in muscle and reason, a woman's power lies in her cunning. Nature has not destined women, as the weaker sex, to be dependent on strength, but on cunning, he observes. Women are instinctively crafty and have an ineradicable tendency to lie.
Nature gave every creature tools for survival. Lions have claws. Bulls have horns.
Woman has the weapon of dissimulation, deception. Schopenhau baldly states that deceit is woman's native art. Dissimulation is innate in woman.
A woman who is perfectly truthful is perhaps an impossibility. These words are blunt, even cruel, but they carry a key insight. Women, in his view, do not rely on open strength, so they survive and thrive by subtler means.
Think about it. If a woman lacks physical force to impose her will, how else can she influence the world? Through influence over men.
This is why Schopenhau argues, "A woman's drive is always indirect mastery. " A man strives to get direct mastery over things. But a woman is always and everywhere driven to indirect mastery, namely through a man.
He writes to Schopenhau, "Everything a woman does, her charms, her arts, even her displayed interests, can be a means to an end, securing a man's strength on her behalf. She may simulate tastes or sentiments if it helps her win a powerful mate. In other words, her life's strategy is subtle manipulation, often so well practiced that even she might not realize she's doing it.
" Now before anger rises, consider Schopenhau's perspective as an extreme counterweight to naive idealism. He's not praising these traits. He's warning men to open their eyes.
This is Schopenhau's warning. Women, he says, are not the angelic beings of our romantic poems, but creatures of nature with a mission very different from what sentimental men imagine. If you expect straightforward honesty or uncomplicated loyalty as if dealing with another man, you may be gravely disappointed.
Ancient mythical echo. Recall the story of Pandora, the first woman in Greek myth, whose curiosity unleashed a torrent of evils and sorrows into the world. In mythic terms, woman was the bringer of hardship, leaving only hope inside Pandora's box.
Schopenhauer might smirk at this myth, noting how it symbolically links womanhood with the introduction of suffering. He doesn't tell us to hate Pandora for opening the box. Rather, he'd say, "Recognize that nature designed the drama this way.
Women's very being can invite challenges that spur suffering. But within that suffering lies hope and growth for those strong enough to endure it. " One of Schopenhau's most vivid observations is how nature uses woman's beauty to ensnare men.
He describes young women as bait in the grand scheme of life. Nature has had in view a striking effect. He says, "For a few short years in youth, women are endowed with a richness of beauty and fullness of charm so powerful that a man's fantasy is ins snared.
In those enchanted moments, he will rush into taking the honorable care of her for a lifetime, a step which would not seem sufficiently justified if he only considered the matter. In plainer terms, desire blinds him. A man overcome by a woman's youthful charm leaps into commitment, marriage, provision, promising her his life, a promise his cooler head might not have made if he weren't under nature's spell.
Schopenhauer drives the point home with a cold biological analogy. Just as a female ant loses her wings after mating, no longer needing to fly once her purpose is served, so for the most part does a woman lose her beauty after giving birth to one or two children. The beauty was there just long enough to accomplish nature's goal, the securing of a male support and the propagation of the species.
And then it fades when it is superfluous. This sounds terribly cynical. Love itself reduced to nature's trick, beauty as a temporary mirage.
But again, Schopenhau bids us to see the reality behind the romance. He would say to the heartbroken man, "Did you really think her youthful grace was eternal and just for you? " "No, it was a strategim of nature, indifferent to your personal plight.
Modern illusion versus ancient instinct. Many modern men grow up fed on stories that women want gentle princes. That if you shower her with affection, poetry, and heartfelt vulnerability, you will be loved for who you are.
We are taught to view woman as a gentle princess who yearns for kindness and emotional openness. Schopenhau laughs bitterly at this idealistic illusion. It is only the man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual instinct that could call women the fair sex.
He writes, pointing out that this entire vision of woman as pure and noble is a product of our own desire. In truth, he calls women the second sex in every respect, not some exalted angel on a pedestal. He goes further, admonishing that treating women with blind reverence is a grave mistake.
To treat women with extreme reverence is ridiculous and lowers us in their own eyes. Schopenhau warns. This is a slap in the face of the nice guy approach.
