Why Life Never Really Stops Hurting — Peter Wessel Zapffe

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Why does life hurt so much? Why  do we have traumatic experiences and walk around with unresolved anger or grief? Why does life sometimes feel like a series of unfortunate events, an ongoing tragedy that just doesn’t seem to end?

[00:00:19]The Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe believed it’s not so much the world itself that causes us suffering, but the way  we’re conscious of it as human beings.

[00:00:31]According to Zapffe, we humans have an overdeveloped consciousness. And this feature is more of a curse than a blessing, as it is the very reason we suffer so deeply and spend much of our lives running from pain; a cycle that seems impossible to break.

[00:00:49]So, how exactly does human consciousness lead to profound suffering? How do we  cope? And is there a solution?

[00:00:58]This video explores The Last Messiah, Peter Wessel Zapffe’s pitch-black philosophical essay.

[00:01:05]My name is Stefan. If you enjoy  my work, you can subscribe to my newsletter on Substack. You  can also support me on Patreon, and my books are available on Amazon. Thank you, and I hope you’ll enjoy this video.

[00:01:24]Have you ever watched ducks? I used  to watch them often when I was a kid while fishing. Sometimes they’d fight, and they’d go at each other really aggressively, with lots of splashes and angry  quacking. But then, suddenly, the fighting stopped, and all would swim in opposite directions as if nothing had happened.

[00:01:45]I’ve always found it fascinating how  quickly most animals seem to let go of such an unpleasant event, without any resentment or bitterness encumbering their minds. Compare that to human beings, and we see that a single quarrel can lead to resentment for years, a burden that seems to arise from  our higher cognitive abilities.

[00:02:07]Unlike most animals, we human beings are equipped with a mind that allows us to think and reflect deeply on virtually any aspect of life, which may seem a great thing, but it also has downsides.

[00:02:23]Peter Wessel Zapffe, philosopher, author, and mountaineer, born just before the start of the twentieth century, believed that  our consciousness is so overdeveloped that it has become a profound source of suffering, leaving us aware of far more than we can bear.

[00:02:41]The Last Messiah begins with a  human being’s rude awakening, suddenly aware of his condition  within a vast and puzzling universe.

[00:02:50]He saw that he was naked under cosmos, homeless in his own body. All things dissolved before his testing thought, wonder above wonder, horror above horror unfolded in his mind.

[00:03:06]End quote.

[00:03:07]His realization conflicted  with his animal instincts; the drives that once allowed him to live without question: to hunt, kill, feed, procreate, and, like ducks, quarrel  without lingering. He saw the world in another light, one that filled him  with confusion and relentless panic.

[00:03:29]Just imagine that, for most of your life, you’ve been living guided by instinct, without really thinking or questioning  anything. And suddenly, everything becomes subject to your awareness: everything you do, everything your senses perceive, the past, the future. Your experience of the world deepens and intensifies: the beauty, but also the suffering.

[00:03:56]The man in Zapffe’s story… he died.

[00:03:59]Did he take his own life? Or did his awareness make it impossible for him to continue, and his vital organs just gave up? Zapffe leaves us in the dark about this. But he makes us wonder, too. Why exactly is our consciousness such a burden? And in what ways does it make us suffer so intensely?

[00:04:23]Imagine being given a sword you have no choice but to wield. On the one hand, the sword performs a seemingly useful task: It cuts through all the veils that once shielded you from reality, exposing you to everything. Sounds great, but there’s a catch. The sword has no grip, so you cut yourself as well. And the more you slash through your illusions, the deeper you wound yourself.

[00:04:52]Zapffe uses the simile of the sword to illustrate the massive downside of our overdeveloped consciousness. It may come with the perks of greater awareness, but it also harms us.

[00:05:05]And what’s even more tragic is that, even though we’re deeply aware of the suffering of existence, we are entangled in it and have  no real way out. As Zapffe wrote: Despite his new eyes, man was still  rooted in matter, his soul spun into it and subordinated to its blind laws. And yet he could see matter as a stranger, compare himself to all phenomena, see through and locate his vital processes.

[00:05:35]End quote.

[00:05:36]The awareness of the suffering that  comes with being rooted in matter, while unable to escape it, is a painful  paradox. We’re not just going through it; we can also ruminate on the pain we’ve experienced and anticipate what lies ahead. It seems that our awareness of our predicament is what makes it such a predicament in the first place.

[00:06:00]Things become even sadder when we realize that, although Mother Nature gave us a super-sized consciousness, she also left us without guidance or explanation, like a true deadbeat. And so, many questions arise out of a desire for understanding, or perhaps even justice, like: Why are we here? Why do we need to go through this? What’s the meaning of it all? Is there some guy or gal up there in the heavens making us suffer for a reason?

[00:06:32]But no matter how loudly we beg or yell into the void, she doesn’t answer. She ignores us, leaving us to our own devices, like abandoned toddlers in a sandbox. As Zapffe put it: Nature answers no more, it  performed a miracle with man, but later did not know him. He has lost his right of residence in the universe, has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and been expelled from Paradise.

