The most general formula
on which every religion and morality is founded is:
“Do this and that, refrain from this and that
— and then you will be happy!
And if you don’t…”

I call it the original sin of reason,
the immortal unreason.

— the first example of my “revaluation of all values.”
An admirable human being, a “happy one,”
instinctively must perform certain actions and avoid other actions;
he carries these impulses in his body,…
In a formula: his virtue is the effect of his happiness.

Every mistake (in every sense of the word)
is the result of a degeneration of instinct,
a disintegration of the will:

All that is good is instinctive
— and hence easy, necessary, uninhibited.
Effort is a failing:
the god is typically different from the hero…
light feet are the first attribute of divinity.

Twilight of the Idols, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, The Four Great Errors, aphorism 2

A fascinating reflection upon ‘religion’, the form which religions tend to take. Perhaps this description is not universally true.  But it’s true enough.

Do this, do that – and you will be blessed.  Happiness is the result of effort.  And if you fail, “god” will kick-your-ass.  This carrot and stick approach is the basic form of religion writes Nietzsche.  He summarily dismisses this formula as a massive mistake, the “original sin of reason.”  Or to put it differently, to make a mistake in judgment about the first principle of fulfillment for us humans, is to make a fatal error; a flaw in understanding that is terminal.

Nietzsche offers that “happiness” a general term we use to describe a fulfilled life, attends the effortless expression of our instincts. Appropriate response in a given context is effortless when instinct takes the lead. Instinct is sensitive engagement of the embodied-self with a physical and/or a social context.

How to behave, how to speak at Starbucks?  Pay attention, feel the room, then do/say what is natural. Feel the life that you have been given here and now.  Live life without effort because you are as fulfilled in the present as your fate allows. (I feel disappointed today. That is what my destiny allows this morning.)

You can see the reversal of cause and effect with this negation of rules based prescription for happiness. The condition of well being that I presently experience, I accept (even with gratitude) and allow myself to respond to your presence and to your words with sensitivity.

Be the animal that you are. That is all.

Why so much pain, chaos all around in the world?

There’s a great deal of damage, untreated wounds accrue. Many failed attempts to act according to the rules, shame and self-punishment follows. This is enough to describe the genesis of so much cruelty, so much havoc.  We try hard and fail.

How badly do we fail? Very badly!