Tag: Schopenhauer

A letter to young me

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

Do you remember the day you learnt
the difference between epistemology and epistolography,
and the fountain pen with emerald green ink
you chose because it seemed more appealing
than the serenity blue?

You couldn’t have known that the letters
would turn out to be a sentence
with a costly parole on the fleeing horizon
and a bitter aftertaste
that would stay with you as you go.

So, ditch the pimp king from Stratford
with his lovey-dovey quarto
and Veronese balcony,
and embrace the Frankfurt recluse
while you still can.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Sexual Drive as Excretion: A Philosophical Case for Re-conceptualising Male Libido

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

Abstract

This essay argues for a fundamental re-conceptualisation of male sexual drive from a socially constructed marker of identity and virility to a basic physiological function requiring practical management. Drawing on phenomenological analysis and social constructionist theory, I contend that treating libido as analogous to excretion—a necessary bodily function to be managed efficiently and without shame—would enable more rational approaches to sexual health, pharmaceutical intervention, and personal autonomy. This re-conceptualisation challenges the moral and romantic frameworks that have conscripted sexual drive into serving social performances of masculinity at the expense of individual well-being.

Introduction

The human sexual drive occupies a unique position among bodily functions. Unlike hunger, thirst, or elimination—which are managed through practical, socially accepted means—sexual desire has been elevated to serve as a cornerstone of identity, relationships, and moral discourse. This elevation, I argue, represents a fundamental category error that obscures the basic physiological nature of sexual release and creates unnecessary suffering, particularly for men during their periods of peak libido.

The central thesis of this essay is that male sexual drive should be reconceptualized as what we might call “excretion with a kink”—a necessary physiological function that happens to involve pleasure, but which need not define identity or dictate life choices any more than urination or defecation. This re-framing opens space for treating masturbation as routine hygiene, developing pharmaceutical interventions for libido management, and challenging the social constructions of masculinity that trap men between biological drives and cultural expectations.

The Philosophical Framework: From Desire to Function

Schopenhauer’s Will and Sexual Compulsion

Arthur Schopenhauer’s analysis of sexual desire as manifestation of the blind “will-to-live” provides a crucial starting point for understanding how sexual drive operates independently of conscious rational interests. Schopenhauer argues that what we experience as sexual attraction is actually the species manipulating individual consciousness for reproductive purposes: “All amorousness is rooted in the sexual impulse alone, nay, is absolutely only a more definitely determined, specialized, and indeed, in the strictest sense, individualized sexual impulse” (Schopenhauer, 1818/1966). The individual believes they are pursuing personal satisfaction, but they are actually serving biological imperatives that may conflict with their rational interests.

This Schopenhauerian framework illuminates why high libido can feel so tyrannical and lead to decisions that run counter to one’s considered judgment. The sexual drive operates with an urgency that distinguishes it from other appetites—unlike hunger, which can be reasonably delayed or managed through conscious decision-making, peak sexual drive often demands immediate attention regardless of social context, personal goals, or long-term consequences.

The Excretory Analogy

The comparison between sexual release and excretion is not merely provocative but philosophically instructive. Both involve the periodic discharge of bodily substances, both create physical discomfort when delayed, and both serve basic physiological regulation. The key difference lies not in the functions themselves but in the elaborate cultural superstructures we have constructed around sexuality.

Consider the social organization around urination: we have developed public restrooms, privacy norms, hygiene protocols, and matter-of-fact education for children about when, where, and how to manage this bodily function. No one builds their identity around their urination patterns or forms romantic partnerships based on compatible bathroom schedules. We treat it as a practical matter requiring efficient management.

Sexual release, by contrast, has been conscripted into serving romantic narratives, religious doctrines, and social hierarchies. This conscription obscures its basic functional character and creates the conditions for the shame, desperation, and poor decision-making that characterize many people’s relationship to their own sexuality.