The more a man grovels or puts a woman on a lofty pedestal, the less she respects him. Indeed, Schopenhau observed in his society that all the chivalous, gallantry and absurd veneration only serve to make women arrogant and imperious like spoiled creatures who think they can do anything and everything they please. We recognize this scenario even now.
When a man bends over backwards to please, he often earns contempt, not love. How many men have lamented, "I did everything for her and she just walked all over me. " Schopenhau's bleak answer.
Because you forgot that strength commands respect, not supplication. You tried to win her by making yourself small or by granting her every wish. In doing so, you fell from your own dignity.
Let's shatter a few common illusions that many men hold. illusions Schopenhau would eagerly dismantle. If I'm always kind and available, she will love me.
Schopenhau would counter that excessive devotion breeds contempt. A woman's instinct doesn't value a man she can completely command. It values a man who stands firm.
As he noted, sparing women's weaknesses is one thing, but worshiping them is ridiculous and self-defeating. She says she wants a nice, sensitive man, perhaps, but only on the surface. Schopenhauer would say that a woman's heart is with the strong.
Her unconscious drives pull her toward the man who proves himself, not the one who makes himself an emotional doormat. Nature's firm will, he writes, is that women seek the young, strong, and handsome for propagation. Kindness without strength does not satisfy that ancient instinct.
Love is a mutual sacrifice and understanding. In Schopenhau's eyes, what we call love is often nature's grand deception. A woman's ultimate loyalty is not to the man, but to the species, to the children she might have, to the strongest future she can obtain.
If fulfilling that greater purpose means breaking an individual man's heart, her conscience remains untroubled, says Schopenhau, for in the darkest depths of their hearts, they are conscious that betraying the individual for the sake of a stronger genetic partner is fulfilling a higher duty. In short, she is biologically programmed to prioritize her offspring's best chance over your personal feelings. These ideas are not comfortable.
They burn going down like a shot of strong liquor that makes you wse. But think deeply about the patterns you've seen in life. Have you ever watched a woman leave a nice but uninspiring man for someone who treated her with more confidence or even indifference?
Have you seen how some women test their men with seemingly inexplicable hurtful behavior almost as if to provoke a reaction? Schopenhau's philosophy gives one possible explanation. It's in their nature to test, to seek the limits of a man's strength, consciously or not.
They push to see whether he bends or stands firm. Schopenhau in his pessimistic yet cleareyed way effectively tells us that women are agents of nature, and nature cares not a wit for our comfort. Nature has made it the calling of the young, strong, and handsome men to look after the propagation of the human race.
This law surpasses all others in age and power. He writes, "Woe then to the man who sets up rights and interests in the way of it. For they will at the first significant onset be unmercifully annihilated.
" Feel the weight of those words unmercifully annihilated. If a man deludes himself and thinks he can claim a woman against the will of her nature, if he expects that his comfort, ease, or mere kindness will outweigh her drive to choose the strongest mate, he may be destroyed by reality. It is a harsh warning.
Do not stand in the path of a force as old as life itself. Female nature will run its course like a river. You either ride its current or get swept aside.
Rather than seeing women as gentle muses or moral guardians, Schopenhau sees them as forces of nature. And what do we do with forces of nature? We respect them.
A sailor does not curse the storm. He learns to navigate through it or harness the wind. Likewise, a wise man does not waste energy hating women for being as they are.
He learns from it, toughens up, and sails on. Schopenhauer admonishes that in their hearts, women live more for the species than for the individual. This gives their character what he calls a frivolousness and a fundamentally different tendency from that of man, which leads to perpetual discord when a man expects them to behave like himself.
In other words, a woman might seem capriccious or disloyal from a personal viewpoint, but from nature's viewpoint, she is utterly loyal to her biological mission. Consider the discord in married life that Schopenhau noted was almost the normal state. How many men feel that constant pushpull that their woman is never fully at peace, always wanting something more from them?
It's as if she's always testing, consciously or not. This is the crucible that tempers a man's metal. Through conflict, through meeting challenges, he grows.
We see this dynamic in countless stories. The hero's journey often includes facing feminine temptation or turmoil. Adysius had to outwit the seductive sirens and resist the comforts of Cersei to continue his quest, proving his discipline and resolve.
The biblical Samson blessed with strength revealed his secret weakness to Delila in a moment of vulnerability only to be betrayed and broken when she cut his hair. These tales carry a common thread. The hero is tested by womanly influence and his response determines his fate.
