My Philosophy Diary

Drunk thoughts

2012-01-02T10:50:00.001-08:00

Being read severely harms writing; an effect that precedes its cause. I write best when I am too sleepy or drunk to write, that is why I will never write anything that I like. When I'm drunk or sleepy I know I won't write, and I know therefore there will be nothing to read so I get good thoughts; lazy, sleepy, drunk and honest thoughts. Measurements distort their own results, and just like that, reading changes what is being written, even listening changes what is being said; honesty defined as telling an undistorted truth becomes impossible even with oneself if one is listening. Ironically, it is not being drunk that takes us to another world, it is being sober; being drunk is getting back to the real world...that is my experience.

We are too busy giving meaning to what we say that the truth is lost, which for all we know might be meaningless. The best case to be made for the existence of a god is the fact that everything good happens on its own, art and cultures just grow beautifully and in a harmony that can't be explained. Everything can only be bad once altered by our consciousness; that's a good case for a caring god, who must be too good to be conscious; God must be drunk.

Positivity!

2011-08-22T07:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, reading "The Genealogy of Morals" made me realize something that, now that I think about it, seems so central to Nietzsche's philosophy; for Nietzsche positivity is not only about acting and being oneself, one must also be positive in thought. In the preface he mentions something he disagrees with and then writes that it is of no use to refute his opponent, but merely to replace it as a positive thinker would, but I also realized that the replacement itself is a positive one. Darwinian thinkers view the origin of morality as a distinction that has been coined by those who an action is in favor of or against in a period preceding the forgetting of that origin and these values of good and evil becoming what they are now, making the origin of morality merely accidental, something that no one intended and that has originated merely as a way for those benefited or harmed by another's action to praise and blame.

Nietzsche on the other hand, being positive in thought, views the origin of morality and the words 'good' and 'bad' as a way that aristocrats and nobles has used to indicate their superiority; thus replacing a theory that gives credit to forgetfulness and accident to one which claims that morality was rather something originated by strong people. Not to condemn or praise another, for that would be too negative, Nietzsche preferred that morality be a product of a more positive endeavor, that of pride and action.

Nietzsche then says that morality was transformed and has become a way to condemn and only conditionally praise those abiding by its rules. He criticizes the new form morality has taken - which he calls slave morality in most of his works - as negative, since it calls this evil and otherwise is good (one need only think of the ten commandments starting with "Thou Shall not.") On the other hand, the morality he describes as master morality originated merely to praise those who are being themselves, and precisely for that reason, it condemns out of contempt for that which is opposed to the good.

The glass boat

2011-07-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

The glass boat is that boat with the glass bottom so that passengers can see the colorful fish, reefs and beauty of a whole different world hidden under a blue surface. Down there its so quiet and pretty, the fish look beautiful and satisfied, they don't seem to care that someone is watching, they are beautiful whether someone is looking or not and they don't even care that they are so beautiful.

What is it supposed to mean, that ride in that damn boat? That there's a whole different world so beautiful and natural, or that our world is so ugly? I watched it and for a moment I forgot that I am not a fish, that in my world there's boredom and despair, that I'm not so colorful and pretty, I'm mostly the same color allover my skin. God must be so boring if he looks like us, I can only believe in a fish God.

We like to dive but no fish likes to go to land (No, I don't believe in the little mermaid!!) This is probably for a reason, our world sucks compared to their's, they don't need to take a break but we desperately do.

I really wish I was a fish, at least as pretty, as forgetful or as careless as a fish. That is impossible so I wish I never went on that glass boat.

Advice from a dead man

2011-05-07T03:58:00.000-07:00

Dear living person, here's a list of the things I wish I had done while I was alive, perhaps it can be useful for you getting a better life:

1- Get drunk often, you will not have the chance to do that once you die.

2- Be passionate, every moment you spend without being intensely felt through is a dead moment.

3- Face your fears, any fear faced twice will not be there for the third time.

4- Have a long healthy enjoyable life, but don't forget to have a nice death.

5- You are not too great not to know of hatred and envy, then be great enough not to be ashamed of them.....well that was Nietzsche but he had a good point there.

6- Don't think too much of what people think of you, they're gonna forget you at best in a few centuries, so do forget them now.

Enjoy your life, please don't forget to give me your feedback. (once you die)

Isn't it Ironic?

2011-04-21T19:06:00.000-07:00

The aim of justice is for citizens to feel safe, it achieves this by means of scaring them.

Ignorant people have the highest regards for knowledge, and not because they lack it. They simply don't know what it's worth!

We like to think God is so great, yet by doing so we limit his greatness by applying our own standards to it.

People like to show off most when they have nothing impressing.

Atheism these days is applying religious rules to religion, what this results in is a consistent religion not real atheism.

People want to gain the recognition of others only when they fail to recognize themselves.

On many occasions it takes more strength to accept defeat than to keep on fighting.

A taste of my bitterness

2011-04-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

We lie because we can think better than what God has in mind!

To live is the slowest way to die.

Happy moments are those in which we tend to forget.

Psychology and biology; learning serves one function only, breeding of the species. We are bound to thinking about life in terms of quantity not quality.

First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they hurt you, then you find out you should just leave them alone.

Negative thoughts

2011-03-13T15:41:00.002-07:00

With germ theory humans have found the element causing most diseases. We seem to know much more about illness than we know about health, we've grown to be so negative that we define health in relation to illness. Just recently I came to wonder what health molecules would be like, what germs causing joy would look like under a microscope that sees existence, not anti-existence.

More generally, we don't know what the will is, what it consists of, we know very well what the atom consists of and even what makes up the brain, but what is will? Perhaps there's a reason we don't know, may be the will is just too positive for us, it will not wait for us to perform tests on it and respond accordingly, the will might even perform its own tests on us. Our approach must be a negative one then, we are not willing to study action but only reaction, and thus see everything as a reaction.

I do not know what the solution to this is, I don't know how to create the microscope that sees positive atoms (ours are neutral) of a positive existence. I am only making a remark on the wrong approach to life, with no hint towards the right one.....am I not then, being negative myself?

Atheist Fallacies

2011-03-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

Some religious people call atheism a religion without a god, some muslims say that atheists worship 'X', with 'X' ranging from reason to nature. In most cases this is true in the sense that most atheists have something to consider sacred. Most atheists would still say that the desire for love is exalted while the desire for sex is low and somehow "wrong", this belief is a result of the religious belief that spiritual needs are in a way 'better' than physical needs. The strange part is that atheists do not believe the soul is some divine breath, almost all of them agree that it is a function of the body so why then is a desire for a spiritual need is of a 'higher nature' than for a bodily one?

Another fallacy atheists make is related to the first, may be the 2nd is the cause of the 1st: they assume an absolute frame of reference to judge from. They assume an authority in morality and truth, some even worship science in the muslims' degrading argument sense. Recently I saw a lecture about a book by Sam Harris saying how morality is not relative and science can show us how to increase happiness and decrease suffering. Thus at one breath he pre-assumed authority to science as well an absolute morality. Only the religious should think they have the authority to deem this good and this bad, this true and this false, in short to judge.

Alive!

2011-02-07T03:01:00.000-08:00

I have been dead, at least I have been asleep. Western medicine has convinced us that as long as we have the power to react to stimuli we are alive, to me however, we are alive when we are able to act, not merely react, willful action is the only proof of our lives. I have been absent from the struggle of life, and life is a struggle, a war, you only get to say you are alive not when hiding behind a shield, but when fighting, killing and injuring for what you want. I've been hiding behind a shield for so long, and had it not been for something which came across to hurt me where I was, I would have never woke up. Today I decided to wake up, i threw my medication for depression on the ground in anger and cried out loud that I don't want it anymore, years and years of death has been enough.

It's been so long since I was so excited about the theory or relativity and the universe. It's been so long since I felt that strong desire in me shaking me to live. I've been asleep for too long, sickly sleeping, eluding everyone that I am getting better when actually I was dying slowly. Depression, Nhilism and the like are things that we feel when we are alive, psychiatry solves this problem by making sure we are dead, spirituality by overcoming them. I made my choice today, to wake up, to overcome and to live and in spite all the pain of regrets, I am happy, Wish me luck.

