ve
reveals the way to such a state as this.

* * * * *

The scenes of our life are like pictures in rough mosaic, which have no
effect at close quarters, but must be looked at from a distance in order
to discern their beauty. So that to obtain something we have desired is
to find out that it is worthless; we are always living in expectation of
better things, while, at the same time, we often repent and long for
things that belong to the past. We accept the present as something that
is only temporary, and regard it only as a means to accomplish our aim.
So that most people will find if they look back when their life is at an
end, that they have lived their lifelong _ad interim_, and they will be
surprised to find that something they allowed to pass by unnoticed and
unenjoyed was just their life--that is to say, it was the very thing in
the expectation of which they lived. And so it may be said of man in
general that, befooled by hope, he dances into the arms of death.

Then again, there is the insatiability of each individual will; every
time it is satisfied a new wish is engendered, and there is no end to
its eternally insatiable desires.

This is because the Will, taken in itself, is the lord of worlds; since
everything belongs to it, it is not satisfied with a portion of
anything, but only with the whole, which, however, is endless. Meanwhile
it must excite our pity when we consider how extremely little this lord
of the world receives, when it makes its appearance as an individual;
for the most part only just enough to maintain the body. This is why man
is so very unhappy.

In the present age, which is intellectually impotent and remarkable for
its veneration of what is bad in every form--a condition of things which
is quite in keeping with the coined word "Jetztzeit" (present time), as
pretentious as it is cacophonic--the pantheists make bold to say that
life is, as they call it, "an end-in itself." If our existence in this
world were an end-in-itself, it would be the most absurd end that was
ever determined; even we ourselves or any one else might have imagined
it.

Life presents itself next as a task, the task, that is, of subsisting
_de gagner sa vie_. If this is solved, then that which has been won
becomes a burden, and involves the second task of its being got rid of
in order to ward off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, is ready to
fall upon any life that is secure from