The Social Construction of Sexual Shame

Linguistic Analysis: The Language of Condemnation

The terminology surrounding masturbation reveals the moral framework that has been imposed upon a basic bodily function. As historian Jeffrey Weeks observes in his analysis of sexual regulation, the language we use to describe sexual practices reflects and reinforces power relations and moral hierarchies (Weeks, 2011). “Onanism” carries biblical condemnation, referencing the story of Onan who was struck down for “spilling his seed.” “Self-abuse” implies harm to oneself, while “self-pollution” suggests moral contamination. Even clinical terms like “masturbation” derive from Latin roots suggesting excess or impropriety.

This contrasts sharply with the neutral, practical language we use for other bodily functions. We speak of urination, defecation, perspiration—descriptive terms that carry no moral weight. The linguistic asymmetry reflects and reinforces the historical process that Michel Foucault analyses in The History of Sexuality—how sexuality became constituted as a distinct domain of knowledge and power, subject to elaborate discursive regulation rather than simple practical management (Foucault, 1976).

The Absence of Sexual Hygiene Education

The comparison between “potty training” and sexual education illuminates another crucial asymmetry. We systematically teach children to manage their bladder and bowels as basic life skills—when to go, where to go, how to maintain hygiene, how to recognize and respond to bodily signals. This education is practical, shame-free, and oriented toward helping children develop autonomy over their own bodies.

When sexual maturation begins, however, this practical approach is largely abandoned. Instead of teaching adolescents how to manage a new bodily function rationally and hygienically, we surround it with moral prohibitions, romantic mythologies, and shame-based messaging. The result is that young people are left to navigate this powerful drive without the practical tools they need, often leading to the kind of desperate decision-making that can shape entire lives.

The Gendered Dimension: Masculinity and Sexual Performance

The Conflation of Identity and Function

The social construction of masculinity has become particularly entangled with sexual performance and drive, a pattern that Judith Butler’s analysis of gender performativity helps illuminate. Butler argues that gender identity is not a stable essence but rather the effect of repeated performances that create the illusion of a natural, coherent identity (Butler, 1990). In the case of masculine sexuality, the repeated performance of sexual prowess and high libido becomes constitutive of male gender identity itself.

The linguistic conflation of “manhood” with both masculinity and male genitalia reflects this deep cultural association between male identity and sexual function. Under this performative framework, high libido becomes not just a biological characteristic but an ongoing demonstration of masculine adequacy that must be continually maintained and displayed.

This creates a double bind for men: they are expected to demonstrate high sexual drive as evidence of their masculinity, while simultaneously being expected to control and channel that drive appropriately to function in society. There is no socially acceptable way to express that one’s sexual drive feels burdensome or that one might prefer to moderate it without this being interpreted as a failure of masculinity itself.

Sexual Selection and Social Reinforcement

The social construction of masculine sexuality does not operate in isolation from biological factors. Sexual selection has historically created evolutionary pressures where traits associated with high sexual drive and competitive sexual behaviour became prevalent, which then aligned with and reinforced cultural expectations about masculinity. This created a complex feedback loop between biological inheritance, social norms, and cultural constructions of desirable masculinity that has persisted across generations.

This creates a systematic trap where men who might benefit from moderating their sexual drive find themselves caught between multiple converging forces—biological imperatives, deeply embedded social expectations, and cultural narratives that all reinforce the valorization of high libido, often regardless of individual cost or preference.

The Medical and Pharmaceutical Dimension

The Asymmetry of Reproductive Autonomy

The development of hormonal birth control for women represents a successful example of pharmaceutical intervention in sexual and reproductive function. Despite initial safety concerns and side effects, social recognition of women’s need for reproductive autonomy drove continued research and development until safer, more effective options emerged. As Anthony Giddens argues, this pharmaceutical revolution was crucial to what he terms the “transformation of intimacy”—enabling women to separate sexual activity from reproductive consequences and thereby gain greater control over their life trajectories (Giddens, 1992).

