Revisiting the Great Shopping Hour!

No this is not one of those cacameni  iPhone spell check snafus. I did that one all by myself. What I really meant was "Revisiting the Great Schopenhauer" (German Philosopher 1788 - 1860).

One of his utterances caught my attention immediately: Obit anus, Abit onus, which is such an eloquent rendition of: "the old lady dies, the burden is lifted". He wrote this in his account book after a seamstress, whose arm he injured so the court ordered him to make regular payments to for over 20 years, finally died. I could not help but think I could use this catchy latin sentence one day à propos my ex-wife, especially if the onus is on me to do her Obituary. I just have to make sure to steer away from the word anus.

Another Arthur Schopenhauer quote that applies so well to modern society: "We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people". Everybody wants to fit in from teenagers on. If you are not lucky enough to be the trend-setter, your only option left is to follow and that can be all consuming. You must befriend so and so on Facebook ( remember what Robert E. Lee said: "Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one"); or follow this or that personality on Twitter. Good old Lee A. Iacocca said this famous phrase that could be a modern slogan for Twitter: "You lead, follow, or get out of the way." The last phrase may also sadly be a rallying cry for bullies, i.e. on school grounds, whose way everybody is trying to get out of, or the so-called popular kids, who everybody is trying to "be like". One can easily loose one's identity, as Schopenhauer suggested, trying to emulate, please or assuage everybody else. This constitutes a self-identity-theft which I am pretty sure is not indictable by the FBI, but is nonetheless quite devastating not just to oneself. Indeed this form of "identity crisis" may be the single worst affliction that could lead these madmen to go through the inhuman massacres we have tragically witnessed in recent times.

Remembering these insane criminal minds, another of Arthur's famous quotes comes to mind: "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills" It sounds to me like a propher for an insanity plea. Essentially, Schopenhauer claimed that as phenomenal objects appearing to a viewer, humans have absolutely no free will. They are completely determined by the way that their bodies react to stimuli and causes, and their characters react to motives. We can summarize this willy-nilly as follows: Willie's Will told him to do it but he did not Will his Will, nor did he write it in his Will!

A word to the wise: Befriend Robert E. Lee on Facebook, Follow Lee A. Iacocca on Twitter and Watch Free Willy not Arthur!

A consensus thought for the finale (again the ex comes to mind): 

When there is no Will, there is no Way!