“Not to be is much better than to be; never to have been born is much better than to be born.”Giacomo Leopardi · Zibaldone · 1832 · p. 4171
Nature promises us pleasure only to keep us alive, yet delivers more suffering than joy.
Leopardi starts from an arithmetic of pain: our desires are mechanisms nature installed to keep us alive, not to make us happy. Every pleasure fades quickly, and the disappointment that follows weighs more than the pleasure itself. Someone never born feels no hunger, no loss, no fear of death, and so has nothing to lose. A life marked by illness, grief, and failure accumulates far more bad days than moments of genuine joy.
Leopardi does not stop at pleasures that fade. He hunts the subtler trick behind them: hope. Nature, he says, keeps us moving not with real rewards but with the light ahead. The promise that tomorrow will be better makes today's work bearable precisely so that we keep working. It is like climbing a hill believing the top lies just beyond the bend, while every bend reveals another hill. Once you see this, suffering gains an explanation: you are not defective; the mechanism is built this way. One question remains: if illusion is what keeps us alive, can we live without it?
Why it matters Someone going through a hard stretch can find here a witness to their suffering rather than a verdict: Leopardi names a discomfort that society often demands we hide behind forced optimism.