Cruelty

2010-10-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

Lately I just came to wonder, what might be the motive behind cruelty. I am talking about things like torturing or inflecting pain intentionally on those helpless to defend themselves. It might be said that revenge is the cause of this joy of inflicting pain on others. Nietzsche puts forward a great argument against this naive view; is this not merely repeating the question rather than answering it? Why is their delight in others' pain? because there's a need for revenge, which is a delight in someone's pain. He gives rather an astonishing answer; cruelty must be caused by the idea of owing, they who owe society or a royal individual must suffer to make up for the loss they caused. The idea of owing is the basic idea, therefore, of revenge; you caused me a loss and you owe me pain.

Now that I'm convinced with this I wonder, what is it that makes an all powerful God have his revenge from his beloved creature. I am merely not accusing God of being cruel for promising to torture those who did not believe in him, but; why should he inflect pain on others who had never and will never be able to assault him. I am aware that a god need not exist for this question to be valid, after all, the minds that created God probably had him in mind as he is and his actions are but a manifestations of an all powerful human who's been appointed master of the universe. Could it be that you do not need to be hurt in order to feel that the other owes you? Could it be that the excessive pride - of which all royal dictators suffer - makes it an insult to one's pride merely by any hint of disobedience? May be the master is insulted if the slave does not show that there's a great difference between them.

Of course, we are of an age that does not know very much of cruelty in the way the other ages did. God might seem unfair to us because he does not show himself clearly and yet punishes anyone who doubts his existence, but in the ages God (the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God) was created, this was not a matter of question. God bares the marks of humans as his creators and not the opposite!

Nietzsche and Truth

2010-10-22T16:19:00.000-07:00

In some of his writings, Nietzsche writes that false judgments are a condition for life, to renounce false judgments would be to renounce life; a philosophical crime Nietzsche does not forgive. But on the other hand, we read him writing about illusions that must be rid of and he is very critical at times as to destroy all dogmatic thinking. Something which, when I began reading Nietzsche made me very confused, does he or does he not care for truth? and what is truth to him? If he does not care for truth, in what sense is he a philosopher and not, say, a psychologist who promotes lies for the sake of a good life?

Reading more into it, I started to realize that what he meant is something deeper and a little more complex than what I thought, there was no contradiction anymore. Nietzsche's perspectivism was all I needed to understand. Perspectivism is the idea that there's no "thing in itself" awaiting to be discovered, as opposed to realism, perspectivism is the idea that there's only interpretation of reality, and nothing that can be viewed, as it were, from nowhere, by no one. That is to say; the interpreter determines what is interpreted, one can speak of forces that take hold of something and give it meaning, without it the thing is meaningless and cannot be comprehended by us, but with the force the thing is seen merely as an expression of the force, and to speak of the thing itself without a force dominating it is to speak of a nothing.

Now what he means by false judgments that mankind could not live without is the fact that they do not see something as their perspective, but they see it as if it were the thing in itself. Bad moral philosophy and bad metaphysics are why life didn't perish. In the Gay Science he writes that there was a time when humanity could have perished from good philosophy, and that those who thought rightly died too soon. Now is a time when we still need false judgments of morality to judge with, of a real and an apparent world, in short, of illusions that help us find "Goal" or "meaning" to life. Nietzsche does not think that truth is for everyone, he also wrote that how much truth a soul can take could be a measure of the strength of the soul, because truth can be destructive. But for the strong, for the masters, they might suffer from a little nausea, a little seasickness in the middle of the way but soon they will get beyond that phase, beyond nihilism to the Overman.

Conclusion: False judgments is a condition for lives, but truth is that special interpretation of the strong, of the masters and only they have the right to it. An interpretation that makes the strong and masters is only an interpretation and not absolute truth, but it is in the sense that it can create greatness that it is the only truth.

This is how I finally, after years of trying to make sense of it, got to understand my Nietzsche.

Aphorisms About Commonness

2010-09-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

- Special - Being special can be easily achieved by not trying to be special.

- Double meaninglessness - People listen and read at exactly twice the speed at which they need to listen in order to understand, and talk and write at twice the speed needed to think about what they say.

- Original Thoughts - The radicalness, originality and worth of a thought can be measured by how difficult it is for people to believe, therefore the harder it is to believe something the more likely it is worth believing.

- Radical Talking - To use words in their usual context, that basically means saying the same thing in a different way.

- Stupid Together - Thought organizations, like organized religion, are consultations for stupid people that they are. not the only ones.

- Culture- Culture is the phenomenon of the least intelligent of people telling the rest how to live.

Some Lies

2010-06-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

There's no way to put pain down in words, words can be beautiful or painful, but they can never be beauty or pain. Talking is lying, for words can never say any truth, but create whatever they say, what does that tell us about a god who is fond of writing books? What does that tell us about an animal that even thinks in words? We are the animals that can't live without being superficial, fake and meaningless. We search for meaning to the life, but what does that even mean? Meaning is supposed to be a truth behind that which symbolizes it. How can life have a meaning when life is itself the truth and not a symbol? Perhaps language was meant to be only a tool to go on living, to warn each other, to fake love when necessary, in short, to survive.

I never tired of saying how fake and illusory the world we believe we live in is, but no one seems to be shocked enough. People go on living as if nothing had happened, and never start to doubt their most basic beliefs which are most obviously false. But Nietzsche had it right, without false beliefs, mankind cannot live.

How can I attempt to say anything at all worth saying when anything worth saying cannot be said? I will try to remain silent for a while, may be some truth will be heard!!

Exceptions

2010-06-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Everything seems similar, a rule is thought to prevail, but something seems to distort this image of harmony and goes against this rule; an exception. Some people get so accustomed to rules that an exception becomes unthinkable, especially in the rule 'man'. This rule is the worst insult to the human race; nothing offends me more than saying all men are equal or that there are no exceptions. I certainly try my best to be an exception, when the rule is mediocrity of the mind and soul, an exception is most likely to be excellence. There's just something about the the average man that disgusts me, perhaps it is the childish thinking which is implied by mediocrity; a man thinks as his spirit dictates, only a free spirit can be a free thinker. Most men are just not made for knowledge, they don't even desire knowledge; in this sense are slaves slaves and masters masters.

Perhaps things are for the best, the rule gives the exception its title and rarity gives value to the rare. Perhaps the exception is meant to be an exception; otherwise it would still be vulgar and a new exception would be needed.

The Good Friend

2010-06-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

I am yet to meet a good friend, of course some might seem like great friends from afar, but when observed closely they terribly fail the test of friendship. They are miserable, I should not expect them to be any better, for only someone who knows how to live can know how to be a friend, is not being a friend part of living? These miserable creatures who know nothing of freedom, love or hate, why then did i expect them to know about friendship? they stink with dependency, but the scary thought is: am I any different? For sure I am yet to meet a good friend, but perhaps it is because I am yet to be one, the shortest way for mountains is from peak to peak, perhaps I am yet to be a mountain, for then I will cease to see little sand dunes.

I feel closer to some people I never communicated with than with anyone I have been able to talk to, just the experience of reading 'The Gay Science' by Nietzsche is the most delightful chat I can think of, the idea of this blog and some of the comments I receive are the only deep communication I can have, I believe someone who reads these pages knows me far more than anyone else who lived with me, what does it matter if I like this food or that, or what my perfume smells like? My so called friends may know these things, but here, on these very pages, is my real self, my random thoughts and feelings written down, perhaps some day someone will like me, perhaps we will never meet or shake hands and I may never know about him, but as a matter of fact, I like to think such a friend already exists. This friend likes to read these pages not because they are good writings (they might not be), but because they are me.

Body I am Entirely

2010-03-23T04:56:00.000-07:00

It was the body that despaired of the body, the soul is something within the body. Why then should we complicate things? Spirituality is nothing but seeking a perfectly happy body. Health is not the absence of illness only, but the presence of something that brings "intoxicating joy" into our lives.

You can never cheat your body, when your body gets bored it is a feeling that instigates you to break the rules, to have fun and bring the lost joy back into your life, but when you find different ways of "entertainment" - merely the wasting of time without feeling it passing by - you cheat your body, but fortunately it never works for you will soon realize you are still bored with all your entertainment.

