Today is such summer’s that only a poet could describe by shading language into light.  Today promises to be full. I have chores which I find agreeable. This day is my wife’s birthday. She and I have made common cause since we met in our early 20s. Many years are to be celebrated as well as a future. We’ll create the future together.

Perusing the pages of Beyond Good and Evil some sayings attracted my curiosity. My comments are secondary, unimportant by comparison to the revelation of Nietzsche’s mind. Yet, Nietzsche is constrained by his situation as a late 19th century German-born academic, and orphaned at an early age by the death of his father. Also he was “unlucky” in love. His observations are meant to strike sparks, to ignite the fire of our own imagination. He’d be honored with any mindful criticism of his written work.

112
Whoever feels himself predestined for seeing and not believing will find
all believers too noisy and pushy: he will fend them off.

Perhaps you remember the outlook on the world and the self-understanding that you entertained as a young adult. I do. I am amazed at how much my mind has changed. Life bears lessons, the friction of trial and error can change a person. I read a lot. I learned a bookworm style of life when just a kid. Thus the recorded minds of others have mattered to me. I’ve known such transformation of viewpoint, that I hold any collection of ideas as provisional. It’s as if settling upon “the truth” is not for me.  “All believers too noisy and pushy.” I’ll not volunteer to be a foot soldier in your holy cause, your crusade…

114
Any sense of perspective is ruined for women from the very start by
enormous expectations about sexual love and by the shame these
expectations bring.

I am not a woman and neither was Nietzsche. It seems though that male and female reach maturity with a portfolio of assumptions about the mystery of physical bonding, of pleasure and procreation. Experience may help to untangle the misconceptions which we’ve absorbed from our culture, the default ideas that are “in the air.” Excitement and shame are a volatile combination. Wisdom suggest we proceed with care.

126
A people is nature’s roundabout way of getting six or seven great men. –
Yes: and then of getting around them.

A people, ein volk, was a big deal in Nietzsche’ lifetime, the thought that the German speaking communities had a special “something” which portended ennobling to superman status – by comparison to other European peoples. This culminated in the Nazi Party directed by Hitler. Here Nietzsche is dismissive of the nationalistic idea, and suggests that six or seven great individuals can be formed by such a tragic crucible.

Finally, the Trumpian-Republican party attempts to strike the note of white nationalism, playing to the believer base. The populist tactic worked before. Nature’s tragic crucible.

128
The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more you have to
seduce the senses to it.

We anticipate traveling to Paris in the coming year. We will visit Chartres Cathedral. There on display is the veil worn by Mary upon the announcement of the birth of Jesus by the angel Gabriel. Or maybe the garment (holy tunic) was worn when in labor giving birth to the Savior. Perhaps a reader does not realize that a foundational principle of Christianity is the virginity of Mary. Admitted the point is difficult to grasp, beggaring credibility. That there is “preserved” a sample of cloth from late antiquity makes Nietzsche’s point. Abstract truth requires a double-down to seduce the senses to believe…

130
What someone is begins to reveal itself when his talent diminishes – when
he stops showing what he can do. So talent is also a piece of finery; and
finery is also a hiding place.

A sad insight into human experience. When nature and circumstance permits us to be at the height of our powers, we wrap ourselves, create a reputation, a fine veil that conceals the true self. Though later, powers diminish, what one is will be revealed.

131
The sexes deceive themselves about each other: which means they
basically only love and honor themselves (or their own ideal, to say it more
nicely). So men would have it that women are placid – but women
above all are essentially not placid, just like cats, however much they have
rehearsed the appearance of placidity.

Male-female relationships naturally are charged, as if by opposite poles of static electricity. We are attracted and repelled by difference. From the first moments of encounter with the person I married, – I was enchanted by the intuition of difference in personality, in interests between us.

Though manifestly unfair for a male to speculate about “what its like to be female”, I like the concluding observation that Nietzsche makes.  She may appear a domesticated female, however she’s a tiger!

134
All credibility, good conscience, and evidence of truth first come from the
senses.

How could this insight not be foundational? Our senses, the physical interface between the external world and our mind/self is our only access to what is real/true. Credibility and good conscience demands  evidence. All credibility!

All else, every bit is marketing, a bald faced proffer, bait…

All quotations are taken from Beyond Good and Evil translated by Judith Butler.