It does not matter
what philosophical standpoint
you might take these days:
any way you look at it,
the erroneousness of the world
we think we live in
is the most certain and solid fact
that our eyes can still grab hold of.

We find reason after reason for it,
reasons that might lure us into speculations
about a deceptive principle in “the essence of things.”

But anyone who makes thinking itself
(and therefore “the spirit”)
responsible for the falseness of the world
(an honorable way out, taken by every conscious or
unconscious advocatus dei),
anyone who considers this world,
together with space, time, form, and motion,
to be falsely inferred
– such a person would at the very least
have ample cause to grow suspicious of thinking altogether.

Hasn’t it played the biggest joke on us to date?
And what guarantee would there be
that it wouldn’t keep doing
what it has always done?

In all seriousness,
there is something touching
and awe-inspiring about the innocence that,
to this day, lets a thinker place himself
in front of consciousness with the request
that it please give him honest answers:
for example,
whether or not
it is “real,”…

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Judith Norman, aphorism 34

Yesterday and today a series of email exchanges continues with an old friend. The communication seems to be misfiring. Two ships passing in the darkness metaphor fits. The inquiry at hand: whether for Americans the future trends toward a negative (bad) future or toward a positive (good) future. My friend offered in response that he felt good about the future. To wit, the future will bring pain, pain means change and change is good.

I read his response and the room seemed to spin, I felt vertigo upon hearing that pain causes change and change causes improvement. That seemed nonsense to me. Pain does not necessarily lead to a good result. Sometimes pain diminishes without further intervention. Sometimes pain grows more intense until the subject dies. Sometimes the subject does not know what to do, or his doctors do the wrong thing, fail to address the cause of the pain, then negative outcomes occur. Sometimes when the cause of pain is addressed, it is simply too late, the intervention is not enough, or comes too late, and the subject soon dies.

The sentiment about the future came to no point in particular. Everything was possible…

I asked him to convey to me his ideas, and his reason(s) for his ideas rather than how he felt. Our exchange became awkward, and ended.

This quotation from Nietzsche came to me subsequent to the email exchange. If we take as fact that “the world” is flawed, in a error prone condition by comparison to an ideal (God’s perfection, or even a non-religious standard), then how can thinking be exempt?  Why could we ever believe that “the truth” could be discovered since reason itself is a feature of this world.

Suppose this is “fact,” a “given” and no mere interpretation. Then why not give up on reason, and just give in to whatever feeling by which one happens to be overtaken? Reason deceives us, and does not help us to distinguish truth from error, the real from illusion.

Consider this scenario. If I’ve enjoyed a restful night’s sleep, and my breakfast bowl of cheerios satisfies, perhaps I am biased to feel kindly toward you. On the other hand with any cause for irritation, I could well feel like assaulting you with verbal abuse, or even physically. Who is to say what is reasonable?

There’s no “reason,” whatsoever for holding my feeling of negativity in reserve.

If, as a matter of fact, the world is “fucked up” reason offers nothing reliable to hold onto.

We all fall, – into an abyss of feelings.

We fall laughing.

We thought we had something when it came to reason.

But no…

The joke is on us. The biggest joke ever.