The vain take pleasure
in every good opinion they hear about themselves
(abstracted entirely from the point of view of utility,
and just as much removed from truth or falsity),
just as they suffer from every bad opinion.

This is because they submit
– they feel submissive
– to both good and bad opinions
out of that oldest instinct of submissiveness
which erupts within them.

– This is “the slave” in the blood of the vain,
a remnant of the mischief of the slave
– and how much “slave”
is still left over in women, for instance!
–, they try to seduce people
into having good opinions of them.

By the same token,
it is the slave who submits
to these opinions immediately afterwards,
as if he were not the one
who had just called for them.

– And to say it again: vanity is a regression.

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (1886), Part IX, Aphorism #261

I care about the opinions of others. And I care particularly about perceptions of a certain circle of individuals. By circumstance and chance and personality, I benefit from an auto-select sphere of friends. We have common interest in art, for music, for writing, for history and for rumination on the ill-defined topics of philosophy. One mentions from time to time, a daring confession of angst, – fear of failure that taking the measure of one’s own life remains unfinished… When mention is made of this point, what is there to say in response? Not one damn thing… Among us we understand.

Am I this vain? Yes. And I cannot help my vanity.

Nietzsche observes a universal condition of vanity. Why deceive myself, pretending that I am not vain, given that every presentation of myself, is more or less a seductive performance, and that I need “good” reviews from the audience. No doubt this goes to my effort at selecting individuals as friends.

What does the complex desire for my aspirational self, this staged performance that I am working so hard to perfect, evoke in the perception of the few that know me? I attend not only to what they might say, but to their body language, eye contact (or the lack), a means gauge whether there’s resonance, or not—

Nietzsche paints us with bold strokes: good opinions or bad opinions transposed into suffering or pleasure. Always submitting. This reflex, ancient knee-jerk submissive response suggests my need of others is “a given”, anthropological bedrock which has endured so far.

“This” is a “slave in the blood.”

Paradoxically, other’s have not enslaved me. It’s I that kneel in worshipful affirmation of the very “reviews” which I have solicited.

As for the others, why they are seeking a master too.

Conclusion: wonderment that the self is the composition of so many others…

---

Wait! That’s not all.

For a culminating thought this tune by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart captures the sweet-bitter bond we share as humans. Here Comes the Rain Again by Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics. Talk to me, walk with me!