Ah, We Lonely Ones and Free Spirits
By: Friedrich Nietzsche
The great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners, like an earthquake: the young soul is all at once shaken, torn apart, cast forth — it comprehends not itself what is taking place. An involuntary onward impulse rules them with the mastery of command; a will, a wish are developed to go forward… a mutinous, willful, volcanic-like longing for a far away journey…
— Nietzsche
Am I so difficult to understand and so easy to misunderstand in all my intentions, plans, and friendships?
Ah, we lonely ones and free spirits—it is borne home to us that in some way or other we constantly appear different from what we think.
Whereas we wish for nothing more than truth and straightforwardness, we are surrounded by a net of misunderstanding, and despite our most ardent wishes we cannot help our actions being smothered in a cloud of false opinion, attempted compromises, semi-concessions, charitable silence, and erroneous interpretations.
Such things gather a weight of melancholy on our brow; for we hate more than death the thought that pretense should be necessary, and such incessant chafing against these things makes us volcanic and menacing.
From time to time we avenge ourselves for all our enforced concealment and compulsory self-restraint.
We emerge from our cells with terrible faces, our words and deeds are then explosions, and it is not beyond the verge of possibility that we perish through ourselves.
Thus dangerously do I live!
It is precisely we solitary ones that require love and companions in whose presence we may be open and simple, and the eternal struggle of silence and dissimulation can cease.
The following passage was written by Nietzsche in a letter to his sister on January 22, 1875
This resonates so much - something so radically comforting - and at the same time startling - about hearing a voice from the past describe this particular aspect of the human experience. Thanks for sharing it!
powerful.