Who am I?  I am unsure, because I find myself accepting points of view that upon reflection are short sighted, mean-spirited, and often closed-minded.  This has been my plight since I was overtaken by interest in philosophy in my mid twenties.  I am still unsure of myself, unsure that there is a single, unitary-self within myself. 

I am thankful that I have made progress.  I rarely feel panic stricken anymore over something that I happen to see, or hear when out and about in public.  At this juncture little surprises me, causes emotional stampede.  I have a larger, and better stocked tool box of ideas, with which to come to grips with the extremes of violence, and self assertion, and abysmal confusion that is the human experience.  I observe all of this, and also find the same mirrored within. I like everyone else, am kicked-in-the-ass by what has gone before.  What has been done, is done.  Past deeds deliberate, or well meaning but without enough information, or accidental…, all form my present. 

Is redemption possible?

It is clear that forming a meaningful work out of all of this is going to take time, more generations of time.  The road is long.  How long no one can tell.

Nietzsche wrote about the same shattered state of human experience:

…..then did he, Zarathustra turn to his disciples in profound dejection, and said: Truly, my friends, I walk among men as among the fragments and limbs of human beings!

This is the terrible thing to behold, that I find man broken up, and scattered about, as on a battle- and butcher-ground.

And when my eye flees from the present to the by and gone, it finds ever the same: fragments and limbs and fearful chances—but no men!

The present and the by and gone upon earth—ah! My friends—that is my most unbearable trouble; and I should not know how to live, if I were not a seer of what is to come.  A seer, a purposer, a creator, a future itself, and a bridge to the future —and alas! …also as it were a cripple on this bridge: all that is Zarathustra.

And you also asked yourselves often: “Who is Zarathustra to us? What shall he be called by us?” And like me, you give yourselves questions for answers.

Is he a promiser? Or a fulfiller? A conqueror? Or an inheritor? A harvest? Or a ploughshare? A physician? Or a healed one? Is he a poet? Or a genuine one? An emancipator? Or a subjugator? A good one? Or an evil one?

I walk among my fellow men as the fragments of the future: that future which I contemplate. And it is all my poetisation and aspiration to compose and collect into unity what is fragment and riddle and fearful chance.

And how could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, and riddle-reader, and redeemer of chance!  To redeem what is past, and to transform every “It was” into “Thus would I have it!”—that only do I call redemption!

—Thus Spake Zarathustra  XLIL Redemption, by Friedrich Nietzsche

Are we not all cripples on this long bridge to the future?

Enjoy this wonderful tune by the Eagles:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5e2aj5

Take It To The Limit 

All alone at the end of the evening
When the bright lights have faded to blue
I was thinking ’bout a woman who might have
Loved me and I never knew
You know I’ve always been a dreamer
(Spent my life running ’round)
And it’s so hard to change
(Can’t seem to settle down)
But the dreams I’ve seen lately
Keep on turning out and burning out
And turning out the same

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time
If it all fell to pieces tomorrow
Would you still be mine?

And when you’re looking for your freedom
(Nobody seems to care)
And you can’t find the door
(Can’t find it anywhere)
When there’s nothing to believe in
Still you’re coming back, you’re running back
You’re coming back for more

So put me on a highway
And show me a sign
And take it to the limit one more time

Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit
Take it to the limit one more time

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