Pain is inevitable, even for a satisfied body but a warrior's body (and spirit) can always get through. I see it now "Body I am entirely."

There's something to dancing that I never knew about; in order to dance you must stop trying to dance and start dancing.

No little art it is to dance, for dancing needs a perfectly happy, perfectly healthy and a perfectly satisfied body. Dancing is the celebrating of the joys of the body, to become a dancer one must first become a lover, an artist and a warrior, certainly not an entertained person, but a living one.

YES!!

2010-03-03T15:39:00.001-08:00

What? A God so great that he can't dance? What kind of greatness is that? He Doesn't sleep, he's not unfair in anyway, and he will never ever die...one question though, what does he DO? He does get angry and seek revenge, create hell and heaven, places for people to suffer eternally or enjoy their lives eternally. This god is the only God, there is no god but GOD ALMIGHTY. To be more specific he is ALLAH, the super-powered being who is too serious, too profound to joke. Apparently he takes himself so seriously that those who will not bow in front of him, those who dare look him in the eyes or question him, will deserve their eternal suffering.

A god whose aggression is revenge, whose love is reward, whose hate is punishment; Your all-powerful God cannot act, but merely react. A God crippled when it comes to dancing, mute when it comes to saying yes, deaf when it comes to good music (at least the Islamic god who prohibits music). It is clear now why Nietzsche favors Greek religion over Christianity, a god of love and war, a god of music and wine, gods who know how to hate and how to love, they are embodiments of something great, and this thing is loved so much that it is embodied and affirmed,...this thing is called life. The 'modern' God however is a god of death and nothing more.

What a tragedy that this is not told to children as a spook-story to scare children in a sadistic way. It is of course that, but it is not told as one, it is told as a profound story; a story about the all-powerful but merciful God. I say I'm more powerful than your Allah, I can laugh, I can dance, tell a joke and I can even laugh at myself; great powers none of which is available to the great God Almighty.

Pressing Questions

2009-12-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-10T03:06:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

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.

The Morals of The Muslim

2009-08-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

I have recently read an introduction of a book about ethics that wasn't written by Nietzsche, It's been long since I did that. I think it's true what people say, when you study philosophy you start to feel wierd about all people, you yourself become strange to the world, but I should add to that; When you study Niezsche you feel wierd about all philosophers, you become even stranger to the world. And just as one thinks "people should read philosophy", one starts to think "philosophers should read Nietzsche."

The book is about Islamic philosophy, "The Morals of the Muslim" was the name of the book. I only read the introduction so far, its about something most muslim thinkers like to talk about, how great thinkers from around the world have done their best to define a "perfect" universal morality, how they all failed to come up with perfection, and how only Islam succeeded to define that perfect universal morality. But the question that can be raised to this is; who defines the criteria for this perfection? To answer this question, Muslims often refer to one of the essential ideas of their philosophy, "Fitra"; it is a word that is hard to explain, it is more than just the human nature, it is the human nature and innate longing for the truth, God and all that is good. And with Fitra it is now easy to explain why Islamic morality is perfect and universal, it is because the very human nature God has created has nothing that suites it except for the morality God created for that nature. "That morality is the only hope for a happy life, for spiritual growth and all psychology and philosophy be damned. The human 'soul' finds its comfort and happiness only with its creator and by following his rules."...that is the basic idea of Islamic philosophy, it is almost books of Islamic philosophy summarized.

As Nietzsche says, one should be more positive, not merely refute a theory but replace it. A theory that is more life-like and less life-despising, less God-like and instead more human-like. Why should we waste our times saying the Islamic view is wrong, it is simply life-denying. I read parts of Zarathustra, the part about the academic chairs of virtue summarizes it well, virtues that promote sleep, comfort and peace are a fallacy, life is not about sleep, comfort or peace. Perhaps the religious way of living aims at avoiding the feeling of misery and not overcoming misery, Nietzsche's philosophy however aims at overcoming misery, overcoming even humanity itself. "We are neither gods nor animals, we are something in between" so says the Islamic philosopher, but the Nietzchean philosopher would answer "We are animals and potential gods."

Haterd

2009-08-24T14:03:00.001-07:00

"Ye are not too great to know of haterd and envy, then be great enough not to be ashamed of them" If someone is to know only one thing about the human race, it should be that we like to think of ourselves much better than we are, we are hypocrites and liars. A friend of mine claims to love me so much, for years we were friends, and he betrayed me the second he needed to. I thought this could be a flaw with my friend, but as the experience is being repeated over and over again, I came to know that humans are not yet capable of friendship, even less of love. Of course many people would disagree, with their great friends and their lovers, but let me tell them that: your great friends are only trying to imply the image of being great friends, and your lovers, well, they are much worse, they are merely following the oldest instinct in all animals. The fact that they hide it behind their so called friendship and love is pathetic. Believe me, I've known many people and expected so much of them. Trust me, do not expect friendship or love from anyone, expect only selfishness and deception.

When a person does something that is said by the common people to be good, it is because that person has no other choice but to do so. A mother has no choice but to rear her child and "love" it simply because an instinct in her that obligates her to do so, do you call that real love? Simply a desire and a lust in the body, our same old "will to power" at play. A girl who once said she loves me left when she found it best for her, if i should blame her it is because she was claiming to know what love is, and nothing more, but who is it who should be blamed, her for pretending to know what love is or me for believing it?

Perhaps I wanted to believe this, I needed love, and as that is not even possible to find, I could accept a fake one. Anyway, it's all the same, I now know what to expect, common interest is the best I can get. But why should I need others to love me? May be this evolved somewhere in the jungle where humans herded to be safer, but it's an insticnt that is no more useful, perhaps the time has come to stop deceiving ourselves, perhaps the time of fake love is gone, and I hope that the dawn of honesty, of acknowledging what we are has come, the "daybreak" shall be the time when we see ourselves, naked and pure.

BPD

2009-08-20T00:10:00.001-07:00

I often dream that my father's death was a lie, that he faked his death to escape and leave me. It is a series of dreams that I sometimes even wake up wondering if he really is dead or not, of course I know he is dead, but the frequency of the dream causes me to be confused for a brief moment right after I wake up. I believe this dream sympolizes something deep in me, unconsciously I feel abandoned by my father, so much that it has affected my self-esteem and caused me to have a fear of rejection.

As usual with someone who feels abandoned, I have been constantly seeking acceptance and love from the world, seeking to be "understood" which is why I seek desperately to be liked and loved in a romantic sense. Tormented by failed tries of establishing a relationship I came to realize what kind of people this sickness of mine attracts and that it was never going to work like that. It was almost a coincedence that I came across a blog post about a book describing people suffering from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), from what I read, it is the fear of abandonment that I suffer from and I bought the book that same day.

I read the book (but didn't yet finish it), I read the criterion of the illness and I believe they are almost all strongly present in me. I do have the unstable relationships that are tense and where I'm extremely needy and desperate for love and acceptance. I do have the splitting problem, the inability to fuse the good and bad qualities of a person and seeing each person as either good or bad, which marks the romantic relationships I have had with others as well as friendships, the people I loved were either great people or evil, I could never see the full picture.

As I read the criterions and their implications I became sure I'm a borderline, although I am diagnosed with and treated for depression. I made a report of reasons I believe I suffer from BPD and next time I meet my psychiatrist I am going to show him the evidence I believe means I'm a borderline personality. The treatment is longer and harder if my speculations turn out to be true so, wish me luck.

Evolution

2009-08-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

The theory of evolution had more effect on the world than most other scientific theories, and I believe it had a major effect on Nietzsche. The concept of evolving ideas and morals was the basic idea of Nietzsche's philosophy. The will to power was the basic theme of both the theory of evolution and Nietzsche's philosophy. All our desires and beliefs evolved in us in the same way Darwin claimed the material organs evolved, this was a conclusion that Darwin himself did not draw from his own theory, Love and hate, good and evil are not from two different sources, but they stem from the exact same source and that is simply "the will to power".

The blind watchmaker that has created our morality of good and evil had its mistakes, like in the case of material organs, some are useless some might even have a negative effect but evolved because they were once useful. Another consequence of humans evolving is the fact that out firmist beliefs - and that includes our logic - are not neccesarily true but important and vital for life, but again our beliefs might be harmful but were once useful, just like our material organs and moralities.

