My philosophy
wanders like the animal chooses
like birth itself
does not shape you
neither is a philosophy not shaped
by its birth
our philosophy
is not the measure of man
Day 3720, Beyond Good and Evil in short 3
Daily picture, Poetry, QuotesQuotes
Day 3719, Beyond Good and Evil in short 2
Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
The angel and devil
are not distant cousins
but brother and sister
they can live apart
but come from one
this is perhaps
the new message
Day 3718, Beyond Good and Evil in short 1
Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
Why not rather untruth?
Is the search for truth
not a deep look in the mirror
where your-self
submits you
Day 3716, for the sake.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
485 Distant perspectives. – A: But why this solitude? – B: I am not at odds with anyone. But when I am alone I seem to see my friends in a clearer and fairer light than when I am with them; and when I loved and appreciated music the most, I lived far from it. It seems I need a distant perspective if I am to think well of things.
487 Shame. – Here stands the handsome steed and paws the ground: it snorts, longs for the gallop and loves him who usually rides him – but oh shame! his rider cannot mount up onto his back today, he is weary.- This is the shame of the wearied philosopher before his own philosophy.
489 Friends in need. – Sometimes we notice that one of our friends belongs more to another than he does to us, and that his delicacy is troubled by and his selfishness inadequate to this decision: we then have to make things easier for him and estrange him from us.- This is likewise necessary when we adopt a way of thinking which would be ruinous to him: our love for him has to drive us, through an injustice which
Day 3710, ownness.
Daily picture, Quotes
Max Stirner
The Ego and His Own
Part Second I
I Ownness, “Does not the spirit thirst for freedom?”—Alas, not my spirit alone, my body too thirsts for it hourly! When before the odorous castle-kitchen my nose tells my palate of the savory dishes that are being prepared therein, it feels a fearful pining at its dry bread; when my eyes tell the hardened back about soft down on which one may lie more delightfully than on its compressed straw, a suppressed rage seizes it; when —but let us not follow the pains further.—And you call that a longing for freedom? What do you want to become free from, then? From your hardtack and your straw bed? Then throw them away!—But that seems not to serve you: you want rather to have the freedom to enjoy delicious foods and downy beds. Are men to give you this “freedom,”—are they to permit it to you? You do not hope that from their philanthropy, because you know they all think like—you: each is the nearest to himself! How, therefore, do you mean to come to the enjoyment of those foods and beds? Evidently not otherwise than in making them your property! If you think it over rightly, you do not want the freedom to have all these fine things, for with this freedom you still do not have them; you want really to have them, to call them yours and possess them as your property. Of what use is a freedom to you, indeed, if it brings in nothing? And, if you became free from everything, you would no longer have anything; for freedom is empty of substance
Day 3701, nature.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
468 The realm of beauty is bigger. – As we go about in nature, with joy and cunning, bent on discovering and as it were catching in the act the beauty proper to everything; as we try to see how that piece of coastline, with its rocks, inlets, olive trees and pines, attains to its perfection and mastery whether in the sunshine, or when the sky is stormy, or when twilight has almost gone: so we ought to go about among men, viewing and discovering them, showing them their good and evil, so that they shall behold their own proper beauty which unfolds itself in one case in the sunlight, in another amid storms, and in a third only when night is falling and the sky is full of rain. Is it then forbidden to enjoy the evil man as a wild landscape possessing its own bold lineaments and effects of light, if the same man appears to our eyes as a sketch and caricature and, as a blot in nature, causes us pain, when he poses as good and law-abiding? – Yes, it is forbidden: hitherto we have been permitted to seek beauty only in the morally good – a fact which sufficiently accounts for our having found so little of it and having had to seek about for imaginary beauties without backbone! – As surely as the wicked enjoy a hundred kinds of happiness of which the virtuous have no inkling, so too they possess a hundred kinds of beauty: and many of them have not yet been discovered.
Day 3695, a book.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
454 Digression. -A book such as this is not for reading straight through or reading aloud but for dipping into, especially when out walking or on a journey; you must be able to stick your head into it and out of it again and again and discover nothing familiar around you.
Day 3689, will to be free.
Daily picture, My thoughts, Quotes
This is what I was thinking this morning.
I don’t believe in free will because I don’t believe we have a fixed “I” or soul. The I that I think of is more of a snapshot in an ever-changing row of identities. If I think or talk about who I am, I will change that story over time without realizing it. We forget how we identified ourselves in the past, making it seem as if our identity is a constant. You could say that decisions of my earlier me’s influence who I am now. I did not make those decisions; earlier circumstances and versions of me did. That’s one of the reasons I don’t believe in free will.
