‘Will a self’ – Active, successful natures act, not according to the dictum ‘know thyself’, but as if there hovered before them the commandment: will a self and thou shalt become a self… Assorted Opinions and Maxims, by Nietzsche, trans. by R. J. Hollingdale, aphorism 366 Gnothi Seauton (γνῶθι σεαυτόν), “know thyself!” is reported…
What is good? -All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? -Everything that is born of weakness. What is happiness? -The feeling that power is growing -That resistance is overcome. The Anti-Christ, by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. aphorism 2 The good and…
In naturethe rule is not the state of distressit is superfluity, prodigality,even to the point of absurdity. The struggle for existence is only an exception,a temporary restriction of the will of life.The struggle, great and small,everywhere turns on ascendancy, on growth and extension,–in accordance with the will to powerwhich is the will of life….
Day three of recovery from covid. I am feeling somewhat better. I decided to attempt to mow the lawn. There is no doubt that being 75 years of age in combination with covid made the task a challenge. The passage of time. Nothing is absolved from the eroding effects of time. Clearly this varies…
I prefer not to take a break from daily writing. Still, Covid imposed a day off. Monday night I ran a high fever. I had delirious thoughts, attempting to connect ideas that promptly fell apart in my semi conscious misery. Now with Tylenol and Paxlovid I am feeling much better. I cannot get the…
‘Power against which much ill is done and mediated is worth more than impotence when it encounters only good’ -thus the Greeks felt. That is to say: they valued the feeling of power more highly than any sort of utility or good reputation. Daybreak by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, aphorism 360 Nietzsche…
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. Nothing but imaginary causes (‘God’, ’soul’, ‘ego’, ‘spirit’, ‘free will’, – or ‘unfree-will.): Nothing but imaginary effects (‘sin’, ‘redemption’, ‘grace’, ‘punishment’, ‘forgiveness of sins’). Once the concept of ‘nature’ has been devised as the concept antithetical to ‘God’, ‘natural’ had…
My home is Batavia, a river town established at a time when Americans were settling the West. The importance of Christianity for past generations is borne witness by several substantial churches at the center of town, steeples with a Crosses piercing the sky. Even if forms of Christian thinking are not as close to…
If we transport ourselves back to the ages in which the religious life flourished most vigorously we discover a fundamental conviction which we no longer share… In those ages one as of yet knows nothing of natural laws; neither the earth nor the sky are constrained by any compulsion; any season, sunshine, rain can…
Every mistake (in every sense of the word) is the result of a degeneration of instinct, a disintegration of the will: one could almost equate what is bad with whatever is a mistake. All that is good is instinctive — and hence easy, necessary, uninhibited. Effort is a failing: the god is typically different…