Will he succumb to weakness or will he emerge stronger and wiser? Women are not to be hated but understood as forces of nature who test and temper male strength. This is a core message we derive from Schopenhau's philosophy.
Even if Schopenhau himself used less kindly phrasing. You do not curse the fire for burning your hand when you reach into it. You learn not to be careless with fire.
Likewise, if you have been burned by a woman's inconstancy or her seeming cruelty, do not rush to misogyny or despair. Instead, see it as a test, a painful lesson from the school of life meant to harden and refine you. Each betrayal or disappointment can fuel a transformation, pain into power.
Just as the mythical phoenix is reborn in flames, a man can be reborn through heartbreak if he understands the lesson. Schopenhau believed that suffering is woven into the very fabric of life. Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim, he wrote.
In other words, if you imagine that happiness or comfort is the default, you're living an illusion. Suffering is the rule, not the exception. But this grim proclamation comes with a silver lining.
Suffering has a purpose. Misfortune has its uses. Schopenhau tells us, "If life were too easy, if we were relieved of all need, hardship, and adversity, if everything we took in hand was successful, men would become insufferably arrogant and foolish, even mad.
A certain amount of hardship is necessary for every man at all times. A ship without ballast is unstable and will not go straight. He warns.
Think about that. Your struggles are your ballast, keeping you upright and directed. Without challenges to ground you, you'd drift aimlessly or capsize under your own hubris.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the arena of love and desire. If every romantic wish were granted without effort, if every man got his dream girl with a snap of his fingers, what then? Schopenhauer imagines this very scenario.
If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his jill at once and without any difficulty, the result would not be eternal bliss. Men would either die of boredom or hang themselves, or there would be wars, massacres, and murders. In other words, too much ease is actually destructive.
Struggle is what keeps us alive and sane. A relationship with no challenges would stagnate. A life of constant pampering would rot the spirit.
So when Schopenhau says life is suffering, he is not dooming us to misery. He's urging us to recognize suffering as the engine of growth. The modern man struggling in love might object.
Must it really be so hard? Can't it just be peaceful and equal? From Schopenhau's standpoint, peace and ease are not life's defining features.
They are fleeting rest bites. Life is struggle especially the struggle between the sexes and women by their very nature ensure that this struggle never ceases because it is through this dynamic that the strong are distinguished from the weak and women entrusted with the welfare of the species will always in the end choose the man who proves himself capable. This brings us to the ultimate payoff of Schopenhau's brutal council.
What does a man gain by heeding this warning? The answer is sovereignty. By sovereignty, we mean true self-possession, mastery over one's own life and fate.
A sovereign man is not a slave to his appetites, nor to his need for validation, nor to his pain. And how does one become sovereign? Through trial by fire, through being broken down and reformed like steel folded in a forge.
Schopenhau believed that most of us wander through life drunk on illusions and nothing soers us like suffering. When a woman you love betrays you or leaves you, it is as if nature itself reached into your chest and squeezed your heart. The easy path is to become bitter to whine that all women are terrible or conversely to sink into self-pity and say I wasn't good enough.
But the shopopenhirian path, the path of the philosopher and the warrior is to embrace that suffering as your teacher. Feel the pain fully and then learn from it. What illusion was shattered?
Maybe you realized you were expecting a reward for your kindness, a transaction that was never promised. Maybe you learned that your own happiness cannot be contingent on another's approval. These lessons are the birth pangs of wisdom.
Schopenhau himself, ever pessimistic, might not speak of sovereignty in glowing terms. He might instead speak of resignation or acceptance, the idea of giving up our naive hopes. But for us, let's translate that into empowerment.
Once you accept that life is struggle, especially with women, you stop being shocked or knocked off course by it. You start to find a new power in yourself. The power to endure to keep your center no matter the storm.
Remember, a ship without ballast is unstable. Well, now you have ballast. All the disappointments, the rejections, the nights of tears, they weigh you down in the best way, keeping you steady and firm.
You become grounded. A sovereign man does not beg for love. He attracts it by virtue of who he has become.
He does not fear loneliness because he has walked through that fire and emerged with confidence in his own worth. Paradoxically, once you no longer need her validation, a woman is far more likely to grant you her admiration. Why?