No comparable social movement has emerged around men’s potential need for libido management. Anti-androgenic medications such as cyproterone acetate and GnRH agonists like leuprolide can reduce male sex drive, but these are typically prescribed for conditions like prostate cancer or paraphilias rather than for quality-of-life concerns. These medications remain relatively unknown in broader discourse precisely because there has been no social recognition that men might legitimately want to modulate their sexual drive for reasons of personal autonomy and life optimization.

The Medicalization Paradox

The absence of socially acceptable pharmaceutical options for libido management reflects a broader paradox in how we approach male sexuality. High libido that leads to compulsive behaviour, relationship problems, or interference with work and life goals is not generally recognized as a medical concern worthy of intervention. Instead, men experiencing these difficulties are more likely to be told that their drive is natural and that they should learn to “control themselves” through willpower alone.

This approach fails to recognize that sexual drive, like other physiological functions, exists on a spectrum and that some individuals may experience it as genuinely problematic. Just as we recognize that some people need pharmaceutical intervention to manage anxiety, depression, or attention difficulties, we should recognize that some people might benefit from pharmaceutical assistance in managing sexual drive.

Implications and Applications

Reconceptualizing Sexual Health Education

A functional approach to male sexuality would transform sexual health education from its current focus on disease prevention and moral guidance toward practical instruction in sexual hygiene and self-management. This would include:

  • Matter-of-fact discussion of masturbation as a normal physiological function
  • Practical guidance on timing, frequency, and hygiene
  • Recognition that sexual drive varies among individuals and may require different management strategies
  • Destigmatization of seeking help when sexual drive interferes with other life goals

Pharmaceutical Development and Medical Practice

Recognizing sexual drive as a potentially problematic physiological function would open space for pharmaceutical research and development focused specifically on safe, effective libido management for quality-of-life purposes. This would require:

  • Research into targeted interventions that reduce sexual drive without broader hormonal disruption
  • Clinical protocols for assessing when libido management is appropriate
  • Training for healthcare providers in discussing these concerns without moral judgment

Social and Cultural Implications

The broader cultural implications of this re-conceptualisation are significant. Treating male sexual drive as a manageable bodily function rather than a marker of identity would:

  • Reduce the pressure on men to perform masculinity through sexual behaviour
  • Enable more rational decision-making about relationships and life choices
  • Reduce the shame and secrecy surrounding male masturbation
  • Create space for acknowledging that high libido can be genuinely burdensome

Objections and Responses

The Pleasure Objection

One obvious objection to the excretory analogy is that sexual release typically involves pleasure while excretion does not. This pleasure, critics might argue, is precisely what distinguishes sexuality from mere biological function and justifies its elevation to a higher category.

This objection misses the point of the analogy. The argument is not that sexual function is identical to excretion, but that the presence of pleasure does not automatically justify conscripting a bodily function into serving identity, relationship, or moral purposes. Many pleasurable activities—eating, sleeping, exercise—can be managed practically without becoming central to personal identity or moral frameworks.

Moreover, the phenomenology of sexual release varies significantly among individuals and across the lifespan. For many men, particularly as they age, masturbation becomes more mechanical and less pleasurable, more analogous to relieving physical pressure than pursuing gratification. Recognizing this functional dimension does not negate the potential for sexual pleasure, but it provides a more complete picture of sexual experience.

The Relationship Objection

Another objection holds that sexuality is inherently relational and that reducing it to individual function ignores its crucial role in pair bonding and intimate relationships. This objection conflates sexual release with sexual intimacy. The functional approach advocated here applies primarily to masturbation and individual sexual management, not to partnered sexual activity.

Recognizing masturbation as hygiene does not preclude also recognizing partnered sexuality as an important component of intimate relationships. Rather, it suggests that conflating these two aspects of sexual experience has created unnecessary complications. Men who can manage their individual sexual needs practically and without shame may actually be better positioned to engage in partnered sexuality as an expression of intimacy rather than as relief from biological pressure.

The Natural Law Objection

Religious and natural law traditions might object that sexual function has inherent purposes—reproduction and pair bonding—that should not be circumvented through pharmaceutical intervention or reconceptualized as mere hygiene. This objection assumes that natural functions carry inherent moral directives and that deviation from these directives is problematic.

