Friedrich Nietzsche. One of the most
significant philosophers of all time. His name has been connected to a myriad of
ideas and his reputation has crossed the limits of Europe to “infect” the rest of the world.
Nietzsche is a man that has influenced my views and beliefs to the core and also a source of
inspiration and soothing whenever I feel lost and in need of direction.
Today, I will attempt something I wanted for a long time. I will try to paint a picture of this
legendary figure while analyzing one of his most interesting works, "Human, all too Human."
I bought this classic while losing myself in the endless titles of a local
bookstore. It was an instinctive form of seduction that
sprung from my visceral need to have a part of Nietzsche with me wherever I travel.
This monumental pamphlet encompasses most of the conundrums faced
within the human psyche and attempts to describe and analyze them in a philosophical way.
It is packed with powerful maxims that illustrate Nietzsche’s unparalleled ability
to scrutinize human nature and offer concrete and, oftentimes, poetic advice on how to deal with it.
His writing style is dense and unique. He uses very colorful language and
he “plays” with words like a master craftsman “plays” with his tools. Oftentimes the gravity
of his psyche and the psychological tension of his inner world seem palpable in his sentences.
All the maxims included in the book are important and highlight the depth of
Nietzsche’s inner world. However, today, I will expand on five that stood out for me.
“The advantages of psychological observation. That meditating on things human, all too human
is one of the means by which man can ease life's burden; that by exercising this art,
one can secure presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amid boring
surroundings; indeed, that from the thorniest and unhappiest phases of one's own life one can
pluck maxims and feel a bit better thereby.” The benefits of psychological observation,
that is the ability to observe and understand one’s motives and actions cannot be understated.
More often than not, we are lost within the banality of superfluous acts and
we fail to realize how awareness plays out across the span of our lives.
Psychological observation is such a powerful tool that can offer
presence of mind amid difficult situations and amusement during boring encounters.
This happens because we manage to approach things from a more analytical
perspective and allow ourselves to control the narrative of each circumstance.
“Too close. If we live in too close proximity to a person,
it is as if we kept touching a good etching with our bare fingers; one day we have poor,
dirty paper in our hands and nothing more. A human being's soul is likewise worn down by continual
touching; at least it finally appears that way to us--we never see its original design and
beauty again. One always loses by all-too-intimate association with women and friends; and sometimes
one loses the pearl of his life in the process.” In this maxim, Friedrich Nietzsche highlights an
idea expressed by many thinkers across history. Familiarity kills respect and,
in a romantic relationship, even lust. Constant exposure to the everyday nuances
of another person may breed discomfort and a lack of respect towards the other person.
Nietzsche logically draws inspiration for this maxim
from the sad endings most of his relationships had to face. He was a wild contrarian and could
easily express himself in a provocative way that would unavoidably cause friction and conflict.
Moreover, whenever he would allow others to taste a part of his vulnerable character,
he wouldn’t receive the appreciation he would expect. In turn, he would grow resentment toward
both others and himself for allowing too much proximity to “poison” their kinship.
This struggle is real and it manifests itself in different ways throughout our lives.
I think that the reason such concerns are expressed so often is that we usually fail
to strike a balance between pragmatism and romanticism.
These two forces are mutually exclusive but that doesn’t necessarily suggest that
we can’t successfully vacillate between the two. The key here is self-honesty and the
establishment of pragmatic expectations on all levels of our relationships.
“The hour-hand of life. Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance,
and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover
about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea-all these
speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely.
For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions
in the symphony of real life.” This aphorism reminded me of Richard
Dawkins’ opening lines in “Unweaving the Rainbow”: “We are going to die and that makes us the lucky
ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.”
Experiencing life in its totality is a challenging endeavor. We become entangled
in the trivial issues of the daily grind and we fail to recognize the vastness of
various experiences life can offer. Ego is the enemy here and it
creates a trap we desperately fail to see. This ego trap is omnipresent and, thus, our
willingness to reach self-transcendence becomes a distant hope. Nietzsche identified this conundrum
early on in his life and realized how much of an impact it can have on limiting one’s perception.
When Nietzsche says “during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us”
he clearly wants to emphasize on how blind we have become in our attempt to identify
moments of extraordinary significance; hence our propensity to experience grandiosity is predicated
on how easily we allow ourselves to surrender to the simplicity and complexity of those moments.
The ones that do surrender are the ones who fill their lives with innumerable intervals
of significance. The ones that don’t, become themselves the intervals and the intermissions.
“Learning to love. We must learn to love, learn to be kind, and this from earliest youth;
if education or chance give us no opportunity to practice these feelings, our soul becomes dry and
unsuited even to understanding the tender inventions of loving people. Likewise, hatred must
be learned and nurtured, if one wishes to become a proficient hater: otherwise the germ for that,
too, will gradually wither.” I sense a degree of irony
in this particular maxim. I am mainly referring to the
last sentence of the aphorism where he mentions that “hatred must be learned and nurtured, if one
wishes to become a proficient hater: otherwise the germ for that, too, will gradually wither.”
This interesting remark alludes to the possibility that hate is a perpetual
state of discontent that can be nourished just like every other state known to man.
One isn’t born full of hate or full of love, but, one can cultivate a biased sense of
how to perceive the idea of love and hate. The irony in the last remark lies in the use
of the term proficient when describing a hater’s ability to hate. For some, exercising hate might
even reach a professional level and could create a level of dependency on this catastrophic feeling.
However, Nietzsche identifies that this exercise is a conscious one and that, most of the time,
it is pursued rather than randomly acquired. With regards to love, Nietzsche puts emphasis on
the idea that love needs to be learned. Indeed, love, although it is considered the preeminent
feeling, it also constitutes one of our most arduous quests.
Love isn’t something that transpires organically. Love is something that needs to be cultivated.
If this fails to occur, one will lack the capacity to show love and, most possibly,
one will be oblivious to the love offered by those who actually know how to exercise it.
“Boredom and play. Need forces us to do the work whose product will quiet the need; we are
habituated to work by the ever-new awakening of needs. But in those intervals when our needs are
quieted and seem to sleep, boredom overtakes us. What is that? It is the habit of working as such,
which now asserts itself as a new, additional need; the need becomes the greater, the greater
our habit of working, perhaps even the greater our suffering from our needs. To escape boredom, man
works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is
designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general. He who is tired of play, and
has no reason to work because of new needs, is sometimes overcome by the longing for a third
state that relates to play as floating does to dancing, as dancing does to walking, a blissful,
peaceful state of motion: it is the artist's and philosopher's vision of happiness.”
This is one of the instances where Nietzsche's genius oozes from every word.
A man of his magnitude couldn’t really refrain from philosophizing on the
connection between work, boredom, and play. Work is the result of a drive enacted by our
desire to satisfy a need. When that need is satisfied, boredom creeps in, in an attempt
to shift our awareness towards a different need. In that context, boredom becomes one of the most
beneficial elements in a person’s life. Boredom morphs into the catalyst for the
pursuit of higher needs and aspirations. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s words:
“To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play,
that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general.”
Notice here that Nietzsche considers play a viable alternative to boredom and, doing so, he
elevates play to a higher-level. Then he goes on to suggest that
there is one more level a person can reach that enhances the idea of play.
That level is not precisely named and, in my regard, the philosopher does so because
he considers that state an idiosyncratic one. Every one of us bears the responsibility for
defining that state, which results, as Nietzsche points out, “in a blissful,
peaceful state of motion: it is the artist's and philosopher's vision of happiness.”