It is Saturday late afternoon. Failed to write anything this morning. The stars did not align. A friend joined me at Starbucks and we enjoyed an extended conversation. I think a good principle is to give priority to friends over projects that we intend to advance. I have followed the principle with difficulty in the past. A note to myself: keep working on what matters most.

I am attracted to Nietzsche’s thought for personal reasons. No longer attempting to “save humanity,” achieving greater humanity for myself, is mission enough for the remainder of my lifetime.  I believe the late 19th century German philosopher to be a valuable resource.

The book I am reading is the one which served as my introduction to Nietzsche, when I was in my late 20s. Beyond Good and Evil is a summation of his philosophy. The entire point is an approach, an orientation of mind and emotion and behavior characterized by a ruthless integrity.

Here is an excerpt of a longer passage. There is no mistake about the severity of his focus, his unwillingness to patronize or be patronized by foolishness.  “Causa sui” is a Latin phrase meaning self-caused. This was and is a favorite, a go-to definition of “God”, thought by Christians. Nietzsche declares plainly the absurdity of the idea. We’ve never encountered an instance of a self-caused object within our experience. Nothing exists independently of innumerable external contributors. The notion of cause is paired with effect. We designate as effect, something that then becomes a cause… A self-generated cause simply makes no sense. Causa sui is imagined, to confuse, and obscure the thinking of any who use it.

Why come up with, and swear allegiance to an idea that is nonsense? Nietzsche suggests that we desire, badly want, a role model/ideal that acts directly (freely) and owes nothing to anything or anybody else. That’s what we all covertly wish for ourselves.

I’ve witnessed this a few times with respect to my grand daughter who is four and a half. A child may be excused for such mistaken and overweening experiments of ego.

I however, do not get a mulligan.

I am in the game by dint of good fortune, and I owe a debt of gratitude to propitious circumstances, and a great number of others who have been helpful.

And every stroke matters, is noted on my scorecard.

The causa sui
is the best self-contradiction that has ever been conceived,
a type of logical rape and abomination.

But humanity’s excessive pride
has got itself profoundly and horribly entangled
with precisely this piece of nonsense.

The longing for “freedom of the will”
in the superlative metaphysical sense
(which, unfortunately, still rules in the heads of the half-educated),

the longing to bear
the entire and ultimate responsibility
for your actions yourself
and to relieve God,
world,
ancestors,
chance,
and society of the burden

– all this means nothing less
than being that very causa sui.

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Judith Norman, aphorism 21