However, we routinely use medical interventions to modify natural functions when doing so serves human flourishing. We use eyeglasses to correct natural vision problems, medications to regulate natural brain chemistry, and contraception to separate sexual activity from reproduction. The question is not whether we should ever intervene in natural processes, but when such interventions serve legitimate human interests.

Conclusion

The re-conceptualisation of male sexual drive as a manageable physiological function rather than a marker of identity represents both a philosophical and practical intervention in contemporary sexual culture. By applying the “excretion with a kink” framework, we can develop more rational, compassionate, and effective approaches to male sexual health and well-being.

This shift would require challenging deeply embedded cultural assumptions about masculinity, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. It would demand the development of new pharmaceutical options, new educational approaches, and new social norms around discussing and managing male sexuality. Most importantly, it would require recognizing that men, like women, deserve autonomy over their own sexual lives and should not be trapped between biological drives and social expectations that serve neither their individual interests nor their authentic relationships with others.

The current system, which treats male sexual drive as simultaneously natural and controllable, masculine and problematic, leaves too many men struggling with forces they cannot name or address directly. A functional approach offers the possibility of greater clarity, autonomy, and ultimately, freedom—not from sexuality itself, but from the unnecessary suffering created by our current conceptual and social frameworks around it.

The path forward requires acknowledging that what we have traditionally considered natural and inevitable about male sexuality may be, in significant part, socially constructed and therefore open to reconstruction. In doing so, we open possibilities for human flourishing that our current frameworks cannot imagine.

References

  • Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.
  • Foucault, M. (1976). The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Pantheon Books.
  • Giddens, A. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Stanford University Press.
  • Kafka, M. P. (2014). What happened to hypersexual disorder? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(7), 1259-1261.
  • Saleh, F. M., & Berlin, F. S. (2003). Sex hormones, neurotransmitters, and psychopharmacological treatments in men with paraphilic disorders. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 12(3-4), 233-253.
  • Schopenhauer, A. (1818/1966). The World as Will and Representation (E. F. J. Payne, Trans.). Dover Publications. (Original work published 1818)
  • Weeks, J. (2011). Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800 (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Author’s Note: This essay originated from my own philosophical reflections on the nature of sexual drive, social constructions of masculinity, and the arbitrary elevation of certain bodily functions to sites of moral and identity significance. The arguments about reconceptualizing male libido as excretory function, the critique of sexual shame, and the call for pharmaceutical autonomy represent my personal intellectual development on these questions, informed by lived experience and observation of cultural inconsistencies around sexuality.

The essay was structured and written through collaborative dialogue with Claude AI, which assisted in organizing the ideas, providing scholarly context, and identifying relevant academic citations. While the AI helped translate my philosophical positions into essay form, the core insights about sexual drive as manageable physiological function, the comparison to excretion, and the critique of masculinity’s entanglement with libido reflect my own thinking and conclusions developed over decades of experience.

This piece is intended as serious philosophical inquiry into questions about bodily autonomy, social construction of sexuality, and practical approaches to managing biological drives. It explores one perspective on how men might achieve greater rational autonomy over their sexual lives after recognizing the arbitrary nature of cultural frameworks around masculinity and sexuality. Readers should understand this as theoretical examination of a particular philosophical position rather than medical advice or universal prescription for male sexuality.

Any medical decisions regarding sexual health should be made in consultation with qualified healthcare providers.

Existential Hibernation: Beyond Tragedy and Meaning in Post-Kantian Life

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

Abstract

This essay presents a philosophical position that moves beyond traditional existentialist frameworks of tragedy and meaning-making to embrace what might be termed “existential hibernation”—a state of minimal engagement with life characterized by energy conservation and the recognition of all activities as equally arbitrary forms of time-filling. Drawing on Kantian epistemological limitations and contemporary discussions of life’s fundamental inconvenience, this perspective offers a non-tragic, non-heroic approach to existence that prioritizes harm reduction and practical accommodation over metaphysical consolation.

