491 Another reason for solitude!– A: So you intend to return to your desert?- B: I am not quick moving, I have to wait for myself- it is always late before the water comes to light out of the well of my self, and I often have to endure thirst for longer than I have patience. That is why I go into solitude- so as not to drink out ofeverybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul – and I grow angry with everybody and fear everybody. I then require the desert, so as to grow good again.
At one time Zarathustra too cast his delusion beyond man, like all the afterworldly. The work of a suffering and tortured god, the world then seemed to me. A dream the world then seemed to me, and the fiction of a god: colored smoke before the eyes of a dissatisfied deity. Good and evil and joy and pain and I and you-colored smoke this seemed to me before creative eyes. The creator wanted to look away from himself; so he created the world. Drunken joy it is for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and to lose himself. Drunken joy and loss of self the world once seemed to me. This world, eternally imperfect, the image of an eternal contradiction, an imperfect image-a drunken joy for its imperfect creator: thus the world once appeared to me. Thus I too once cast my delusion beyond man, like all the afterworldly. Beyond man indeed? Alas, my brothers, this god whom I created was man-made and madness, like all gods! Man he was, and only a poor specimen of man and ego: out of my own ashes and fire this ghost came to me, and, verily, it did not come to me from beyond. What happened, my brothers? I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself. And behold, then this ghost fled from me. Now it would be suffering for me and agony for the recovered to believe in such ghosts: now it would be suffering for me and humiliation. Thus I speak to the afterworldly. It was suffering and incapacity that created all afterworlds, this and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer most deeply. Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor, ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.
The point of a good conversation about a specific subject does not have to be to test the strength of your opinions or to disprove someone else’s. For me, it is the momentum your thoughts gain, and if you play it right, you let go of the wheel and see where it goes.
I am not on social media and know no one in my immediate vicinity who shares my interests, like the meaning of life from a Nietzschean perspective.
Today’s brief conversation with LeChat (Vibe) started with me asking who George Gurdjieff was. It was mostly to start a conversation, since I had already looked him up on Wikipedia. I asked because I listened to a podcast where two people talked about mysticism as if they were discussing types of grass. They treated it as if it were all true, not just a way of looking at reality.
Me:
Why do you think so many people are interested in higher consciousness, mindfulness, and related topics? Is it because they claim to have conveniently reached a higher realm where the truth is knowable? Why are many of these spiritualists so obsessed with finding truth rather than living life?
LeChat:
Your question cuts to the heart of a tension that’s always existed in spiritual and philosophical circles: the search for truth vs. the experience of living. There are a few possible reasons why so many are drawn to the idea of higher consciousness, mindfulness, or “truth”—and why this can sometimes feel like an escape rather than an engagement with life.
A whole lot of explanation and summarizing follows; this is something LeChat does, and I will leave it away for the most part in the coming conversation. It sometimes points to specific philosophers or other ideas, so it can be helpful.
Given your interest in Nietzsche, amor fati, and the idea of embracing life as it is, it sounds like you’re already skeptical of the idea that truth is something to be “found” rather than lived. Maybe the obsession with higher consciousness is, for some, a way to avoid the chaos and beauty of the here and now.
Rudolph Steiner had some interesting ideas about education. I went to a Steiner school when I was young and benefited from it. He also has a lot of esoteric and, quite frankly, nonsensical ideas, but during my time, those vague ideas only played in the background and, because of our young age, were never really pushed. Because so many (young) people’s ideas are now influenced not only by their immediate surroundings but also by what is fashionable on their social media apps, a bit of independent thinking in their formative years should be important to undermine these destructive forces. Rudolph Steiner had some good ideas about the goal when guiding young people towards adulthood.
His ideas are good, in my opinion; you don’t need a whole Lebensanschauung to implement them, you can just implement them as principles.
“Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility—these three forces are the very nerve of education.” Rudolf Steiner