I do feel that I have a core that stays the same, but I also realize I have no independent way to check this. We all know that we change over time; no one will deny that. But that kind of change is more like what you go through at school, where you take classes and learn things. The things you learn add to who you are. But underneath these life lessons, so to speak, we also feel a more constant identity. We also know that a big part of this identity is located in the brain; change the brain, and your identity changes. Phineas Gage (https://www.verywellmind.com/phineas-gage-2795244) is the obvious example: whether he fully understood the change himself is less important than the fact that people around him did. Like everything in our bodies, our brains also deteriorate over time, and with them, perhaps our identities.
Our identity is constantly changing, and we might be lucky to hold onto the same identity for a few weeks before events alter our perception of our past and present us, the you that is in the making, with a new identity.
Many other thinkers have written about this idea. The way I wrote it down just now might be unique, but I can trace the path back into my past to see who influenced me and shaped my thoughts. Hume is one of those who have influenced me, not so much by the work I read from him but by the place he has in Philosophy. I have a book from him, and though I have had it for 20 years, it still looks brand new, though I found one of my bookmarks at page 92. I just tell myself that the mere presence of these kinds of books in my house rubs off on me. In reality, I used them to verify quotes because you should never trust a source to guarantee a quote’s accuracy.
I used my AI helper to point me in the right direction for finding a quote in Hume’s work about what I was writing about. It pointed me to this chapter, and though it quoted the passage incorrectly, the whole chapter is about an idea similar to what I thought of this morning. In my experience, the AI is almost always bad at quoting, and it tells so much itself. As I said before, you should always go to the source. On the other hand, the AI quote was not wrong; it still portrayed Hume’s intention, and like the modern “translation” into today’s English, they both differ substantially from the original in the words they use. Underneath the text, I will put two screenshots.
Day 3688, Saturday Nietzsche.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
450 The allurement of knowledge. – A glance through the portals of science affects passionate spirits as the magic of all magic; and it will probably turn them into fantasists and, in the most favourable case, into poets: so vehement is their craving for the happiness of those with knowledge. Does it not thrill through all your senses – this sound of sweet allurement with which science has proclaimed its glad tidings, in a hundred phrases and in the hundred-and-first and fairest: ‘Let delusion vanish! Then “woe is me!” will vanish too; and with “woe is me!” woe itself will be gone.’ (Marcus Aurelius)
Day 3674, simple things.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
434 Making intercession.– Unprepossessing landscapes exist for the great landscape painters, remarkable and rare ones for the petty. For the great things of nature and mankind have to intercede for all the petty, mediocre and ambitious among their admirers- but the great man intercedes for the simple things.
Day 3662, I deciphered.
Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
In the right circumstances
we can all feel vertigo
when looking up
I deciphered my handwritten notes from a notebook from 2004. It was all in Dutch but I translated it and took some of the rambling out, but maybe not enough. I leave that decision up to you.
What am I worried about?
Structuring society in such a way that every individual coming into the world, man or woman, is given nearly equal opportunities to develop their various abilities and thereby be able to utilize them in their work.
(uit L.J.C. Beaufort, Michael Bakounin, Majesteit, pag. 30)
Why would you worry about your fellow human? In my case, the lack of freedom for others takes away my own freedom. Everyone is increasingly looking alike, as if we no longer have a choice in shaping our own future.
That freedom seems vast because, apparently, no one tells you what to choose or forces you to do this or that. You can select which school to attend, where to work, how to live, and where to go on vacation. Most of the time, people also feel comfortable with those choices: ‘It’s all good, and I feel good.’ The measure of pleasure is whether you feel comfortable. Of course, it’s nice when people feel good; peace of mind is, after all, the ultimate goal of life, I think that is what they say.
But many people don’t feel good and, seemingly, have the same freedoms and opportunities but cannot use them. They can’t because they lack the necessary capacities and resources or, as in my case, they don’t want to function within a capitalist consumption society. A consumer society involves consumption, and unnecessary products must be made to be sold with the money of the people who produce them. I admit this is a bit of an oversimplification, but essentially, that’s the core idea. Now, this itself isn’t so bad, except that no status quo can exist. Growth must happen, and the industry that promotes this is enormous.
