Intermission is timely. At midpoint of a soul stirring performative event one is glad when the lights go up and everyone is invited to stand, and perhaps visit the restroom. Perhaps you’d wait with others at the Bar for a glass of white or red to take as you return to your seat.

This post is intermission. Mentally and spiritually catch your breath and stretch your legs. We have experienced the first act of Nietzsche’s parable that of the load bearing beast-of-burden, a camel. Our guide, Nietzsche directs our attention to the Lion, to indicate that becoming the Lion means a resolute focus upon what-one-is, the self which one has become as a consequence of family history, as well as the history of a community.

I cannot help considering as I stretch my legs during this intermission. I’m still reeling with the event of yesterday occurring in the White House Oval Office. Trump and J. D. Vance ambushed President Volodymyr Zelensky with accusation of ingratitude, all on camera, with reporters in the room. I felt alarmed and sad at public display of bullying. So, what now?

Do you remember the old Popeye cartoons? One of Popeye’s taglines was “I am what I am.” The character was a free-spirited, spinach-from-the-can fueled sailor! This is Popeye’s bed-rock, the “unteachable” ground, what Popeye was certain to enact in every circumstance.

The pivot point of Nietzsche’s insight as written by Nishitani: some of us have become aware of our “unteachable” while the majority of our fellows are oblivious. Do you think Trump and J. D. Vance would willingly own, confess their bullying proclivities? What about Zelensky? Would he own up to his quest to unconditionally (even to death) defend Ukraine to defeat Russia? What do you think?

Returning to my seat in front of the stage, one final thought comes to mind: What does it take if one desires to “make a difference” with one’s life? Is that what is meant by “one is chosen by history”?

Existence for him [Nietzsche]
means the endeavor to “discipline” oneself
in the confrontation with great problems,
and thereby to reach the
self-realization
of the “unteachable,”
the ground of the self;

or, through the disciplining of the self
and human transformation,
to become one who can
endure the great problems,
and to improve oneself

to the point that one
is chosen by history.

The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism by Nishitani Keiji, trans. by Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, page 93