Pressing Questions

What makes us think we can know the truth? What makes us think we need it? Why is it so important that we know the truth? What is the value of this knowledge?

Why do we always think of good and evil impulses as having different origins? Perhaps they don't? How can we ever know anyway? Why do we need to know? Is not knowing satisfactory?

Does knowledge really limit our freedom, or does truth set us free? Are we free when we choose to see what we want to see as opposed to having it dictated to us from without, in short, are we freer being eluded? Or are we free seeing the truth but in our own way?

Are we free when there's absolute right and wrong? Are we free when there isn't? Can freedom genuinely ever be attained? Is freedom really valuable?

What gives anything its value anyway? What makes the beautiful beautiful? Moreover, why is it any better being beautiful? Are there values outside of our valuing or only what we value is valuable? Can we say to someone who values peace and comfort over freedom and beauty that they are wrong? How would we know if we were in any sense "right"?

I don't know if these are important questions, some of them seem to be, but lately I have been falling into nihilistic modes of thinking and these questions are roaring so loudly at the bottom of my soul, I cannot ignore them or solve them. I try not to be prejudiced, I don't want to say that I know the answers to these questions, but i dedicated most of my adult life (which started not so long ago) trying to understand them and appreciate them and - if possible - answer them, but over and over again i fall into nihilism and lose all sense of answers, but with an extra appreciation for the questions.

Guilt

Guilt, as it seems to me, is the price to be paid by someone who has done something "evil" but who does not want to be "evil", to have done evil and to remain good there's a magic solution...Guilt. Guilt is encouraged by some religions as a way to repent and return to God, in Islam the conditions for repenting are Guilt about the past, the intention never to return to sin in the future and stopping the sin in the present. When I think about it, Why guilt? why the past? if it was stopping the sin and never doing it again only then it would make more sense, but why should one feel guilty, and why should this feeling be praised? One feels contempt for what he has done and judges himself as a good man judges an evil one. "I am good now, Someone was once evil and I hate that person, and that someone was me", this is the unspoken message of the guilty.

We judge ourselves as we judge others, and when guilty we are unfair to ourselves as we usually are to others. Guilt that religion promotes seems to take other levels, we feel guilty for living even more for enjoying our lives in the few moments it is be enjoyed, the more religious a person is the more he is guilty about everything he does or does not, in fact, the religious aspect of a person is his ability to feel guilt. Religion teaches us that we are all sinners, and the religious mind does not stop to ask: what is wrong anyway? who is to say what is wrong? and moreover, who is to punish who does wrong? How would God acquire that right? Questions that no religious mind dares to understand, and when it does,...it usually feels guilty about it.

Free Men Dance

People search for a meaning to life as if they were searching for some kind of Truth, as if the meaning of their lives awaits to be discovered. I once read that "there's nothing to replace religion", such naive statements are said by people who believe themselves to be philosophers. In the same sense there's nothing to replace Alchemy or Astrology, Chemistry and Astronomy are not replacements but the truth behind these lies. What need is there for religion anyway? May be because "Man has become a fantastic animal that has one more condition of life to fulfill than any other animal, man has to know, to believe, from time to time WHY he exists- Nietzsche." Religion may have an answer to that question, but it is the same as alchemy and astrology which give answers that have nothing to do with the truth.

The truth is, we exist for whatever reason we want to exist for, if you can't live with that then you should be religious, because you are not destined to be free. Muslims who call themselves slaves of Allah perhaps demonstrate the point well, anyone who believes in a religion that considers dancing "derogatory" to human beings is the best demonstration of slavery. Only a free man can dance, for dancing is purposeless, a slave always wants to be told what to do and is thus incapable of dancing, in fact, needing a purpose to live for is characteristic of slaves. Slaves want to know why they are walking the road, Free men dance.

The God within Us

if one thing is characteristic of all gods, it is their will. The whole universe cannot go against a god's will, his commanding will is always what happens, gods are masters in every sense of the word and everything else has to obey. These gods are most likely human invention and human madness, I would like to add, human weakness, but these fictional characters, are they not present in each and every one of us at least in potential? Are we not all potential gods? Did it not occur more than once that the will of one person changed the world? The answer is surely yes! there are wills so strong that the world had to obey. The biblical God might inspire fear, and require submission, the real gods however re-defined for us what is possible and inspired us with hope and stung the god within us back to life.

Children can ignore probability and possibilities, they are most of the time even unaware of the possibility of failure, their dreams are concrete realities to them and perhaps there's a lesson we should learn from them; the great people of all centuries did not care for the limits and probabilities humans have believed to govern them, their god-like will commanded and the universe had to obey. We have made our way from worm to man, but much within us is still worm, perhaps it is time we are also aware that much within us is god, in this sense, are we not all atheists disbelieving in ourselves and the gods we can be? How can we will if we submit? How can we be free, strong, how can we be gods if God existed? To believe an that god is what it is to be a real atheist, a denier and a weak person.

Can you imagine Achilles saying "I'm not sure what I really want"? Our images of these heroes is that they have strong wills, that they are sure what they want. I can't think of Gandhi thinking "Why am I on a hunger strike? is it really worth it?" His will was stronger and greater than great Britain. They did not wish, dream, fancy or even believe, they willed strongly and violently and the world is powerless against strong wills.

Either, Or

In "The Genealogy of Morals" Nietzsche puts two kinds of moralities in contrast, the morality of "Good and bad" and the morality of "Good and evil." Something which helped me undetstand the whole intent of Nietzsche's philosophy was Nietzsche pointing out that the morality of "Good and bad" which he favors, and in contrast to the morality of "Good and evil", is a positive one; which means it is simply defining what is good, and otherwise is bad, while the later defines what is evil, and otherwise is good. The difference is huge between a morality and a mentality that works to avoid something, and another that works to bring about something even with sacrifices, Nietzsche does not like sacrifices in themselves, for example he doesn't like danger (unlike what most people think), but he likes the positivity which has inevitable sacrifices.

What is health? Is it the absence of sickness? That approach to health is a negative one, it seeks to avoide sickness rather than attain something. Values like safety, the absence of sickness and sadness, comfort (defined as the absence of pain) and all the such are not in themselves bad, to the contrary, what they seek to avoid is really worth avoiding. The point however is that they are keeping us from the greatness of the positive values, like strength, health and joy to name a few. It seems that a brave healthy person should not retreat from the great battle of life, but rather attack, should not seek peace but victory as he mentiones in "Thus Spake Zarathustra".

Keeping this in mind, I can now talk about the idea that just occured to me. It seems to me that at every decision and every action we take, we are either seeking victory or peace, either comfort or joy. The great warrior is not afraid to make sacrifices, he gets wounded, scared and at any time, may be killed, but only such a warrior living in the struggle with pain and danger can experience real joy and victory. Everytime we make a decision we should ask ourselves, are we acting as the great warrior would? Are we being positive in the Nietzschean sense? As we train ourselves to be warriors at the heart we learn to be stronger, we start to be braver.

As beings who are fond of saying no, at every decision we take, every action we do life is offering as a new fresh chance to say yes;"Yes, yes to life, yes to joy and for the sake of that....yes to sacrifices and pain." Who wishes at his deathbed that he didn't suffer, That he didn't cry? They always regret the lack of genuine laughs the lack of passions and special moments; moments of "intoxicating joy" that makes life worth living. I recognize how hard that is, but it is rewarding as it is hard, so remember to say Yes!! at each chance.