Introduction

Contemporary philosophical discourse often oscillates between two poles: the heroic embrace of life’s absurdity found in existentialist thought, and the tragic acknowledgment of meaninglessness that characterizes much pessimistic philosophy. This essay argues for a third position—one that acknowledges life’s fundamental pointlessness without elevating that recognition to tragic status, instead treating existence as a manageable inconvenience requiring practical rather than metaphysical solutions. This perspective, which I term “existential hibernation,” represents a post-Kantian accommodation with the limits of human knowledge that sidesteps both romantic nihilism and stoic heroism in favour of pragmatic withdrawal.

The Kantian Foundation: Metaphysics as Mental Exercise

The philosophical foundation for this position rests on a radical interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy. While Kant himself sought to preserve space for practical reason and moral faith, the perspective examined here takes his epistemological insights to their logical conclusion: if we cannot know things-in-themselves, then all metaphysical speculation becomes sophisticated puzzle-solving, no different in kind from sudoku or crosswords.

This reading aligns with what Frederick Beiser has called the “nihilistic implications” of Kant’s critical turn, though it avoids the dramatic responses typical of German Idealism (Beiser, 2002). Unlike Fichte’s attempt to ground reality in the absolute ego or Schelling’s philosophy of nature, this position accepts the arbitrariness of our conceptual frameworks without seeking to transcend them through systematic philosophy.

The key insight here is the distinction between the practical utility of beliefs and their epistemic value. As William James observed in “The Will to Believe,” we often must choose between live hypotheses for practical reasons (James, 1896). However, the position under consideration goes further, suggesting that the practical necessity of choosing beliefs does not dignify those beliefs with truth-value—they remain arbitrary selections from equally groundless alternatives.

Life as Inconvenience: Beyond Tragic and Comic Frameworks

Central to this perspective is the characterization of life not as tragedy or comedy, but as inconvenience. This represents a departure from traditional philosophical and literary treatments of human existence. Where Shakespeare’s Hamlet sees life as a “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” series of uses, the tragic framework still grants suffering a kind of cosmic significance (Shakespeare, 2006).

The inconvenience framework, by contrast, deflates even tragedy. Samuel Beckett’s dramatic works, particularly Waiting for Godot and Endgame, come closer to capturing this sensibility. Vladimir and Estragon continue their routines not because they serve any purpose, but because, as Estragon notes, “We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?” (Beckett, 1953). Yet even Beckett’s characters retain a kind of theatrical dignity in their predicament.

The perspective examined here is more radically deflationary. Life becomes a series of administrative tasks performed without consent—eating, sleeping, working, thinking—none of which serve any ultimate purpose but all of which must be managed to avoid immediate suffering. Arthur Schopenhauer’s observation that “all satisfaction, or what is commonly called happiness, is really and essentially always negative only, and never positive” approaches this insight, but remains trapped within a metaphysical framework that grants suffering cosmic significance (Schopenhauer, 1969).

The Paradox of “Wasting Time”

A crucial insight of this philosophical position concerns the paradoxical nature of the phrase “wasting time.” The very concept implies that time could be “well spent,” revealing our persistent attachment to hierarchical valuations of activity even when we intellectually recognize their arbitrariness. Thomas Nagel’s discussion of the absurd touches on this paradox: “We see ourselves from outside, and all the pretensions to significance are exposed as arbitrary” (Nagel, 1971, p. 718).

However, the position under examination goes beyond Nagel’s analysis. While Nagel suggests that recognizing absurdity might lead to a kind of ironic engagement with life’s projects, this perspective suggests complete equivalence between all forms of time-filling. Intellectual pursuits, charitable work, hedonistic pleasure-seeking, and even complete inactivity become equally valid responses to the fundamental problem of having to fill the hours between birth and death.

This equivalence challenges even supposedly enlightened hierarchies of value. The Buddhist practitioner seeking liberation, the utilitarian maximizing welfare, and the hedonist maximizing pleasure are all engaged in the same basic activity: finding ways to make the passage of time tolerable. This perspective aligns with E.M. Cioran’s broader philosophical outlook in The Trouble with Being Born, which consistently deflates human pretensions to significance and meaning (Cioran, 1973).

