Cross-posted in my Xanga and a couple communities. Wordy, pedantic, and boring.
If you've ever lived your life outside of a cave, chances are you've heard at least one or more of the following phrases:
a) "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." (Or any variation / mutilation thereof.)
b) "Live dangerously."
c) "If you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
d) "God is dead."
All Nietzsche, natch. They've become so hackneyed and are used often enough to become cliche household phrases. The reason I'm bringing this up? Another Nietzsche quote I discovered provides an excellent segue for a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately.
"...sickness: would we not almost be tempted to ask whether we can in any way do without it? Only great pain is, as the teacher of great suspicion, the ultimate liberator of the spirit. . . . It is only great pain, that slow protracted pain which takes its time and in which we are as it were burned with green wood, that compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths and to put from us all trust, all that is good-hearted, palliated, gentle, average, wherein perhaps our humanity previously reposed. I doubt whether such pain 'improves'-but I do know it deepens us."
I'm trying to figure out whether I agree with Nietzsche. On the one hand, I do believe that one must burn to emerge, and that suffering brings growth. In some cases, however, I believe it does improve. Not always, of course; we've all known bitter people with the right to be so (or without, but that's a rant for another entry). And by 'right', I mean that they're no stranger to pain- I don't mean a 'right' as in an 'excuse'.
Is exhilaration also a liberator of the spirit? I may not be among them, and you might not be either...but I'm sure most people, when asked without prompt to name the time when they felt free, the most like themselves, they would mention a time of elation rather than one of slow-burning despair. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Does pain play a part in removing our good qualities? Always, sometimes, never? As Nietzsche claims this is true specifically of philosophers, is it only they who fit the role? By that same token, are they shaped and eventually defined by what they've learned from pain?
Does a good heart reflect naivete?
Have I totally misinterpreted this quote? If so, feel free to leave vitriolic comments asking when I had the lobotomy.
I wanted to write this to try and clarify. Problem is, clarification invariably leads to new questions. The worst part is that this is the same reason I bitch about Descartes and Kant. Hypocritical, yeah, but at least I managed to do it in less than six million words per sentence. So there.
What do you think? Either tell me your thoughts on the quote itself or my interpretation, or tell me about a time your soul felt liberated. Ready, set, go.
Cross-posted to LJ.
a) "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." (Or any variation / mutilation thereof.)
b) "Live dangerously."
c) "If you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
d) "God is dead."
All Nietzsche, natch. They've become so hackneyed and are used often enough to become cliche household phrases. The reason I'm bringing this up? Another Nietzsche quote I discovered provides an excellent segue for a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately.
"...sickness: would we not almost be tempted to ask whether we can in any way do without it? Only great pain is, as the teacher of great suspicion, the ultimate liberator of the spirit. . . . It is only great pain, that slow protracted pain which takes its time and in which we are as it were burned with green wood, that compels us philosophers to descend into our ultimate depths and to put from us all trust, all that is good-hearted, palliated, gentle, average, wherein perhaps our humanity previously reposed. I doubt whether such pain 'improves'-but I do know it deepens us."
I'm trying to figure out whether I agree with Nietzsche. On the one hand, I do believe that one must burn to emerge, and that suffering brings growth. In some cases, however, I believe it does improve. Not always, of course; we've all known bitter people with the right to be so (or without, but that's a rant for another entry). And by 'right', I mean that they're no stranger to pain- I don't mean a 'right' as in an 'excuse'.
Is exhilaration also a liberator of the spirit? I may not be among them, and you might not be either...but I'm sure most people, when asked without prompt to name the time when they felt free, the most like themselves, they would mention a time of elation rather than one of slow-burning despair. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Does pain play a part in removing our good qualities? Always, sometimes, never? As Nietzsche claims this is true specifically of philosophers, is it only they who fit the role? By that same token, are they shaped and eventually defined by what they've learned from pain?
Does a good heart reflect naivete?
Have I totally misinterpreted this quote? If so, feel free to leave vitriolic comments asking when I had the lobotomy.
I wanted to write this to try and clarify. Problem is, clarification invariably leads to new questions. The worst part is that this is the same reason I bitch about Descartes and Kant. Hypocritical, yeah, but at least I managed to do it in less than six million words per sentence. So there.
What do you think? Either tell me your thoughts on the quote itself or my interpretation, or tell me about a time your soul felt liberated. Ready, set, go.
Cross-posted to LJ.