Because you now embody that strength and dignity that her instinct truly respects. Schopenhau noted long ago that to show extreme deference and reverence lowers you in a woman's eyes. Conversely, to stand tall, unbowed by either her beauty or her fury, raises you up as a man worthy of her respect, even if she doesn't articulate it.
Do not misunderstand. This is not about becoming cruel or unkind. Sovereignty is not tyranny.
In fact, Schopenhau even says women's weaknesses should be spared, meaning a man can show compassion and gentleness from a position of strength. It's about being kind but not weak, loving but not dependent, generous but never a fool. It is about understanding the nature of the game you are in.
Women will test you, life will test you, and you must welcome the test as the fire that forges your character. Emotionally resonant metaphor. Picture a swordsmith crafting a blade.
Heats the metal, pounding it relentlessly, folding it again and again. The metal might cry out if it had a voice. Why must I endure this hammering?
But after the trials, a sharp, unbreakable sword emerges. Your suffering, especially the struggles you face in love and rejection, is the hammer and anvil. When born with dignity, it forges an unbreakable spirit.
Schopenhau's warning ultimately leads to a liberating insight. You cannot avoid the struggle, but you can transform yourself through it. Every modern man seeking guidance in the chaos of relationships can take this to heart.
Women, with all their mystery and challenge, are part of the grand tapestry that shapes us. They are, in Schopenhau's terms, the species, agents, forces of nature that care for our growth more than for our comfort. Rather than resent this, we can be grateful for it.
For without it we might have remained complacent, mediocre, half-formed. Think of the heroes of old. None became great by having an easy road.
King Adysius earned his glory by weathering endless trials. Sief freed bathed in dragon's blood to harden his skin. Even Buddha had to face temptation under the bodhic tree in the form of Mara's daughters.
Again, feminine ws testing the resolve of a seeker. Across cultures, the story is the same. Suffering is the catalyst for transformation.
Our modern struggles in love and identity are no different. Yes, it hurts when she leaves, when she cheats, when she scorns your openness. But as Schopenhau might say, that hurt is not an anomaly.
It is the world telling you, "Wake up, learn, evolve. " In practical terms, taking Schopenhau's advice means stop chasing validation. Accept that respect is one, not begged for.
Embrace that your pain right now is necessary. It is teaching you to rely on yourself, to build strength and skills, to cultivate a purpose in life that isn't solely about winning a woman's affection. Ironically, when your life gains that purpose and strength, women's affection tends to follow naturally.
They thrill to a man who has been through the crucible and come out the other side. A man who carries scars with pride instead of self-pity. Schopenhau, famously never married, might smirk at the idea of a happy ending in love.
His vision was darker. Even if you win at love, life will find other ways to make you suffer as that is its nature. But this is all the more reason to cultivate sovereignty.
A man who has made peace with struggle can face anything be it the turbulence of a relationship or the broader sorrows of existence with a calm even spirit. He becomes in a sense untouchable in his inner core. This is not a state of zero emotion but a state of mastery over emotion.
Pain may knock at the door of his heart but it finds a master at home not a frightened child. To every man listening or reading who has felt broken, confused, or emasculated by the trials with women today, take Schopenhau's warning as a strange kind of blessing. Women thrive on men's struggle, not because they are cruel, but because at a deep level, they need men to struggle and grow strong.
Your suffering is not a sign of defeat. It is your baptism by fire. When you persevere, when you refuse to surrender your dignity, when you take responsibility for your own happiness and fate, you emerge as a sovereign individual.
In your endurance, you command respect. In your strength, you inspire devotion. And in your understanding of the true nature of life and love, you find a freedom that cannot be given or taken by anyone else.
Stand up now from your knees. Dust off the ashes of heartbreak from your shoulders. Face the world a new with dry eyes and a gaze of steel.
Schopenhau's voice echoes from the 19th century. Grim but wise. Life is struggle.
Do not run from it. Embrace it. For it is in struggle that a man becomes what he is meant to be.
Powerful, independent, and deeply alive. This is the paradoxical gift hidden in your pain. By enduring it and learning its lessons, you become the master of it.
And that is what it means to be truly sovereign. If today's message resonated with you and you believe in the mission of keeping timeless wisdom alive, subscribe and share this video with others who need to hear it. You can support the journey by buying me a coffee.
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