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Arthur Schopenhauer, the great Nineteenth Century philosopher, had a pessimistic vision of the world as "will and idea.” Our will to survive serves no high purpose; the world is at best a shared illusion. Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and inspired our guest, prominent psychiatrist Irv Yalom, to write the novel "The Schopenhauer Cure." What truths, metaphysical or psychological, can we wrest from Schopenhauer's gloomy vision?