Our highest insights must – and should!
– sound like stupidities, or possibly crimes,
when they come without permission to people
whose ears have no affinity for them and were not predestined for them.

…There are heights
of the soul from whose vantage point
even tragedy stops having tragic effects;
and who would dare to decide
whether the collective sight of the world’s many woes
would necessarily compel and seduce us into a feeling of pity,
a feeling that would only serve to double these woes?

. . . What helps feed or nourish the higher type of man
must be almost poisonous to a very different and lesser type.

…Books for the general public
always smell foul: the stench of petty people clings to them.
It usually stinks in places where the people eat and drink,
even where they worship.

You should not go to church if you want to breath clean air. –

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Judith Norman, aphorism 30

Monday holds promise to be another spring day of sunlight. I will take note to the magnificence to the extent of my ability as I travel to keep my appointment with the dentist. I have a broken tooth which must be removed. Do I merit pity given the certain discomfort that I must endure?  No. Under these circumstances that’s one way forward, that I am fortunate to have available.

And what about “the world’s suffering” – the slaughter of Ukrainians and Russian conscripts, the murder of Palestinian civilians, the mayhem of cartel killing of candidates for office in Mexico?  What do feelings of pity amount to?  Do empathic feelings serve to make things worse, to “double those woes”?

The New York Times Sunday edition ran a front page article by Alexandra Alter about how TikTok is being used to promote a self-published author to viral success.  Author Keila Shaheen has inked a deal with Simon & Schuster. Her book “The Shadow Work Journal,” is wildly successful due to TikTok influencers and a publisher wants in on the action. The book is for “self help” and is based on Shaheen’s understanding of Jungian psychology.

I was reminded of the Time’s article when reading Nietzsche’s observation about books for the general public.

Elitism?

Without apology.