"Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, and desiring is not really yourself."
Ah, how easily said and how difficult to do. It seems to require seeing the constructions we build around ourselves, others, and society for what they are—just constructions! Then our attachment to them loosens a little bit, enough for there to be wiggle room in which our authentic, genuine selves can begin to dance.
The fears that drive us further away from our truths and into our comfort zones are the ones worth digging deep into because, always on the other side, there's pure gold to uncover. For the vast majority of us, such an excavation takes a lifetime. But it's worth it.
I wasn't familiar with this passage. I love it. People tend to shy away from Nietsche because of a misunderstanding of his philosophy, but, honestly, it is very empowering and liberating for those who want to assume the burden of responsibility.
We spend too much time comparing, criticizing, and competing with others. We must stop measuring ourselves against others to be set free from the fear he speaks of.
Nietzsche seems to have been a sadly puritanical romantic megalomaniac, who appears to have required insanity to get over the misappropriated thrill of himself. At what point does astonishment at being spill over into a misguided individualistic self adoration, rather inappropriate to such a short lived life form? Perhaps the overman required a little stoical realism in his philosophy, which would have deprived several generations of academics the illusion of participating in profound intellectual adventures, when they would have done better, perhaps, to go climbing.
Not that it's easy to escape the marvel of his mind....which might have been his own greatest misfortune....." Just be ordinary, nothing special"...is there better advice to give?
Perhaps you, like many people who've misread Nietzsche, would benefit by reading, What Nietzsche Really Said, by Robert C. Solomon. Anyway, in the words of Lev Shestov, “The business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty... not to reassure him, but to upset him.”
Nietzsche succeeds in this a lot. Which is why I like him.
Well, a lot of people like to claim, often with some justification, they know what so and so really said, often in an interesting and thought provoking way. Personally I think existence is bad enough, and our human limitations extensive enough, that someone who feels called upon to indulge in disconcerting others is in a very fortunate and privileged situation, and perhaps given to the kind of posturing unfortunately common to the chemical composition of masculinity. So let us rattle cages, but with discrimination and compassion, I guess.
The other day, I told the guy who operates the delightful Rulo Free Radio(Nebraska) Substack, “When the poets stop singing, hell wins. "
The Traveler reminds of the very first poem that wormed its way up out of me into my writing journal one word at a time, as if it was being told to me, in 1991, my 49th year- late bloomer.
For sure an intellectually stimulating text, but one ought to be aware of the individualistic and elitist nature of Nietzsche. His work too easily can serve as a breeding ground for intolerance, and worse.
Powerful writing that I like a lot. But I must wonder now if it may miss issues of circumstance or diversity including neurodiversiity that may complicate this task that faces us. It seems to me it is necessary to be clear about oneself in order to act, and to do that it helps to be held in love in acceptance and freedom by others, and also by yourself. I've heard it before, I've not read it before and will go on thinking about it, and trying, failing etc. I wonder what his own history of and connection to realising it were, before and after the writing.
What if given the chances and opportunities, people wouldn’t differ much from whom they already are? You may hear many saying that we should be ourselves but how many really change? What if the real change most people run after is actually a material one, more comfort, more power, more of some concrete thing, because they don’t have the resources to be anything else but what they already are. At declarative level you may perceive some desire for rebellion but in truth people already are who they are supposed to be
"Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, and desiring is not really yourself."
Ah, how easily said and how difficult to do. It seems to require seeing the constructions we build around ourselves, others, and society for what they are—just constructions! Then our attachment to them loosens a little bit, enough for there to be wiggle room in which our authentic, genuine selves can begin to dance.
The fears that drive us further away from our truths and into our comfort zones are the ones worth digging deep into because, always on the other side, there's pure gold to uncover. For the vast majority of us, such an excavation takes a lifetime. But it's worth it.
I wasn't familiar with this passage. I love it. People tend to shy away from Nietsche because of a misunderstanding of his philosophy, but, honestly, it is very empowering and liberating for those who want to assume the burden of responsibility.
We spend too much time comparing, criticizing, and competing with others. We must stop measuring ourselves against others to be set free from the fear he speaks of.
