Nietzschean Soul Magics.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy didn’t have much to do with the world around him — I think because he realized how small his place in everything really was. Thusly, I don’t mean metaphorically when I say that Nietzsche was a real-life sorcerer. He understood the magic of words and thought systems, and rationalized the entire world in his mind. He’d seen beyond the world’s lies, maintaining insight into what really was.
Parts:
1. Pain
2. The Abyss
3. Eternal Recurrence
4. Authenticity
“Pleasure … pain … All things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols
Nietzsche’s views on pain and suffering are nothing short of spellbinding. He finds discomfort the essence of betterment, such that pain blossoms from creation, and creation blossoms from pain. To Nietzsche, we are natured to suffer for the purposes of self-creation — self-generativity. We can create things from destruction. So to deny it, even temporarily, would be to deny ourselves. The pain that is, is an integral part of what we are. Torment cannot die, so it is our reality. We are born to suffer, then die, like any other creature. All we can do is cope. But as Nietzsche thought, this fact does not mean that displeasure should be avoided, but the contrary. Pain must be endured for the sake of our future, which means that it actually has an importance beyond simply being unpleasant. Discomfort is an energy that must be embraced, rather than repressed. If not, its power will become irrelevant.
“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
— Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche’s abyss is a portal to a world of infinite possibility — a glimpse into the ultimate mystery, what lies beyond, and what it all means. If we cease to exist in our own minds, then there is no ‘where’ to go to at all. And as moments of time pass without our attention, we eventually start to forget how we came into being, thus making contact with the abyss. We lose all sense of continuity, the same way we lose all concept of space itself. Our mind may then come to be a forest sprouting and wilting, people growing old to die, a world burning yada yada. After confronting the abysmal reality of inner-being, the only way to make things meaningful again is again in our mind. But when we mindfully live our lives, there seems to be no teleological end to the process of life and death. So to Nietzsche, all that matters is our experience, and we are the ones responsible for what happens to us. In fact, “Self-accountability” is the conceptual soil from which the abyss is born.
“The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”
— Nietzsche, The Greatest Weight
Nietzsche emphasized the mortality of all creatures, including god: Hence why his eternal recurrence suffices as a constant refrain. He does not care if you are good or bad, if you have never felt pain or sorrow, or even if you are or aren’t divine. Nietzsche does not care if you created the world, because who should care? No matter what he comes across, he’ll see it in terms of a cyclic mortality, an absolute obligation to die and return again, which takes root in the deepest part of human nature. For Nietzsche, recurrence isn’t only a loop in life and death, but time itself. It exists for its own sake, without reference to truth, morality, reason, or to justice. It constitutes the world we inhabit, the one in which we are born and die. Though, “eternal return” is a paradox, because it has no reasonable boundaries. No walls that separate us from the surrounding world. Nothing separating life and not life — it’s all just world. There is no difference between night and day, birth and death, good and bad. On the eternal scale, everything around us exists in relation and in equal measures.
“My humanity is a constant self-overcoming.”
― Nietzsche, The Will to Power
Nietzsche’s will to power is really a will to authenticity. He wants us to seek an understanding of the universe in order to find ways to stand up against it. He wants us to know the truth about everything that happens. However, Nietzsche’s authenticity went further than this. He realized that the world isn’t a simple thing like many metaphysicians and philosophers considered it to be; and that reality is, past a point, far more complicated and complex than anything anyone could possibly imagine. This means there are things about existence that we can never understand by virtue of relativity. The world is always bigger than expected — and in parallel, your own power is greater than you know. Power starts as nothing more than a twitch in your mind, in your intentions, and then evolves into a deep knowledge of your true identity: your goals and values.
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