Nietzsche urges us to do consciously what evolution has done for us by the laws of nature, to be aware of these mistakes we might have in our morality and our beleifs and choose consciously what makes us more powerful, what makes us dominate, both in the case of our moralities and our beliefs. The conclusion that our beliefs and moralities are not in any sense true or false but either life enhancing or life denying is the most daring thing I have ever read in my whole life.

Beauty

2009-08-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

Why do we always want to enslave and capture beauty? We hear music once in the street and we want to buy the album and listen to it every day. We see a beautiful woman and we want to marry her and keep her at our home forever. A wild horse is much more beautiful than a tamed one, beauty is better wild than tamed, better free than owned. Why do we want a beautiful moment to last forever? It is beautiful because it passes by, soap bubbles burst too soon, and that is why they are beautiful, dew drops dry too soon and that is why they are so precious.

Art is the most sublime reaction to beauty, one should sing and dance letting beauty flow through him/her like a flood, "it is only as an aesthetic phenomena that life is justified--Nietzsche" life's beautiful, it goes by and it ends too soon, if that is the case, shouldn't we live like artists then? life's cruel, painful and terrifying, only an artist can see the beauty in that, only a greek tragedian can realize that life's beauty is exactly its struggle and pain, and only Nietzsche can idealize the great greek tragedian.

Who am I

2009-07-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Such a shame that whoever reads my diary wouldn't get to know me any better. Perhaps this is because I'm too ashamed of who I am, wouldn't even write anything that would identify me, and no wonder I am ashamed, I am one of the most miserable beings, I can't survive a day without pretending to myself and everyone I'm someone else. My life is a constant try to forget, to forget what I am, to forget what my life is. From depression medications to chat rooms, I'm just someone who's attempting slow suicide, I've been given life and instead of getting rid of it right away, I try to waste it unconscious.

I am far too weak to admit how weak I am. I am too scared to feel my fear, not to mention face it. The one thing I'm sure I know about myself is that I've hidden everything about myself from me. Socrates said all virtues are to be attained by knowledge, I believe he couldn't be more wrong, I believe knowledge is the worst vice, for the more you know the more you hate. Nietzsche loved and valued life, he is my favorite philosopher for exactly that reason, he's doing the one thing I was never able to do. He speaks of the will to power, and it is the weakness in me that loves that and longs for it. I love Nietzsche because I hate my life, he would be ashamed of me!

Are the spirits of men really betrayed in their habits? Well, if so then I have no spirit, I am dead in my own way, except that I'm suffering, which is a symptom of living. This is me, My life and my sickness.

I love you

2009-07-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

We have made everything superficial, fake and illusory, and the best example for this is love. To believe in a higher nature of the exalted state of "being in love" has been the worst sickness of the human race. Are we too bad that we can't look at ourselves? Do we need love and morals to disguise our simple and wild desires, our lust for power? Why is it that we hate everything that is human in us? why do we hate what is earthly and disguise ourselves in values that lay beyond the stars? The earth only knows one value, that is power, only one virtue and that is strength.

'Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!' Leave love for the angels, and let us admit what we are, humans, let us then be great humans, not ashamed of being what we are, great as we are. Let us be free spirits, free of any illusion, free to love ourselves and not hide ourselves. You despisers of life, despisers of yourselves, you believe in a higher nature of love, an innocent love that wants nothing in return, of the immortal soul, but he who loves what he is says 'Body I am entirely', a body that lusts and desires and does nothing else but going after its own lusts and desires.

Life is the great war, an ongoing world war, victory is reserved for great warriors, violent and strong spirits, strongly willing, they do not seek happiness but victory, not glory but greatness. I look inside me and i see no roses or gardens, i see blood spreading life allover my body and i get to see what the color of life is,.....red.

What is your favorite color? Do you like the black death? the blue heaven? white peace? is it ever the red life? Amidst of the most violent of all wars, one should learn how to laugh, that is scarier for the enemies than the loudest roar. Earthly shall be our fears and hopes, the fears to overcome and the hopes to fight for, no more shall we fancy ourselves angels and saints, but humans, all too human.

What do you think Nietzsche would have said?

2009-07-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

The Nature of Happiness

2009-07-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

People always want to be heard, rarely do they have something to say.

I am only reasonable when I'm most miserable.

We are genuinely happy when we have what we can't have, and that does not happen often.

Religion seems to be the faith in the possibility of happiness and believing all what it takes for that.

The inventors of rules for a happier life really help us live a better life for we need rules to break.

A philosopher is someone who is not satisfied with an illusion, but is he ever satisfied?

"I'm miserable for the sake of truth"...No, you are truthful for the sake of misery, my friend.

To learn how to dance you need to unlearn how to dance.

The road to happiness does not have happiness at the end of it.

The Dancing God

2009-07-06T04:08:00.000-07:00

'God created man in his own image, and man returned the compliment' Voltaire, It is true that men created God way too human, but certain qualities of humans seem to be "Godly" for men and others don't. For example I never heard of a dancing god, they are all too serious and bitter (as if that was a sign of strength), the god of Islam even prohibits dancing as it "Degrades human beings", it is no coincidence the same god prohibits music and wine, as if men were too exalted for getting drunk or hypnotized with music. This characteristic is common in most religions, God always seems to be bitter and serious, which means that men tend to think low of the real world and they seem to despise life.

Why can't God dance? Why is it not Godly to dance? this is only the image of a god created by the despisers of life, to me, it is more godly to dance than to do anything else. When properly dancing, I feel free of all restrictions, as Nietzsche puts it, when dancing I am one with the world, I lose myself and move freely, there are no rules anymore, no morals or good and evil.

The real world is a terrifying thing, to live in it we need to be fearless warriors, but god doesn't seem to understand this either, he wants to tame the beasts in each one of us, he wants us slaves to him for our better good. God serves us the golden cage that we need to live in to avoid the horrors of the outside, but in return he takes our freedom and our spirits and this is not a fair trade.

The Iliad

2009-07-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Dear diary, for not writing for that long, I've been thinking a lot lately though, in spite of not writing my thoughts as usual. I have been reading the Iliad, a wonderful epic poem, a wonderful struggle, all fighting for their own reasons, for love, for hate, for glory and patriotism, but most importantly everyone struggles and fights as hard as they can. The beauty of that wonderful story lies in the fact that it- just as life is- is a struggle, an ongoing struggle that we can never win, and it's not about winning or losing, it's above all about fighting.

Achilles, the great warrior, understands this, he fights for the sake of fighting, he breaks all the rules, he fights for no one, no god or man can control this man, no morals or rules. He is free, slave to know one, and he knows why to be free, he knows why to fight and why to live. Achilles' loyalty to no one and nothing is what makes him so great, because he is free, his thirst for life, for the eternal struggle where he is bound to lose is what makes him so great.

It is not his ability to fight, it is not his physical strength but his spirit, the love of life and living it to the fullest that makes Achilles the most admirable character in the Iliad to me.

A Summary

2009-06-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

It is really scary, not knowing what one ought to do, for a slave it is the hardest thing to be free. People invent religions in order to not be free, they manipulate their own thinking as well as others and do whatever it takes to live "Apollonian", to watch life from afar and not live it, they are scared of life as a continuous struggle between the barbaric forces of nature and men. So the god of dreams, the great Apollo in each one of us has been dictating our thoughts disguised in our reason.

To be aware of that fact is to free oneself from the spell of Apollo, but it is a whole other thing to reach the Dionysian freedom. Nietzsche favors this Dionysian nature because it is free, but the value of freedom is not intrinsic, it is because it is the only way to truly live. Life is not to be lived through rules and thoughts, but through will translated into action, the will is violent and it should not abide by any rules, it breaks the rules. To will, that is the whole purpose of Nietzsche's philosophy as I understand it, because to will means to truly live.

To have that violent will, to desire and go after what you desire, to be strong and not merely think about life or meditate about it but live it, and to see it as the terrifying struggle that it is but still love it, that should be the higher ideal. What good is a virtue that does not help us do that? What good is praising a god then or what bad is blasphemy against him? Nietzsche is not an atheist for the sake of truth, or for world peace, these are lame excuses. Nietzsche is an atheist because he loves life, what better reason is there to believe something?