[00:07:00]End quote.

[00:07:02]And here we are, standing amidst a  giant, indifferent, mysterious universe, in both “wonder and fear.” Our existential fear seems to set us apart from animals, who do not appear to think even a second about the strange condition in which they find themselves.

[00:07:21]It’s not that animals don’t fear. But their fear is functional. They fear when their lives are in danger, and once the threats are gone, their fear subsides. We humans, however, fear life itself because we understand  things that most animals are oblivious to.

[00:07:42]We know about birth and death; our own, but also that of the billions before us and those yet to come. We know about misfortunes like illness and injury, how humanity has suffered them since the dawn of time, and how we ourselves and our loved ones could face them at any moment.

[00:08:03]And even though we know we’ll eventually lose everything and everyone we love, we continue to form deep attachments, because it’s part of our biology. We are also aware of the vastness of time and space, though we can hardly fathom it, and we realize how insignificant  our short lives are in comparison.

[00:08:25]So, our overdeveloped consciousness comes with a huge trade-off: a kind of unbearable cosmic panic that, according to Zapffe, could be reason enough for our species to go extinct.

[00:08:39]He compares humans and their consciousness to certain deer from the past that died out when their horns grew too large  and too heavy to carry. Similarly, our consciousness (and the suffering it generates) may have become too heavy for us to deal with.

[00:08:58]However, as we all can see, we’re still here.

[00:09:02]So, how is it possible not to succumb to the self-torment of our consciousness that never seems to stop? Zapffe claims that we haven’t gone extinct yet because we have found ways to push through, even though these are little more than temporary escapes.

[00:09:19]Let’s explore these and find  out if they sound familiar.

[00:09:28]If we take an honest look at our lives, we see that we constantly distract ourselves. With entertainment, with work, with consumption. But why are we doing this? What are we trying to avoid? According to Zapffe, our human tendency to distract ourselves serves a purpose: it’s a psychological strategy to cope  with the burden of an overdeveloped consciousness. And it’s not the only  method we pull off to subdue the pain.

[00:09:59]Zapffe identified four ‘modes of protection’ to artificially limit our consciousness and allow us to endure the “strain of living”. These modes are: isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation. These  mechanisms are typically unconscious, but can also be consciously  applied. Let’s take a look.

[00:10:24]By “isolation,” Peter Wessel Zapffe means the dismissal of all disturbing and destructive thoughts and feelings. We simply don’t allow them into our consciousness. We can see this in physicians who focus only on the technical aspects of their work, blocking out the ongoing tragedy that  confronts them, patient after patient.

[00:10:48]We also see it in the way society  hides things we would rather not see: mental illness is often tucked away behind walls, out of sight, and so are sickness and death. And we tend to shield our children from such themes as well, by not talking about them, handing them a pair of rose-colored glasses through which they see a world ‘suitable for minors’.

[00:11:13]But, of course, we cannot completely  hide from life’s harsh realities; they linger beneath the  surface, and deep down, we know.

[00:11:26]The next one, “anchoring,” Zapffe considers “perhaps the happiest” of all four. By anchoring, we attempt to create order and meaning by building walls amid a terrifying cosmic chaos that doesn’t make sense. We then treat these structures as a given.

[00:11:45]These are the values we assume to be true, the people and places we take to be permanent and fixed, such as our parents and childhood homes. Daddy is always strong and knows everything. Mommy is always sweet and caring, like an angel. Or the belief that God watches over us, and that as long as we follow his commands, Heaven awaits. Starting from childhood, these give us a sense of assurance; things we simply take for granted, they are what they are.

[00:12:15]But these walls crack easily. As a child grows up, he soon finds out that his father has weaknesses and often doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and that his mother has some pretty nasty character flaws. In some cases, the family as a whole turns out to be deeply dysfunctional. Sometimes the walls get torn down altogether, for example, when a collective value system, meaning, and worldview collapse, leading to severe existential crises.

[00:12:47]A very common mode of protection is “distraction.” Today, our distractions are boundless. We just have to consider the massive arsenal of distractions available on our smartphones, which is growing exponentially.  And we’re using it by the dozen.

[00:13:04]Zapffe compared distraction as a tactic for living to a flying machine. It must always be in motion to keep afloat.  But if it stops moving, it crashes.

[00:13:17]So, we need our distractions to be continuous and effective. These could be sensual pleasures, but also gathering knowledge, building a career, achieving goals, getting rich, and chasing fame.

[00:13:31]But when, for some reason, these distractions fail us, we experience a sudden crisis, ranging from a feeling of indifference  to despair and fatal depression.

[00:13:44]Moreover, when it comes to ambitions and goals, we believe we’re ‘striving toward’ something.

