Nietzsche said that the Superman, who the Nazis so viciously twisted to their own purposes, is the one who proves his loyalty to Earth. He accepts life just as it is, no Heaven above us - only sky, like another nice man said. Even for atheists, this has to be tough. Loyalty to Earth?! You mean no consolation prizes in the end? No happiness guaranteed? The possibility of it all going wrong and still have to accept that this is all we have? Yes, actually. That's exactly it.
Like I wrote before, an interesting thing about people being so hung up on football is that their dreams of glory seem to have a realistic chance during the match only to be confronted with the harsh reality after the game is over. The realization that shit does, indeed and royally, happen is awful. And the realization that there is nothing beyond that is even worse. But, at some point or, that's what you have to do. Accept it. Try for happiness in the cold world we live in and relish in the glimpses of bliss you ocasionally have.
Of course this is hard. In the words of Brad Pitt in the great Fight Club, 'our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. '
Indeed we are. For example, right now I'm so pissed off that I could join a terrorist association. I'm so pissed off that I would like to tell Nietzsche and his Superman to piss off themselves. But the man (Nietzsche) is right. Accept your life as it is, acknowledge that it is all you have and make the most of it. Don't look for excuses. We can't all be Brangelina and we just have to find a way to deal with that and be happy about that fact. But it is tought. And it does piss one off. And it makes you ask someone, anyone, possibly God, 'what do you mean I don't get my cake and eat it after all this work?'. Well, you don't. But perhaps you can have a slice of the cake, and perhaps the cake is really, really good. I'm still waiting, I hope I get my slice, I hope my slice is less bitter than it is now and I hope I'll love it. Trying to be a Superwoman by remaining optimistic.
And with this piece of poor wisdom I shall depart.
So, goodnight. And good luck.
4 comments:
Nietzsche and Brad Pitt's abs in the same post? This IS the blog I always dreamt of...
On a more serious note, I agree with you Youkali. It's a hard life and the non-possibility of the beyond only makes it worse. It seems that there is no end in sight, no ultimate goal. It is difficult to work hard 'for the journey' without a nice island to go back to in the end. But I think the best endpoint is to be fearless at you deathbed: if you've had a good life, then at that point, at that terrifying moment you can say, I am not afraid to die, because my life was good. And at that particular magical moment the journey and the endpoint are one and the same thing.
Be fearless at one's deathbed is also so tough (what if you don't live a good life?). Hegel was fearless - apparently, when on his deathbed and confronted with the fact that reality was not exactly like he had described it, he said: 'that's too bad for reality'. That's the way I personally would like to go, but I'm not Hegel.
And I'm wondering how can one go through life without the island. I mean, Ulysses had it easy if you ask me. Ok, it took him forever to go back to his island, but he knew it was there, he knew where it was, he knew it existed. He only had problems with how to get there (which is metaphysical enough). We, on the other hand, have not only to worry about 'how to get there' but also to worry if the 'there' even exists.
I've decided that for me, it does: it's a Greek island, it's called Kefalonia and I want to go there and sell fish and cakes and sleep on the beach if I've got no money to pay rent.
You know that archaeologists think that Ulysses' Ithaca is indeed Kefalonia? How metaphysical indeed...
Nietzsche constructed an existential test to provoke people into considering the sort of life they are leading: ‘What if a demon crept after you one day or night in your loneliest solitude and said to you: “This life, as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you, and everything in the same series and sequence – and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and in the same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence will be turned again and again – and you with it, you dust of dust!” – Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who thus spoke? Or have you experienced a tremendous moment in which you would have answered him: “You are a god and never did I hear anything more divine!” If this thought gained power over you it would, as you are now, transform and perhaps crush you; the question in all and everything: “do you want this again and again, times without number?” would lie as the heaviest burden upon all of your actions. Or how well disposed towards yourself and towards life would you have to become to have no greater desire than this for the ultimate eternal sanction and seal?’ This is Nietzsche’s famous “eternal recurrence”, the idea that this life you lead will be repeated infinitely many times in every exact detail. The Superman who has lived every moment to the maximum is he who would celebrate eternal recurrence.
Faust, Michael (2010-09-09). The Right-Brain God (Kindle Locations 1362-1366). Hyperreality Books. Kindle Edition.
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