Minimal Ethics: Harm as the Only Relevant Boundary

Given this framework of equivalence, the question arises: are there any meaningful ethical distinctions to be made? The position examined here suggests a minimal ethics based not on metaphysical foundations but on simple biological facts. Pain is bad not because it violates some cosmic order, but because organisms are constituted to experience it as unpleasant.

This approach resembles Jeremy Bentham’s hedonistic calculus stripped of its utilitarian ambitions. Bentham argued that “it is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do” in reference to pleasure and pain (Bentham, 1970, p. 11). However, the perspective under consideration lacks Bentham’s optimistic belief in the possibility of maximizing overall welfare. Instead, it suggests a purely defensive ethics: avoid causing unnecessary suffering not because suffering matters in some ultimate sense, but because the experience of suffering is, by definition, something the sufferer wants to avoid.

This minimal ethics leads naturally to a preference for what we might call “negative liberty” in Isaiah Berlin’s sense—freedom from interference rather than freedom to pursue positive goals (Berlin, 1958). The ideal social arrangement becomes one that allows individuals maximum space to pursue their preferred forms of time-filling without imposing unnecessary inconvenience on others.

Existential Hibernation: Energy Conservation as Wisdom

The practical outcome of this philosophical position is what might be termed “existential hibernation”—a strategic withdrawal from unnecessary engagement with the world’s demands. This is not the heroic withdrawal of the Stoic sage or the dramatic retreat of the Romantic artist, but a pragmatic recognition that most social and cultural activities require energy expenditures that yield no meaningful return.

This concept finds resonance in certain Eastern philosophical traditions, particularly Zhuangzi’s concept of wu wei or effortless action. However, where Zhuangzi suggests alignment with natural patterns, existential hibernation suggests simple energy conservation in the absence of any natural pattern to align with. As Zhuangzi writes, “The perfect man uses his mind like a mirror—grasping nothing, refusing nothing, receiving but not storing” (Zhuangzi, 1968, p. 97). The hibernating individual similarly refuses to grasp onto projects or meanings while making minimal accommodations to biological necessity.

Contemporary discussions of the brain’s baseline functioning provide an interesting parallel. Research on what neuroscientists term the “default mode network” shows that the brain maintains essential functions while minimizing metabolic expenditure when not actively engaged in tasks (Raichle et al., 2001). This principle of neural energy conservation offers a biological analogue for existential hibernation—consciously adopting a minimal engagement strategy as a life approach, activating higher-order functions only when necessary to avoid immediate harm or discomfort.

The Question of Exit: Philosophical Considerations

An honest examination of this philosophical position must address the question of suicide. If life is fundamentally pointless inconvenience, why continue? The perspective under consideration suggests that even this question falls under the general principle of energy conservation. Researching and implementing an exit strategy requires significant energy expenditure and carries risks of increased suffering rather than its elimination.

This differs markedly from both the Stoic position, which saw rational suicide as sometimes appropriate (Seneca, 1969), and the Existentialist position exemplified by Camus, who argued that suicide represents philosophical defeat (Camus, 2006). Instead, it suggests that continuing and exiting are equally arbitrary choices, with the decision based purely on practical considerations of energy expenditure and harm avoidance.

David Hume’s essay “On Suicide” provides relevant context, arguing that “no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping” (Hume, 1985, p. 579). The hibernation perspective might modify this to suggest that life is never worth keeping in any ultimate sense, but may be worth maintaining when maintaining it requires less effort than ending it.

Implications and Responses to Objections

Several objections to this philosophical position merit consideration. First, critics might argue that it represents a form of depression rather than genuine philosophical insight. However, the position can be distinguished from clinical depression by its lack of emotional distress about life’s meaninglessness. Unlike the depressed individual who suffers from the absence of meaning, the hibernating individual simply accepts meaninglessness as unremarkable.