[00:13:50]But according to Zapffe, that’s only part of the story, as we’re equally ‘escaping from,’ saying: For here, none has yet been clear  about what he is longing for, but one has always a heartfelt awareness of what one is longing away from, namely the earthly vale of tears,  one’s own inendurable condition.

[00:14:14]Zapffe presents us with a last tactic,  which he argues is the rarest of the four: “sublimation.” What sets sublimation apart from the other ones is that it isn’t repressing the suffering; it looks it directly in the eye and turns it into a work of art. Instead of running from the problem, we transform it, whether through writing, painting, acting, or music.

[00:14:42]We turn ugliness into something beautiful. We step back from the situation and view it from an aesthetic perspective. And because of that, we don’t suffer in the midst of it, as we turned tragedy into the raw  material for our artistic pursuits.

[00:14:59]Zapffe admits that his essay, The  Last Messiah, is itself a form of sublimation. And I must admit that my project, Einzelgänger, partly serves a similar function, though it is also, to a lesser extent,  a form of distraction and anchoring.

[00:15:17]Long story short: the pain… it never  ends. We escape from it for a while, but never fully eradicate it.

[00:15:28]So, is there any hope? Or are we  destined to endure until we die?

[00:15:39]Zapffe made clear that the four defense mechanisms aren’t solutions for the problem of human consciousness. He believed that the problem of consciousness cannot be truly solved within life. And so he came up with a ‘solution’ that some people might find disturbing.

[00:15:57]Before moving toward its final, radical  “solution,” Zapffe’s essay briefly entertains the idea of a simpler, more balanced life. Can’t we just live happily, in harmony with ourselves, based on labor and love? But he quickly dismisses this possibility, saying: “Insofar as they may be considered human at all, I think the answer must be no.” After all, following his way of thinking, a different way of life may ease but not solve the problem of an overdeveloped consciousness.

[00:16:35]Moreover, the technology and standardization we find in modern societies make things even worse, according to Zapffe, having robbed us of a naturally based spiritual activity.

[00:16:48]We no longer have to struggle against  the environment as our ancestors did.

[00:16:53]We don’t have to band together as a tribe to face the many dangers of nature or explore uncharted lands on foot. These conditions once provided a sense of purpose. But as they have fallen by the wayside, we’re now experiencing a rising “spiritual unemployment.”

[00:17:12]And today, with the rapid rise  of AI, what will be left for us?

[00:17:17]What’s the meaning of creating a  work of art or writing a story, when machines can do the same in a fraction of a second? What will we do when most, if not all, of the work is done by machines, and we no longer play a role in securing our own survival? What will be our purpose? What’s the point of life then, aside from endless distraction?

[00:17:44]And if we look around today, can’t we already see that we’ve been distracting  ourselves more and more lately, and that our means of distraction are becoming increasingly extreme and increasingly sick?

[00:17:58]Zapffe sees no salvation, no way  out. And when all hope is lost, the “Last Messiah” will come to finally bring our suffering to an end. This final messenger will truly understand and feel the pain of billions. He delivers his words once and never again, saying: The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth’s is a pond and a backwater.

[00:18:26]The sign of doom is written on your brows – how long will ye kick against the pin-pricks?

[00:18:33]But there is one conquest and one  crown, one redemption and one solution.

[00:18:40]Know yourselves – be infertile and  let the earth be silent after ye.

[00:18:48]But people will reject his message. And I can only imagine that extinction as the solution for our suffering won’t be very popular, and may be considered extreme and misanthropic.

[00:19:02]Yet, Peter Wessel Zapffe isn’t the  only philosopher who believed humanity would be better off not existing. Arthur Schopenhauer came to a similar conclusion, wishing the Earth were like the  moon: crystalline and devoid of life.

[00:19:18]Or take Emil Cioran, who believed that coming into existence is a disaster, and that we are better off never being born. Another philosopher whose ideas closely resemble Zapffe’s is David Benatar, the antinatalist philosopher who argues that having children is morally wrong.

[00:19:37]I created videos on these  philosophers if you’re interested.

[00:19:37]Zapffe’s observations on human suffering related to our consciousness may be on point; not everyone accepts his conclusion that the only way to solve it is the extinction of our species. There have been plenty of philosophers who approached the problem of suffering differently and even developed systems that claim to reduce or even eradicate our suffering while we’re still alive.

[00:20:03]I’m talking about the Buddha and his  teachings on reaching enlightenment, the Stoics and their pursuit of equanimity, and the Taoist sages living in harmony with the flow of nature. Or Epicurus, who  believed that simplicity and limiting ourselves to necessary natural pleasures can lead to happiness and contentment.

[00:20:25]Now, the questions I want  to leave you with are these: Are the reasons to be alive greater than the reasons against it? And can life still be worth living despite the suffering brought about by our overdeveloped consciousness?

[00:20:42]And do you think it’s possible to fully transcend this suffering, or can it not be solved?

[00:20:50]Some food for thought… and don’t hesitate to share your views on this in the comments.

[00:20:59]Thank you for watching.