Author: Christiaan van Gaal

Day 2862, something to read.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

Human All Too Human II
Part II. The Wanderer And His Shadow.

23. Whether the Adherents of the Doctrine of Free Will have a Right to Punish?—Men whose vocation it is to judge and punish try to establish in every case whether an evil-doer is really responsible for his act, whether he was able to apply his reasoning powers, whether he acted with motives and not unconsciously or under constraint. If he is punished, it is because he preferred the worse to the better motives, which he must consequently have known. Where this knowledge is wanting, man is, according to the prevailing view, not responsible—unless his ignorance, e.g. his ignorantia legis, be the consequence of an intentional neglect to learn what he ought: in that case he already preferred the worse to the better motives at the time when he refused to learn, and must now pay the penalty of his unwise choice. If, on the other hand, perhaps through stupidity or shortsightedness, he has never seen the better motives, he is generally not punished, for people say that he made a wrong choice, he acted like a brute beast. The intentional rejection of the better reason is now needed before we treat the offender as fit to be punished.

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Day 2856, cannot.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Will to Power
Book III: Principle of a New Determination of Values/Part 1. The Will to Power as Knowledge

473 The intellect cannot criticize itself, precisely because it cannot be compared with different kinds of intellects, and because its ability to acquire knowledge would be manifested only in the face of ‘true reality’; i.e. in order to criticize the intellect, we should have to be superior beings who possessed ‘absolute knowledge’. This already presupposes that, apart from all perspectival kinds of observation and sensory and intellectual appropriation, there is something, an ‘in-itself’ – but the psychological derivation of the belief in things forbids our speaking of ‘things in themselves’.

Day 2853, unbendable.

Daily picture, My thoughts

I don’t come from a family where people worked with their hands, so I don’t know why I like to heat up metal and hammer it in the form I want it to be. There are many jobs where you make something direct or indirect but shaping hard steel must be one of the most direct ways of fulfilling this urge a lot of us feel, making something out of nothing. It also helps that I can play with fire, make lots of noise, smash a hammer down on glowing steel, and smell the poisonous fumes of melting steel and zinc. 

Yesterday I wrote about a book that defends the idea that we have no free will and that our lives are more or less determined from the beginning with very little wiggle room. For today’s post, I was looking for a quote about forging (steel), and I ended up with countless quotes where people tell you that you have to shape your own future. I bet that all these people forge their own path and write about it, do this because they have the character to do so. You can not learn to be adventurous or spontaneous if the circumstances of your life dictate otherwise. Maybe that’s why it is so fulfilling to make something with your hands because almost everybody can make something and shape it in the form they want; we feel deep down that (our) life is unbendable. 

Day 2852, free will.

Daily picture, My thoughts

Archaeological evidence suggests that the first people arrived about 40,000 years ago in these Arctic regions. These day’s life here is not much different than in milder climates but I have to admit that the idea of living this far north sounded adventurous when I moved here. But what was the reason for those people thousands of years ago to migrate to these cold and harsh environments? 

Today I started listening to this book: Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.

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Day 2851, procrastination.

Daily picture, My thoughts

I did this picture before as a picture of the day. I just like it, and I sometimes don’t feel like taking pictures. Often, just seeing the landscape that passes by is enough, and even if the memory of it only lasts a few seconds, I  have seen it and enjoyed its fleeting gift. 

But these mountains were never this dramatic in reality; this is just how I edited them, and how I want to remember them after the edit. My memories of that day are now this picture, maybe better, but the comparison is gone though the mountains are still there.

One thing I know: I wish I took more time taking pictures of fleeting moments. I don’t know why; maybe I just want to spend more time with reality before it’s gone or edited by me. 

You never know what the moments bring you.

Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off important tasks such as attending an appointment, submitting a job report or academic assignment, or broaching a stressful issue with a partner. It is often perceived as a negative trait due to its hindering effect on one’s productivity, associated with depression, low self-esteem, guilt, and feelings of inadequacy. However, it can also be considered a wise response to certain demands that could present risky or negative outcomes or require waiting for new information to arrive. (Wikipedia)

 

Day 2850, nihilism.

Daily picture, Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche

The Will to Power
Part 1. Nihilism

38 There has recently been a great deal of idle talk using a loose and altogether inapplicable term: pessimism. Everywhere the talk is about pessimism, and everywhere people (occasionally even sensible people!) are wrangling over a specific question which they think admits of an answer: whether optimism or pessimism is correct. What they do not understand, although it is palpable, is that pessimism is not a problem but a symptom, that the term should be replaced by nihilism, that the question of whether it is better to be or not to be, is itself an illness, a decline in strength, a kind of hypersensitivity. The pessimistic movement is only an expression of physiological décadence . . .

Day 2848, new keel.

Boat building, Daily picture

If you ever restored a wooden boat, you probably know what you see in these pictures and what it entails to change a heavily damage keel for a new one. If you don’t know what is going on, I would like to tell you, but not now; it will take a couple of hours because I don’t want to take shortcuts. You can, of course, become an apprentice boatbuilder for a couple of years and find it out yourself because reading about it or doing an internet search will not help you much. It’s like a metaphor for life and the many questions within; there are no shortcuts…