Second, some might argue that this position is self-refuting—if nothing matters, why develop and articulate the position at all? The response would be that developing philosophical positions, like any other activity, is simply one way among others of filling time. The individual happens to be constituted in such a way that thinking provides a tolerable form of distraction, but this gives the activity no special status.

Third, critics might suggest that this perspective, taken seriously, would lead to social breakdown. However, the minimal ethics of harm avoidance actually supports basic social cooperation. The hibernating individual has no incentive to impose unnecessary suffering on others and every incentive to maintain social arrangements that minimize personal inconvenience.

Conclusion: Peace Without Purpose

The philosophical position examined in this essay offers neither the heroic affirmation of existentialist thought nor the tragic grandeur of pessimistic philosophy. Instead, it suggests a third way: accepting life’s fundamental pointlessness without drama, developing practical strategies for minimizing inconvenience, and finding whatever peace is available through reducing rather than multiplying one’s engagements with the world’s demands.

This “existential hibernation” represents neither victory nor defeat, but simple accommodation with circumstances beyond our choosing. Like Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to,” it suggests gentle but persistent withdrawal from the unnecessary complications that human societies tend to generate (Melville, 1853). The hibernating individual neither rebels against absurdity nor embraces it, but simply acknowledges it and proceeds accordingly.

In the end, this perspective offers something perhaps more valuable than meaning: the possibility of peace through the abandonment of the demand for meaning. It suggests that wisdom might consist not in finding purpose but in no longer requiring it, not in heroic engagement but in skillful withdrawal, not in making life matter but in learning to live as if it doesn’t need to.

References

  • Beckett, S. (1953). Waiting for Godot. Grove Press.
  • Beiser, F. C. (2002). German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801. Harvard University Press.
  • Bentham, J. (1970). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Athlone Press. (Original work published 1789)
  • Berlin, I. (1958). Two concepts of liberty. In Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford University Press.
  • Camus, A. (2006). The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage International. (Original work published 1942)
  • Cioran, E. M. (1973). The Trouble with Being Born. Arcade Publishing.
  • Hume, D. (1985). On suicide. In E. F. Miller (Ed.), Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (pp. 577-589). Liberty Fund. (Original work published 1777)
  • James, W. (1896). The will to believe. The New World, 5, 327-347.
  • Melville, H. (1853). Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. Putnam’s Magazine.
  • Nagel, T. (1971). The absurd. The Journal of Philosophy, 68(20), 716-727.
  • Raichle, M. E., MacLeod, A. M., Snyder, A. Z., Powers, W. J., Gusnard, D. A., & Shulman, G. L. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676-682.
  • Schopenhauer, A. (1969). The World as Will and Representation (E. F. J. Payne, Trans.). Dover Publications. (Original work published 1818)
  • Seneca, L. A. (1969). Letters from a Stoic (R. Campbell, Trans.). Penguin Classics.
  • Shakespeare, W. (2006). Hamlet (Arden Shakespeare). Arden Shakespeare.
  • Zhuangzi. (1968). The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (B. Watson, Trans.). Columbia University Press.

Author’s Note: This essay originated from my own philosophical reflections on the nature of existence, meaning, and practical accommodation with life’s fundamental inconvenience. The arguments about post-Kantian metaphysics, existential hibernation, and the equivalence of all time-filling activities represent my personal intellectual development on these questions. The essay was structured and written through collaborative dialogue with Claude AI, which assisted in organizing the ideas, providing scholarly context, and identifying relevant academic citations. While the AI helped translate my philosophical positions into essay form, the core insights about life as manageable inconvenience, energy conservation as wisdom, and the arbitrary nature of value hierarchies reflect my own thinking and conclusions.

This piece is intended as serious philosophical inquiry into questions about meaning, purpose, and practical responses to existential arbitrariness. It explores one perspective on how to live after accepting the limits of human knowledge and the pointlessness of metaphysical speculation. Readers should understand this as theoretical examination of a particular philosophical position rather than practical guidance or life advice.