Nietzsche holds that all philosophy is a way of justifying a morality, with an unconscious desire directing the line of thought, if that is so, then why not simply let our whole philosophy be as a result of our morality? Why not let our morality be a result of our mastery and strength, love of life and love to ourselves? Why not abandon our superficial "search for truth and higher values" and be honest, and face reality?

This is how I understand Nietzsche's philosophy judging from what I read so far, the only oppositions to it are, as far as I have seen, symptoms of psychological illness, people do not want to face the terror inside themselves, they want to continue to live in their lies, and there's no need for me to argue with them, it is, after all, their choice to live life and miss most of it.

The Birth of Tragedy

2009-06-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my eye fell on another book, and all I needed to see was the author's name "Friedrich Nietzsche", I did not look more into it, I knew I wanted that book. I bought it happy and excited about its content, I went home as fast as I could to start reading it, It was called "The Birth of Tragedy". I couldn't leave the book, from the first page until the last, the book filled me with a new feeling, a feeling I have never felt before.

From looking into Greek art, Nietzsche contemplates on art, through this meditation we learn how art should be. But art is not simply something we do for joy, it is not only entertainment, art is the way we see life, and through contemplating on art we can deepen our view of life, we can learn how to live. The book was amazing, I can't think of anything else and I thought I had to write about it.

I wrote before about the real world, and how philosophy is accused of escaping the real world and not being very realistic. The state of being contemplative, merely an observer is the Apollonian state (after the Greek god Apollo). Apollo is the god of poetry, sculpture and all meditative actions, in poetry and sculpture you are not a part of the piece of art, you are never in the painting, and the sculpture is never moving, you are simply observing them. This is in contrast to Dionysus, the god of madness, or will, of actions, officially the god of wine and of music, and while Apollo merely thinks and observes life, Dionysus is living it and struggling, careless about any rules and simply willing and acting.

Dionysus is the god of wine, the god of "the real world" and not simply of dreaming or illusions, and as such the Dionysian wisdom is to see the terror of existence, to be a pessimist and to understand the real world with all its terrifying nature. The Apollonian on the other hand is the god of poetry and dreams, the part of every one of us to escape, and to become an observer who is not involved in life, and, viewed in this way, life is not so scary since it is simply a dream.

Nietzsche describes the Greek tragedy as the best form of art attained, it is Dionysian as much as it is Apollonian, but as I said earlier, it is not only a matter of entertainment, this is how life is to be viewed and lived, and so the book is also related to ethics. Each of us is an artist, as we are all viewing and representing life in some way, and the lesson about art is to be learned as to show us to how to live, and that is, of course, Dionysian as much as Apollonian, with all the so called "madness" as much as the so called "sanity" to live by the rules but also break them, to think but also act without thinking or to will, barbaric and organized, both at the same time.

All this is in line with all of Nietzsche's philosophy, which, itself, is Dionysian as much as it is Apollonian, he speaks of the will and action but also thinks and meditates, being violent and being a thinker both at the same time, his immoralism is Dionysian. Freedom from morality is not simply about getting rid of the rules to sit and think, it is the freedom to act, to be unjust and willing to destroy and create, all his immoralism aims at being active and truly living, at being Dionysian.

How to sell your soul !!

2009-06-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

How someone defines health and sets it as his goal is simply how one lives his life. To set your goal in the right way is to live life in the right way, perhaps I was too hasty in saying that, there's no right way, but to set it in the best way is to live life as best as you could. Usually in such situations you can either be ambitious and aim high or pick the easy goal and achieve it easily, and Nietzsche thinks one should "live in danger" and be adventurous, so he aims for the highest possible goal, he goes for the "superman".

Psychologist and psychiatrist especially seem to have picked the easy choice, health for them involves no transcending or overcoming what you are, but simply functioning within the herd, psychiatrists are herd moralists, which is no wonder since they seem to be dealing with most people and not just an aristocracy that can achieve much more than the majority. The most unjust thing someone can do is to treat all people as equal, it is unfair to the higher kind, and that is exactly what psychology and psychiatry do. They have set their goal to be the man who is a function within society, a man who works! I don't mean work as in a job, but the other "work". and as he functions he might look as well for a meaning for his life and suffering, of a purpose of existence.

Now the man who functions within society is Nietzsche's "Last man", he thinks he is happy, and he is as far from it as possible, he is not happy and he most probably does not know what it is to be happy, he does not know contempt for himself anymore and thus can never overcome what he is. This is, for those who aim high, the most contemptible state man can be in, but for those who want it the easy way, who find it too hard to actually spiritually transcend themselves, the highest goal.

The difference is obvious between the two approaches, one aims at solitude and strength, freedom and power, the other aims and comfort and illusory happiness amidst of your comfortable crowd. The first aims at not needing acceptance from others to feel good, the second aims and getting this acceptance to feel good. The first is brave and the second is cowardly, to sum up, it is the master and slave morality again.

The motto of modern psychiatry, with the aid of their anti-depressions of course, seems to be "How to kill your pain and stay alive" or "How to sell your soul to society and get apparent happiness in return", but what can we get in return of our souls? what is more precious than life itself? as Nietzsche points out in one passage, the more happy you can be the more unhappy you can be, to kill pain would be to kill joy, joys, passions and pain, there's nothing more precious in life, I don't think psychiatry is a fair trade.

Thus I decided to stop going to my psychiatrist and stop taking my depression pills.

Scientific Miracles

2009-06-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Everything we believe we believe for a reason, and that reason is at bottom an instinct at work. Instead of criticizing the apparent reasons, I started looking at the unconscious reasons behind each belief, but if the root of the belief says something about it, does not the surface say something as well? Perhaps the surface says how good a person is at concealing his real reasons, so instead of fighting with the surfaces perhaps we should look deeper into the psychological needs of the person who gives us an argument.

Where I live, there's a famous argument concerning religion that is so obviously weak, but that is no objection to it, whether weak or strong that makes no difference. Ever since I heard about the argument of "Scientific Miracles" I have been trying to refine my refutation of it, but having read "Beyond Good and Evil" my approach to philosophy has changed completely, so here's my new critique of it:

Scientific miracles are supposedly scientific knowledge that was acquired recently and that is- miraculously- in the Koran which was written before any human had access to these "truths" which proves that there's an omnipotent being who wrote this book. Before I, for some reason, wanted and believed I have succeeded in showing that the argument is false. But now it's all about something totally different, I ask myself instead, why do people try to believe in these miracles, why do others oppose them so much?

Of course "for the sake of truth" does not fool me anymore. So I believe Muslims try to believe in these miracles for some reason, and this in some way shows their power over others, they want their morality to dominate even "truth" itself, they want to say that they are in the right and they own truth in their little book that no one else has. The problem with this is not only that it can be refuted with reasonable thinking, but it is rather the fact that Islam is a life denying, life wasting and anti-freedom religion. So the best answer to these follies would be "I think Islam makes our lives worse, and so this means that it is simply not true", A god that calls us his slaves is not worthy of existence, therefore he does not exist, for why would I believe in him and become a slave myself? Freedom implies that Islam is wrong and there are no scientific miracles!

On TV

2009-06-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

The TV preacher:

"And of course in our Islamic thought we are very superior to non-Muslims, be cause we have the idea of something being holy, such as our respect for our prophet and holy book, something non-Muslims don't have, and that is one of our virtues they don't have"

I heard that yesterday, I was amazed how someone's thinking can be like that, of course the problem with this statement is obvious, he is judging another moral standard with his moral standard, it's like saying "I think this is wrong, they don't agree with me, therefore they are wrong". People have this obsessive need for believing themselves, this man needs to know that he is absolutely (as opposed to relatively) right, so he makes such weird meaningless statement. People tend to think weirdly when they want to prove themselves right to themselves. I can't help but laugh at this, they can't stand moral relativism, they need a firm ground, all philosophers did the same but this man seems to do it more stupidly.

So I must say as well that "our virtues are our virtues and not theirs, therefore, by our standards, we are better than them". Oh, dear diary, how amazing people can be, but to be honest, it is fun to laugh at people, and to laugh at myself as well. I feel great contempt for our human race, it is the only known self deceiving being, and I wish to transcend and overcome myself some day.

