Street philosophy

Son number one has to study philosophy for his Baccalaureate this year. In the parental division of labour, it fell to me, as the arts grad, to discuss homework and related topics in this subject, as suggested by his Prof de Philo. If only I had known just what I was committing to.
Problem #one: The texts were translated from German or Greek in the dark ages, and use structures and vocabulary far removed from my day to day French experience.
Problem# two: The ideas contained in many of the texts are so extremely irritating it makes me want to scream.
Problem#three: Bob finds the texts so extremely irritating they make him want to scream. Being 17 he does not restrain his reactions and I have to act against my nature, maintain a calm, cool attitude and justify the texts.

I quite liked Epicurus, once I had found an English translation of the impenetrable text the teacher had given. The idea that pleasure was an absence of pain seemed a good one. When we are dead we no longer exist, and so we can no longer experience pain. Therefore, there is no point in fearing death, because we cannot "experience" it, as we cease to be at the point of death.

Next we had to look at and consider Freud. Freud was not a philosopher, but he gave philosophers a lot to think about. That was okay. I find some of Freud's ideas irritating, particularly all that stuff about female hysteria, but I accept that he made a huge contribution in the field of psychology and psychoanalysis. Bob did not share my point of view, and got angry about Freud.

Most recently we have had to look at Schopenhauer. This is a stroke of academic genius. Take a group of 17 & 18 year olds, preferably ones  that are really fed up with school and its rules and all the "stupid" hoops they have to jump through, then give them Schopenhauer to read. Once I had found a translation into English, I surmised that Schopenhauer argued that we are only truly aware when we are in pain or anguish. We are not fully aware when happy, because it is only when we are unhappy that we realise we were happy. We only "live" when miserable, therefore there is no point, well, in anything.

I talked about mindfulness, as an antidote to Schopenhauer and teenage angst. Bob just thinks philosophy is a load of bunk, and can't wait to leave school, and thereby, philosophy. That's education for you!