Nietzsche seems to have been a sadly puritanical romantic megalomaniac, who appears to have required insanity to get over the misappropriated thrill of himself. At what point does astonishment at being spill over into a misguided individualistic self adoration, rather inappropriate to such a short lived life form? Perhaps the overman required a little stoical realism in his philosophy, which would have deprived several generations of academics the illusion of participating in profound intellectual adventures, when they would have done better, perhaps, to go climbing.
Not that it's easy to escape the marvel of his mind....which might have been his own greatest misfortune....." Just be ordinary, nothing special"...is there better advice to give?
Perhaps you, like many people who've misread Nietzsche, would benefit by reading, What Nietzsche Really Said, by Robert C. Solomon. Anyway, in the words of Lev Shestov, “The business of philosophy is to teach man to live in uncertainty... not to reassure him, but to upset him.”
Nietzsche succeeds in this a lot. Which is why I like him.
Well, a lot of people like to claim, often with some justification, they know what so and so really said, often in an interesting and thought provoking way. Personally I think existence is bad enough, and our human limitations extensive enough, that someone who feels called upon to indulge in disconcerting others is in a very fortunate and privileged situation, and perhaps given to the kind of posturing unfortunately common to the chemical composition of masculinity. So let us rattle cages, but with discrimination and compassion, I guess.
Very nice, Erik.
The other day, I told the guy who operates the delightful Rulo Free Radio(Nebraska) Substack, “When the poets stop singing, hell wins. "
The Traveler reminds of the very first poem that wormed its way up out of me into my writing journal one word at a time, as if it was being told to me, in 1991, my 49th year- late bloomer.
"Living Poets"
Dead poets are poets who never write
Who obey shoulds and oughts
Who live to please others
Who value money over God
Who die without ever having lived
Death is their mark
Dead poets are remembered by the living.
Living poets are remembered by time
Dead poets never sing their song
Living poets never stop singing it
The difference between the two is this:
One worships fear, the other life
To be a dead poet is hard
It requires being someone else
To be a living poet is easy
It only means being myself
One choice is hell, the other heaven
That is what is meant by free will
INTROJECTION {the representation of knowledge in consciousness by images
A factory at the bottom of Railway Street
Directly employing almost fifty people has closed
While a room on Water Street, intending
To take on a dozen, has opened. We must
Learn to define success and failure differently
Not on a par with Friedrich's epic painting
Of The Wanderer above the Sea of Clouds
But a thing closer
To Cotman, his
Fishing Boats off Yarmouth.
I stopped loving you
By deciding that love was something else
Not you, or what I felt for you
Not even socialism. Or democracy
But something far away, like China
The tiny dots of cockle-pickers
Out on the bay in Morecambe
Quickening their labour to beat the tide
Love is maybe far away….. But I have been to Nova Scotia and the. Loyd’s and the Sea bring it at ever it is, closer!!
For sure an intellectually stimulating text, but one ought to be aware of the individualistic and elitist nature of Nietzsche. His work too easily can serve as a breeding ground for intolerance, and worse.
Again it is the conceit and arrogance of this that bothers me but maybe because I see my own conceit and arrogance…..
Be yourself - but stay out of jail. It is difficult to be yourself in a jail cell with Bubba. Unless you really like Bubba.
I never ceases to amaze me how wisdom can and will carry through the ages like the assessment from Friedrich Nietzsche. Truer today than ever.
Powerful writing that I like a lot. But I must wonder now if it may miss issues of circumstance or diversity including neurodiversiity that may complicate this task that faces us. It seems to me it is necessary to be clear about oneself in order to act, and to do that it helps to be held in love in acceptance and freedom by others, and also by yourself. I've heard it before, I've not read it before and will go on thinking about it, and trying, failing etc. I wonder what his own history of and connection to realising it were, before and after the writing.
Privilege is perhaps the most dangerous form of laziness.
Profound, and inspiring! So true......
What if given the chances and opportunities, people wouldn’t differ much from whom they already are? You may hear many saying that we should be ourselves but how many really change? What if the real change most people run after is actually a material one, more comfort, more power, more of some concrete thing, because they don’t have the resources to be anything else but what they already are. At declarative level you may perceive some desire for rebellion but in truth people already are who they are supposed to be
I search for myself, my soul, my being, my thoughts, my liberation, therefore, I wander, I wonder, I welcome, myself.