Mind Games

2009-06-09T05:44:00.000-07:00

A man of taste loves to play with everyone's mind, including his own. I love to play these mind games, you expect something and sometimes you get a different response and then you try to explain it, so much fun playing with other minds as well as your own. My first game was with myself and my mother. Like almost everyone, my mother is a herd moralist, I told her how I don't care to be successful in the eye of society and how I will re-define success to suite my needs. She totally freaked out like I expected, I on the other hand felt ashamed because of her looks at me, she thought that philosophy and psychology ruined my mind. I knew this would happen as well, but I need to train myself for this exact look, this is how society is going to view me really soon (I hope).

Second thing I did was playing with my psychiatrist's mind (I pay him to play with mine so I think it's fair- Not that I care about justice anyway) The man is so full of moral prejudices, I don't know what did he study in college but he probably wasn't paying attention to the lecturer about Freud, and definitely he didn't read Nietzsche. I was only trying to get him to say something bad about me, and I got what i wanted after a while of talking about psychology and how man is only moved by instincts, morality is only an illusion and a pressure society exerts on us and so on. I got a "You know nothing about psychology, Freud and Nietzsche are old and they are refuted and proved wrong". Again something in me got even more disturbed, I wanted him to look at me that way but a part of me (my herd instinct) still felt bad once he looked at me with contempt.

I'm starting to care less what people would think of me, and that is so freeing and relieving, I started looking at people realizing what kind of freaks they all are. It seems that everyone is in show business, with every lie one lies to himself he is saying "love me, like me, let me in your little club" and the more you prove you're worthy of love the more they want your love and call you healthy, and that was my second game, I let other people try so hard to impress me and I show that they fail so they would try really hard to gain my recognition. This was really funner than the first game of losing other people's acceptance, to let people fight for mine.

I talked with my cousin and friend, and while he tries to fit in the mode of judgment he have gained I tried to show him that this character he's trying to be doesn't impress me and that it is lame, and then he changes what he said so he would change the nature of this character, and again I would show him that it doesn't impress very much, at the end I would push him down a road and then pretend I'm impressed with the most stupid character, and he stuck to it, we ended up with him trying to convince me that he really is a good liar and someone who's ready to try anything even if it is said to be bad by everyone such as drugs.

That was funny to see someone dancing like a fool trying to let you like him and accept him. But to speak in all seriousness, this proves that people are simply trying to gain recognition with their morality, they are trying to avoid being considered a danger and a threat so they can fit in. The good thing I have achieved (aside from all the fun) was the fact that I'm starting to be considered a threat and I'm starting to care less about what their herd thinks of me!!

On the Meaning of Success and Failure

2009-06-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Dear diary, last time I wrote about the unconscious and the human mind being deceived about its own motivations and driving powers in order to fit into society. I thought about how society is the driving power of the ‘herd’, I meditated no the image of success of each person, and this image was dictated by society and the part of society each person is in. Success for a student is being popular in school or getting good grades for instance, both are different kinds of people, but when asking both what they want from being successful in this way (popularity or good grades) they don’t seem to know what they want that for, it seems that the image of success for each person is dictated by society and they don’t always know this, but for some it seems for them to be an end in itself and not a means for achieving something else.

We work hard sometimes, sometimes we try hard to work hard but we don’t know why we don’t have enough motivation, but at the end we’re just trying to achieve success as seen by society even when we don’t admit it. Sometimes we are judging ourselves using the eyes of society, but the problem with that is that we don’t even know what we want other than to look good for others, and we end up achieving others’ wishes rather than our own. I know of many problems of people feeling bad about themselves because they are not successful, I believe their idea of not feeling good about themselves is a way the world feels about them. But once one transcends good and evil, and go beyond, one realizes that there’s no need to be “good” or “successful”.

I have read many books about personal development, the books themselves define success in terms of satisfying a selfish society that is unjust to individuals (implicitly of course). These books try to let us know how we can satisfy the world efficiently, but why should we work so hard to satisfy the world? I can now see the difference between being in solitude and being lonely, solitude is that state of spiritual growth and not needing acceptance from others, being lonely or rejected is a state of needing acceptance that you don’t get, while the common conception of health is needing acceptance and getting it.

It seems like each person’s slave morality is dependent on the society he’s a part of and the part of society he’s trying to fit in. A nerd in a certain society’s morals is to study and try to achieve the best grades, for someone else it’s about being popular and having many friends. Master morality and authenticity come when the person is no more dependent on society; solitude has to be achieved first.

I believe solitude here doesn’t indicate physical independence but moral independence and this is my main goal for achieving mastery, first one must destroy the image of success handed to us by society, this is the first step and it is very freeing and relieving, in this stage one is no more judged at all, and without an image of success one can never fail, this is the first battle, the battle of destroying fake virtues of society. And then one adds an image of success and of morality according to one’s own sense of power and control, then the second battle starts, the battle of establishing your own virtues and living accordingly. After that, true happiness, true strength and true success can be achieved; I believe this is the sample spiritual success story of a person who comes to an understanding of himself properly, and the real image of success (which is subjective of course).

How do you know when I am truly happy? I believe this will be when I’m no more trying to impress or satisfy, but when I’m living my own ideal. At this stage I will no more be considered a good citizen but a threat to society, that should be my first clue.

Psychology Beyond Good and Evil

2009-06-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since I read in 'Beyond Good and Evil' since I decided to think about the implications of what I have read so far. The book makes claims about psychology and the nature of the unconscious mind. Nietzsche believes that one hides one's instincts and thus deceives him/herself, and the reason one hides these instincts is that the herd or slave morality which aims at the comfort and safety -and which is a result of fear rather than power- has evolved in each person, in other words he says that slave morality is the herd instinct in the individual. A person who frees himself from the herd and their morality does not deceive himself anymore according to Nietzsche.

When I thought about that, I found a striking similarity between that and something I read before about Freud who said that the subconscious or unconscious is a result of the individual trying to fit in society and appearing good according to the morality of society. This part of the human psyche Freud called 'super ego' and was the part that deceived the human mind and hide its instincts as the real motives behind the actions. Seems like both Freud and Nietzsche would agree that we only deceive ourselves for one reason, to fit in society's morality.

Nietzsche also speaks of the growth one achieves in solitude, perhaps this is why? because one learns to judge himself only and one no more needs to be measured, judged or defined by society? I also read a book about psychology which dealt with hiding feelings of hate and anger towards one's loved ones, this also fits in the model of unconscious of Nietzsche and Freud.

It is obvious that judging someone else with my society's moral values is done out of fear, I want these morals to apply to my neighbor to protect myself, otherwise why would I care? This explains why the herd is threatened by the individual that doesn't care about them or their morality. As society exerts this pressure upon each individual, and the individual in turn tries to fit in by deceiving himself into believing in this morality.

It might seem that Freud contradicts Nietzsche at one point, where Freud talks about repression, and that is when one represses one's desires because he/she is ashamed of it, while Nietzsche talks about instincts dictating what we do. But I believe there's no contradiction, because Nietzsche says that slave morality is the herd instinct in the individual, which means that repression of instincts itself happens by means of an instinct, the herd instinct in the individual which Freud calls 'super ego'.

'Me memory says I did it, my pride says I did not, at the end, my memory yields' Wrote Nietzsche in one aphorism. Later Freud would talk about memory repression, which is somehow managing to 'forget' something about the past on purpose and hiding it from the conscious mind in the unconscious realm. Another similarity I found.

I believe the greatest test this theory of Nietzsche and Freud passed is the fact that everyone is against it, since it predicts that society and our herd instinct or 'super ego' would not like psychology beyond good and evil. My psychologist gets angry at the mention of Freud's theories which I used to ask him about, and the one time I talked about Nietzsche's philosophy, which I wrote about it earlier in my diary, he was even angrier as Nietzsche doesn't only state something about the human mind, but goes to ethical implications. I'm going to test this theory further however, even if it takes playing with a few minds (evil laugh in my diary?).

