National Grouch Day
I was browsing the Merriam-Webster website (I know; how geeky) when I stumbled on a feature called Word for the Wise. Seemingly inconsequential synchronicities kick me in the shoes every now and again to remind me of the iridescence of life. Today's Broadcast
Topic: Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche
Today is National Grouch Day. Coincidentally or not, today also is the birth anniversary of Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche. That German philosopher was born on this date in 1844 and he was 51-and only five years away from his own death-when the word grouch first appeared in English print.
So was Nietzsche a grouch, a habitually irritable or bad-tempered or complaining person? It's hard to say. Certainly, he appreciated the impact of temper: "One too often contradicts an opinion," observed Nietzsche, "when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it is conveyed."
And of course, Nietzsche is remembered for an uncongenial opinion or two of his own, particularly when it came to the flaws of fellow human beings . . . "Man is the cruelest animal," he wrote, and went on to advise that "To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."
Still, Friedrich Nietzsche believed certain people transcended the ordinary. Consider what we English speakers know as the superman-ubermensch, or overman-in German. Such a person was considered by Nietzsche to be a "superior man," who, according to Nietzsche, "has learned to forgo fleeting pleasures and attain happiness and dominance through the exercise of creative power."
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftw.pl
Topic: Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche
Today is National Grouch Day. Coincidentally or not, today also is the birth anniversary of Wilhelm Friedrich Nietzsche. That German philosopher was born on this date in 1844 and he was 51-and only five years away from his own death-when the word grouch first appeared in English print.
So was Nietzsche a grouch, a habitually irritable or bad-tempered or complaining person? It's hard to say. Certainly, he appreciated the impact of temper: "One too often contradicts an opinion," observed Nietzsche, "when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it is conveyed."
And of course, Nietzsche is remembered for an uncongenial opinion or two of his own, particularly when it came to the flaws of fellow human beings . . . "Man is the cruelest animal," he wrote, and went on to advise that "To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."
Still, Friedrich Nietzsche believed certain people transcended the ordinary. Consider what we English speakers know as the superman-ubermensch, or overman-in German. Such a person was considered by Nietzsche to be a "superior man," who, according to Nietzsche, "has learned to forgo fleeting pleasures and attain happiness and dominance through the exercise of creative power."
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/wftw.pl