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In every healthy society,
three mutually conditioning physiological types
separate out and gravitate in different directions,
each one having its own hygiene, its own area of work,
its own feelings of perfection and field of mastery.
Nature, …, separates out predominantly spiritual people
from people characterized by muscular and temperamental strength
from a third group of people who are not distinguished in either way,
the mediocre, – the latter being the great number,
the first being the exceptions.

The highest social class – which I call the few -,
being the perfect class, also has the privilege of the few:
this includes representing happiness, beauty, goodness on earth.
Only the most spiritual human beings are allowed to be beautiful:
only among them is goodness not a weakness.
Pulchrum est paucorum hominum: goodness/beauty is for the few.

On the other hand, nothing can be tolerated less in this type
than ugly manners or a pessimistic look,
an eye that makes things ugly,
or even an indignation over the way of the world.
Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala;
pessimism too.

‘The world is perfect’
– this is how the instinct of the most spiritual people speaks,
the yes-saying instinct: ‘imperfection, everything that is beneath us,
the pathos of distance….’

The most spiritual people, being the strongest,
find their happiness where
other people would find their downfall:
in labyrinths, in harshness towards themselves and towards others,
in trials; they take pleasure in self-overcoming:
asceticism is their nature, requirement, instinct.

— excerpt, The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888

Why do you do what you do?  Another way of putting it, according to Jacques Lacan, “Che Vuoi?” (What do you want?)

After having lived a whole lifetime, I now understand that we really have no idea what we want.  Moreover what we want, or to say it more precisely, what we believe/think that we want is imposed upon us by the inscription of Nature, the genetic inheritance of past generations, and by the Social Symbol System that constitutes the culture of our society.

Nature and Nurture are the two great boundary conditions of human life, the “explanation,” the story behind everything.  Nietzsche develops these themes in his flaming literary assault against Christianity.  After so many years I continue to find Nietzsche as interesting, as enigmatic, as rich with insight as ever.

In these lines Nietzsche proposes that we humans dispose into three types of individuals, three classes, temperamentally equipped for three categories of performance.  The majority of us are emotionally and intellectually suited for routine work, — a place for ourselves and our families, secure and adequately remunerative, the comforts of job security until retirement.  The hard working UPS drivers come to mind as an example for this category.  The professional classes are included here, doctors, lawyers, etc.

The second classification based upon natural endowment is that of a warrior class, — athletic, muscular, temperamentally inclined to protect society, to suffer physical and mental hardship for the well-being of the whole.  In another section Nietzsche mentions that the President of a nation would epitomize this type of individual.  Disciplined law enforcement officers come to my mind.

The third class of persons, a minority, “the few” — for in Nietzsche’s view society is a pyramid —  those qualified to epitomize aesthetic perfection, goodness, to envision future potential for the entire society.  Nietzsche characterizes this type of temperament as “spiritual.”  This is the apex of the pyramid, the “yes-saying” instinct that is focused on building for the future.  This way of life would be that of a poet, a play wright, the founder of a company, or perhaps an educator.

Does any of us have any idea of what we want, or why we do what we do, why we’re the person that we have come to be?

None at all.

That is because it is not up to us.

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After operating a company for forty some years, I am satisfied that Nietzsche is essentially correct.  One of my biggest regrets has to do with my decisions to promote or to hire individuals for tasks which by temperament they were unsuited to achieve success, distinction.  Their failure was my responsibility, my failure in judgment.  The result was an unhappy parting of ways.