Nietzsche And The Path To Self Discovery
Friedrich Nietzsche considered himself the first psychologist among the philosophers. This he clearly echoed in his autobiography Ecce Hommo when he wrote:
That a psychologist without equal speaks from my writings — this is perhaps the first insight gained by a good reader…
Who among the philosophers before me was in any way a psychologist? Before me, there simply was no psychology.
No doubt, this was a grandiose assessment of himself. But if one is to delve into his writings, there was at least some grain of truth to his claims.
Controversial as he is, deep psychological insights can be learned from him about our true nature as human beings.
Carry The Cross Of Self Discovery
No price is too high for the privilege of owning yourself —Nietzsche
Most of us have been born and brought up in societies where life is much better than 200 years ago. Think about this; before 1800, even in the most developed countries of the time, life expectancy everywhere was less than 40 years. Today, even in the most under-developed country, life expectancy is 54.
For the most part of 200,000 years, life has been very hard for homo sapiens. War, poverty, and pestilence have been our default. We have evolved to face difficulties.
With such a long history of hardships, our modern fallacy has been the pursuit of happiness. This puts us on a treadmill of misery because our biology is not wired for happiness. This is not at all to reject happiness. If you are happy, more power to you. Enjoy your happiness. Understand, however, that happiness is a by-product and not an end in itself.
Making happiness our highest spiritual pursuit may have devastating consequences when we’re hit head-on with the problem of suffering.
Anyone who thinks deeply about human nature will soon run into the problem of suffering. Our spiritual growth is enhanced on the other side of our struggles. Suffering is an integral part of human survival. This we have forgotten because of the ease with which technology has made in our lives.
It is when we take up the cross that we find meaning to life. The path to self-discovery is paved with hardships and isolation. The trade-off of self-discovery is between freedom and herd mentality.
Owning yourself means you’re free from your primitive reptilian instincts. You are in control of your emotions and not the other way round.
This comes with deliberate practice but with time and effort, you’ll be able to control your instinctive psychological responses.
You may well live up to 90, but if you’ve not taken deliberate steps to cultivate your inner genius, if you don’t own yourself, you’d have lived a life of “laziness” as Nietzsche wrote in his beautiful essay “Schopenhauer as Educator.”
In his heart, Nietzsche continues in his provocative prose, every man knows quite well that, being unique, he will be in the world only once and there will be no second chance for his oneness to coalesce from the strangely variegated assortment that he is: he knows it but hides it like a bad conscience —why? From fear of his neighbor who demands conformity and cloaks himself with it.
Certain steps in life can only be walked by you. Only by discovering that inner genius can you walk that path.
Amputate Yourself from The Herd
What we’ve called universal values, what we’ve called truth, has always only ever been the personal expressions of those who promoted them — Nietzsche
For societies to function, for us to live together, we’ve agreed to live up to certain standards and rules. We’ve developed moral codes to be able to control the extremes of our behavior.
The pendulum can easily swing to the other extreme, and the rules we have prescribed become a burden on the individuals in society. The strict codes limit our individuality and creativity.
And if we are pushed to the extreme by these moral codes, we often rebel, giving way to antisocial attitudes and at times antisocial actions. Outrage and tribalism is often the result of preaching strict dogmatic morality.
Religious institutions and some learning institutions are the culprits; preaching this dogmatic morality, and those who try to break away are often considered to be dangerous in society. These are a group of people in society who will see the need to educate themselves and amputate themselves away from the herd.
The herd on the other hand has killed their creativity and dreams. They are deeply insecure to see people who pursue their creative endeavors.
Your job is to amputate yourself away from the herd and pursue your creativity. From the sidelines, you can watch the millions trapped in the identity politics of the day. Much as Nietzsche said God is Dead, identity politics is a new religion.
This new religion may be worse than the “traditional religions” because the practitioners do not even know they are religious. In fact, most of the identity political types identify themselves as atheists.
Millions are trapped in this new religion. When you amputate yourself from the herd, they will not notice your absence.
Meanwhile, one less voice of outrage is a net gain for humanity.
Final Thoughts
Since his death in 1900, Nietzsche has been written about in connection with much of modern intellectual discourse. At the time of his death, he was clinically insane, being cared for by his sister.
His critics have thus questioned the wisdom of his philosophy and his insights into the human psyche. But in some unpublished notes, before his descent into madness, Nietzsche seemed to have seen through his critics when he wrote:
“There is a false saying: “How can someone who can’t save himself save others?” Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?”