Eternal Reuccorance

2009-06-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

What does that mean, to wish that your life would happen over and over again numerous times? With every pain, every joy, every moment of it. Who can do that? Who wouldn't at least wish to skip one moment in his life? I remember the moment i heard about the death of my father, would I want to live it numerous times? I wish I didn't even live it that one time. But to say that I can live it again and again and fight and resist the pain, that sure I can't do now. How could I when I don't even know if I love my life now, not to say, the hard moments.

The best thing about this ideal, is that not only does he love his life, but he loves it AS IT IS, that means no illusions allowed because that would be cheating. You have to love life the way it is, and at the same time, know how terrible it is. Why then should one love life? Because it is his playground, more precisely, his battleground. Someone who says yes to life. No is already hard enough to say, and I managed to do that, but yes? that seems so much harder. But it seems that it is the award that awaits me if I go on in the road to power.

Beyond Good and Evil: Chapter 5

2009-06-01T03:32:00.001-07:00

Did I ever mention that you can't find your way without being lost? Well, apparently it is so. Yesterday, I read the 5th chapter of 'Beyond Good and Evil' where Nietzsche analyzes moralities; it was called "On the natural history of morals". First it should be noted that here, Nietzsche does not analyze moralities as being reasonable or un-reasonable, as he says in one paragraph, each morality is a piece of tyranny against reason, and against nature, and that is not an objection to it, but he rather analyzes them according to his own personal 'Good taste'.

Moralities are dictated by instincts, and so the good taste should uncover them and judge them naked. Which is exactly what Nietzsche did, he spoke of moralities of fear and moralities of courage, slavery and mastery the coward and the adventurous. In short, it is the Slave and Master moralities, as the first promotes comfort, equality and mediocrity, the second promises freedom, uniqueness and greatness. Not that it is natural or reasonable to choose to be a master than a slave, but it is a matter of taste, not only to choose among these two, but it is even a matter of taste to conceptualize the matter into slave and master morality. I closed the book and started thinking.

It was amazingly consistent, the fact that it is good to choose courage over fear and greatness over mediocrity, and the fact that the project of going beyond good and evil started in the first place. Is it not most scary to go beyond good and evil? For some time, I was wishing I had a morality to stand on, and I was scared of my new earned freedom. There's nothing scarier than being totally free for someone who was told his whole life what to do and where to go. Now after saying a loud no to all moralities, a yes must be said. I now realize how Nietzsche goes on to analyze each action by its roots in the spirit; he interpreted all actions in terms of weakness and strength, and then favored strength. I now see that the analyzing of the action in terms of what it results in is done out of fear of one's neighbor hurting him , and in terms of its surface intentions or the conscious intentions – as most religions do – is a little step forward, but it is again out of fear of your neighbor intending to hurt you. But looking in the dark deep roots of the actions is most spiritual and brave; Nietzsche has, and favors, the spirit of a great warrior.

Now it is not so hard to see how one can love his life and wish to live it an infinite amount of time, simply as a great warrior loves war, while the average soldier is scared of mentioning it. The great warrior loves war because he gets to be powerful in war. In peace all men are equal; it is in war heroes can shine. Amidst of the hardest and cruelest war, the great warrior is enjoying being so brave, so great, so strong, it is when he loses a battle that he can show his persistence, and when he wins it that he can show his strength, and that is how one can live and love one's life, not in spite of the hard moments, but because of them as well as the good ones.

I also now see why most people try to justify their moralities so much, because simply they are slave moralists, they want comfort and an easy life, they don’t want freedom and greatness of the spirit; they want the pleasure and safety of the body. I see why we had to destroy the base of all other moralities to build our own, because theirs not only is it unreasonable and claims reasonability, but it is also a sign of slavery and decline of the soul. I feel brave enough to be free, and free enough to be brave, my spirit has changed through my mind thanks to this wonderful book, and I can't wait to go on reading it.

The Real World

2009-05-31T00:52:00.000-07:00

I have read philosophy before starting 'Beyond Good and Evil' but this is the first time it has such a tremendous effect on me. What I have read before was great, it gave me a sense of wonder and thirst for knowledge, but it was isolated from my way of living. It was simply a form of entertainment for the intellect, but it wasn't so much related to 'The real world', which is what people often accuse philosophy of being.

Philosophy, the supposedly love of wisdom and a guide for living, is being accused of isolation and being unrealistic, perhaps this is true when philosophy simply tries to justify an existing morality, for centuries people have relied on philosophy to know why we should do what we already do, but our spirit and our morality remained pretty much the same, even for atheists who claim to have more freedom of action. I didn’t argue much against this view; it was, to an extent, true that philosophy is being so far from our lives.

Philosophers argue whether we should kill embryos for medical research and whether or not these collections of cells have 'souls' in them, but how does that relate to me? I'm not a doctor and I want a better life, I want wisdom and knowing how to live, I want to transcend the mediocrity and become something more than myself, but philosophers for ages were trying to give reasons for doing what we already do.

I read about Plato and Socrates, who speak of higher values and a higher nature, Plato even goes as far as saying that the world in which we live is nothing but shadows of the higher nature. A very moving idea, but is that related to everyday life? I should go on to love and help people and that is what is noble, nobility and "The right" remained pretty much the same, and actions are as good as what they result in.

This is the first time, however, I read about ethics in this way, someone judging the action, not with its results, but with its very roots in the spirit. You might end up doing the same thing, or you might not, and what you do might have a good impact on the world or it might not, all this will not change you, but what is the state of your spirit doing this action? That is the question that makes all the difference and that is the question Nietzsche is concerned about.

One of the passages in 'Beyond Good and Evil' that really amazed me was when he said that once the action was judged by its results, and then this changed and it was judged by its intention and that is better, but the even better is to see the root from which the action came into being. When I contemplated on this passage for a while, I came to realize that this individualistic new way to look at ethics was far more spiritual, it is the approach someone should take if he is looking for genuine true happiness or any change in the spirit, and it is the approach of the spiritual and not the simply materialist.

I was changed by this book, and I started finding my answer, if I want to change myself, how can I be working on my impact on the world? It is I who needs the change, so if I am to work on me, then I simply should look within me as deep as I can. I should not ask 'What is that action going to result in?' but I should ask 'Where did that action result from?' This is very realistic, and it has everything to do with the real world, the real world inside of each and every one of us, it is philosophy and psychology related to our world in every way, not simply dreams and thoughts isolated from reality.

Beyond Good and Evil: Chapter 4

2009-05-30T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am starting to love me experience of going beyond good and evil. Nietzsche terrified me at first but he also excites me and fascinates me. I began seeing this ideal of someone trying to love his life as it is, without illusions and without self deception, someone strong enough to bear and even love the war with the terrifying existence, and with all pessimism, still loves his life. With all my excitement I couldn't wait to start reading the next chapter, which I did yesterday.

'The charm of knowledge would be small if so much shame didn't have to be overcome on the road to it'...says Nietzsche in the fourth chapter and that, I can tell from personal experience, is true. If I didn't have to overcome many obstacles and give up many illusions on my way to knowledge, it would have been far less precious for me.

The fourth chapter was a collection of short aphorisms, one or two sentences long, but their meanings, as I understood them in relation to the rest of the book, were so deep and trying, as usual with this book, uncovering the human nature which always appeals to self deception. He talked about how our love of one, especially God is practiced on at the expense of all others. I interpreted that to mean that when you love someone it means you favor that one over all the rest. This is not just playing with words, I believe what he's trying to say is what he's always trying to say through this book as I read it so far, our high held values aren't as great as they might seem to us, and love isn't that magical, fairy-tale, sweet value, rather it is a form of injustice, as always, a new way of looking at old things, a way to show that there's more to be seen.

Another aphorism was metaphorical 'The sage as astronomer.- As long as you still feel the stars as something being "over you" you still lack the eye of the man of knowledge' I interpreted this to say that the stars surround us but they are not something high above us, same with our values and moralities, they aren't something coming 'from above' rather they are just around us, originating within us. I liked that metaphor as well, and I loved searching for the meaning behind the ambiguous aphorism. 'He who attains his ideal by that very fact transcends it': each person of us should have his own morality and ideal, and by going after that alone you become more than what you are going after, this added to my point earlier that the ethical ground he will give us is a relative one, instinctual and not divine.

