As with all beautiful gift i have received, i was introduced to
Nietzsche by my brother. When he moved to States he gave me all his books and
one among them was "Modern Classics Selected Writings- Nietzsche."
Who was Nietzsche, you ask. Telling you that he was a philosopher
will not suffice. He was a psychologist as well, in fact Sigmund Freud said
Nietzsche was the greatest psychologist ever lived, but that is not all. He has
been called Antichrist as well, for questioning the prevalent Christian practices,
so we can understand the impact he had and keeps having on the world.
His themes are not just revolutionary and thought provoking but
for some people they seem to be offensive as well. For example when, through
the mad man he declares that god is dead, he offends the whole institute of
church. He does not stop at that, he goes on to say we have killed him and it
is too early for him to come and announce of the events that have taken place
because we are not ready. The other themes include one of the most infamous of
his work- ubermeinch or the superman and the one with most impact- Will to
Power. These are but just some of his works.
When we talk about a philosopher his personal life has also to be
talked about as it has a huge impact on development of one's conscious self.
His was a very sad life. And his demise was even sadder. He died after a decade
of complete insanity. But between these two generic events that every person
has to encounter it was the work he did between that made him what he was, and
it certainly is the uniqueness of this world, even today. There are some
anecdotes that I am going to share about his life which I remember now that can
arouse interest in you about this man. Once he went to a brothel and was
overjoyed at finding a piano there and enjoyed his time there by playing piano.
Another time, towards the end of his life, he embraced a horse on a busy street
and started weeping. The reasons for such behavior is topic to discuss another
time.
I am not a Nietzsche scholar. I am just a regular reader who came
across his work and stood there for a long time in awe and admiration as well
confused and unknown to the acuity of what he wrote. I might be wrong in
comprehending what he actually meant when he wrote, but as they say one cannot know
what was written but only that what they read. I too will write about what i understood
of things i read. After all a philosopher has one thing to do, to make people
think. Ignite the flame, rest has to be done by the individuals to arrive at
their own conclusion. A representation of a philosophers mind like Nietzsche
can provoke thoughts in a well reasoned man while other's may just find him
disgusting as we talked earlier.
What i am concerned with here is the philosophy that he proposes
in a unique way. He writes mostly in form of aphorisms. To start thinking about
things we do not think in our life, but are important for development of an
individual as well as a society as whole. I have drift away from such hard
hitting, thought provoking ideologies making my mind limited in the way that
recieptiveness of it has became limited. Let me dive into myself a little by
little for a better way to think and thus- to live by trying to understand by
expressing myself, which is another limitation which caused by lack of open
thought process.
Therefore, I will try to express myself on what Nietzsche wrote as
I perceive it.