Let’s say someone needs a pair of shoes, free of any influence but with the memory of painful, dull feet. They want shoes that prevent that memory from getting worse. Their new shoes do their job, and when worn out, they buy new ones. I’m not suggesting you should only have one pair of shoes, but how much is enough? Most people find it strange if you have 30 pairs, but many do. They probably serve a great purpose for the consumer society, but at what cost? It’s very hard to think through and measure, but I see 30 pairs of shoes made from material that must be extracted from the ground, processed, and transported, all just for the madness of someone who thinks they need so many shoes to protect their feet.
Day 3660, call to prayer.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book V
423 In the great silence. – Here is the sea, here we can forget the city. The bells are noisily ringing the angelus – it is the time for that sad and foolish yet sweet noise, sounded at the crossroads of day and night, but it will last only for a minute! Now all is still! The sea lies there pale and glittering; it cannot speak. The sky plays its everlasting silent evening game with red and yellow and green, it cannot speak. The little cliffs and ribbons of rock that run down into the sea as if to find the place where it is most solitary, none of them can speak. This tremendous muteness which suddenly overcomes us is lovely and dreadful, the heart swells at it. – Oh the hypocrisy of this silent beauty! How well it could speak, and how evilly too, if it wished! Its ued tongue and its expression of sorrowing happiness is a deception: it wants to mock at your sympathy!- So be it! I am not ashamed of being mocked by such powers. But I pity you, nature, that you have to be silent, even though it is only your malice which ties your tongue; yes, I pity you on account of your malice!- Ah, it is growing yet more still, my heart swells again: it is startled by a new truth, it too cannot speak, it too mocks when the mouth calls something into this beauty, it too enjoys its sweet silent malice. I begin to hate speech, to hate even thinking; for do I not hear behind every word the laughter of error, of imagination, of the spirit of delusion? Must I not mock at my pity? Mock at my mockery?- 0 sea, 0 evening! You are evil instructors! You teach man to cease to be man! Shall he surrender to you? Shall he become as you now arc, pale, glittering, mute, tremendous, reposing above himself? Exalted above himself?
Day 3653, old and not so old.
Daily picture, Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
Book IV
381 Knowing one’s ‘individuality’. – We are too prone to forget that in the eyes of people who are seeing us for the first time we are something quite different from what we consider ourselves to be: usually we are nothing more than a single individual trait which leaps to the eye and determines the whole impression we make. Thus the gentlest and most reasonable of men can, if he wears a large moustache, sit as it were in its shade and feel safe there – he will usually be seen as no more than the appurtenance of a large moustache, that is to say a military type, easily angered and occasionally violent – and as such he will be treated.
385 The vain. – We are like shop windows in which we are continually arranging, concealing or illuminating the supposed qualities others ascribe to us- in order to deceive ourselves.
390 Concealing mind. -When we catch someone concealing his mind from us we call him evil: and all the more so, indeed, if we suspect that he has done so out of politeness and philanthropy.
419 Party courage. – The poor sheep say to their shepherd: ‘go on ahead and we shall never lack the courage to follow you’. The poor shepherd, however, thinks to himself: ‘follow me and I shall never lack the courage to lead you’.
Day 3641, to a world.
Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
A youngling opens up,
to a world in riddles.
I admire Tolstoy, not because of his work, which I have never read, but because of what he stood for. I believe that when people say it is a fantastic read, I can see it after a few pages; I don’t have the time to read the rest. Too many books lie around that I have started reading or are waiting patiently for my attention. I have the idle hope that one day I will take the time. I found this quote online, well, not this quote, but something similar. The quotes you find online are not always correct, but after some digging, I found the source and read the chapter till I found it. Russians are a mysterious folk; I wish they still were, now they are as predictable as the rest.
“I have met him. But he’s a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those uncouth new people one’s so often coming across nowadays, one of those free-thinkers you know, who are reared d’emblée in theories of atheism, scepticism, and materialism. In former days,” said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, “in former days the free – thinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to free – thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of born free – thinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (Part 5, Chapter 9)
You can read the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1399
Day 3632, Clarence Darrow.
Daily picture, Quotes
The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.
The modern world is the child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and faith. (why I am an Agnostic)
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death. (The Myth of the Soul)
Why I am an Agnostic and Other Essays, Clarence Darrow
Day 3625, in one’s thirtieth year.
Daily picture, Quotes
2. If you want to know what other people think about somethingthat concerns you, you have only to reflecton what you would think of themunder the same circumstances. you schould regard no one as morally superior to you on this point, and no one as more simple. More often than we think, people notice things we believe we have artfully concealed from them. Of this remark, more than half is true, and that is saying a lot for a maxim composed in one’s thirtieth year.
George Christoph Lichtenberg, the Waste Books
Translated by R.J. Hollingdale