The gratitude of knowledge and freedom started flowing through me, mixed with fear and excitement, reading this book has transformed me into something I love more, someone daring adventurous and loving. I am totally free to create my own ideal, I feel I am no more a slave of an illusion or of the crowd of people they call society.

Through the aphorisms i started to see more proofs of Nietzsche's theories, for instance he says that our vanity to wound is hardest when we have just been wounded, which is explained with his theory of our 'will to power', which I remember reading about in the preceding chapters, it basically says that all of our actions stem from our will to power, we try to be powerful or appear powerful in every action we do. Now, if I take this to apply it to this example, I would see that when we are wounded our pride is wounded as well, so we want to appear strong, and thus we want revenge, which does not make us happy in anyway, but it is a bandage for our hurt pride. Another aphorism to prove the same point was that women learn to hate to the extent they unlearn to charm...and that's because most women find their power in their charm, and when they don't have that, their try to appear powerful is to resent the world and hate, which makes them in a way feel they are equal to that they resent or hate.

It seems like same can be said about those who resent fate or an enemy more powerful than they are, they try to get back at the enemy by resenting that enemy, which is the chance of our pride to say that it is equal to that which it hates. I see people now in a totally different light, but I wish I had someone other than my diary to talk to about this, unfortunately I can only write about it alone, I wish I had another free spirit to discuss my new findings with.

Beyond Good and Evil: Chapter 3

2009-05-29T08:14:00.001-07:00

Two days have past since I wrote anything, so much has happened lately. After what I have learned recently I became aware of a bitter truth I never wanted to know, I started looking at people with mistrust trying to interpret their actions in terms of basic instincts which are disguised as higher values, they deceive themselves before everyone using the so called values, God and reason.

I went on to read the book, reading the book has been a joyous and exciting experience, it was scary but in a way it felt nice to be so free and scared, it's pretty much like learning that the solid ground we stand on is nothing but a tiny sphere in a huge black dark space that gets bigger with time. People are okay with admitting the universe is scary, but they are more terrified of giving up the solid ethical ground, they want values, they need a purpose of existence based on higher values. I saw this happening myself when I went to my psychiatrist and how he didn't allow me any space when I was attacking his exalted values, he stood in defense of his illusions against all reasons, but in the end he claims reason on his side. How sick I am now of all these people, reason, selflessness, forgiveness, love of one's enemy, peace, truth and God, they know nothing of which they speak.

I started reading the book again, the third chapter made an important distinction between religion (Any form of self deception) and spirituality. Religion being self deception and unreason in the name of reason, the faith in values to be exact, amazingly he claims that atheism itself of those who claim to be skeptical and reasonable is nothing but a form of religion. In a sense, he is right, these atheists are more religious than Muslims and Christians, they are atheists 'for the sake of truth', but is there such a thing? Who ever said truth is in itself a motive? It is nothing but a one of those values our instincts disguise into.

He says that first people sacrificed their most loved for the sake of their religion or faith, but then God himself was sacrificed for the same reasons, and as much as it being more consistent than traditional religion, its pretty much the same, to be true to oneself one has to abandon all illusions and not some for the sake of others. Spirituality on the other hand is facing truth with all courage, one paragraph that amazing describes how a spiritual person would be honest with himself, live without illusions, but not only that, for love of life he would want to live it, as it is, without illusions, without giving up a second of it, an infinite amount of times, over and over again with every pain and joy. Not only for the love of life, but for the love of himself "because he needs himself again and again, he makes it necessary, he makes himself necessary.

There seems to be criteria for good and evil for Nietzsche himself, but they are not based on false beliefs, in fact they are not based on any beliefs, it seems like Nietzsche likes this, not reason, not God and not any privileged perspective. He divides people into two categories, those who are "religious" and those free spirits. In the second chapter he talks about the free spirits, in the third to contrast he talks about the religious, even the skeptic ones. He seems to encourage the exact same feeling I have right now, the passion for life, for truth, and the adventurous spirit. He talked about the difference between Greek religion and Christianity, as the first affirmed existence (as in the man who would love to live his life over and over again which he praises) while Christianity (or any contemporary religion) is about illusions and is more religious than spiritual.

Nietzsche here speaks of a virtue, but how can a virtue exist beyond good and evil? Perhaps it is not a virtue as in good and non-evil, may be it's a matter of taste, so Nietzsche would rather have brave students than cowards, but he cannot prove that cowards are wrong, it's just not his taste. Judging from his honesty and complete consistency with himself he doesn't mean a value of courage as in a higher value, but I am sure there's some distention of instincts which he makes although I never read anything about such a distinction. Ok, Herr Nietzsche, I am your spiritual student, I'm a free spirit and I accept this truth, and with all the fear and excitement in me, I love it all.

What, I wonder, could be the virtues beyond good and evil? They won't, of course, come in the name of values but instincts, and for sure they aren't selfless but totally self-satisfying. I am starting to interpret reading this book as a journey of the mind to the spirit, and I'm very excited to go on, meanwhile I will learn to love my life.

Meditations

2009-05-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

After reading the second chapter yesterday, I was assured of what I was thinking after having read the first chapter, I felt as if I had taken the red pill (as in 'The Matrix') and now I see what the real world is like. I started looking at people and gradually realize what they are trying to do; I started analyzing people's beliefs and their hidden reasons for believing them. It now seems clear to me why not believing in God seems like such a crime, why we have such a notion as 'crime' in the first place. The book says that the desire to believe in good and evil is why people are so prejudiced, but once I took that bitter red pill and threw good and evil away, I started seeing the world more clearly as seen from beyond good and evil.

I had an appointment at 6 with my psychiatrist, I was absorbed in thought that I almost forgot my appointment, I went in a hurry and arrived a little late, I went in and told I am sorry I am late and I explained everything to him. I remember how he always had this view that one is happy when one acts 'right', or is it that one acts right when one is happy? Anyway, he started talking about right and wrong, good and evil, he started explaining to me how we all know right from wrong because God created us to feel guilty when we do something wrong.

More than an hour and a half of listening to the psychiatrist talking about absolute values and defending them made me realize that I shouldn't expect too much from people. This man has a PhD in the field and would still refuse to understand something so obvious. He took the position of the teacher to show me what I supposedly don't see, the truth of his religion and the value of values, and how only through them can we have a happy life. How we "know" right from wrong. I started realizing it is useless to argue with people when they are only using reason as a tool to justify their beliefs; even science is sometimes only a means of justification.

The problem with surpassing morality is that you don't know where to go from there; it's like the problem with freedom that you long for so much, you finally get the chance to do what you want and you realize....you don't know what you want; perhaps you don't want to be free. I seek the truth my whole life and once I find it I think "that is not the truth I was looking for" as if I was looking for a certain kind of knowledge. It is true that without Evil there are no actions to avoid, but without Good there isn't a motive for acting either. I think humans never want to know the truth, but want to choose their own truth. How can truth be so destructive and scary?

I remembered this paragraph in the book in which Nietzsche congratulates everyone who goes through the adventure of seeking truth, he says that not only does he leave the comfortable illusion land, but also he knows he can never go back, and no longer will anyone pity him.

Beyond Good and Evil: Chapter 2

2009-05-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

After having read the first chapter in 'Beyond Good and Evil' I was feeling lost, the most firm ground I rested on was strongly shaking. I remember how I often said that my dream was to change the world to a better place as much as I could, I often said that proudly and I felt satisfied about my dream, and I could call myself a good person. But now I'm not sure I even know what a good person is, it actually seemed that there might not be such a thing at all. Nobility and greatness seemed like things to overcome now, I am lost and that is only because I know not because I don't. I guess knowledge can be scary sometimes, and that's why there are illusions to shield us from the knowledge that might destroy us

I went on to read the second chapter 'The free spirit', I learned to interpret the chapter in relation to each other, and to the chapter and the book's title, so I understood that the free spirit is he who doesn't deceive himself and who accepts the facts of the first chapter. The free spirit also -although he would rather stay away from the ignorant crowd who are eluded- goes into the crowd but only to study it, for the sake of knowledge. The free spirit wants knowledge even if it is hard to bear. The free spirited is made for independence, from all the moral codes, from cultures and crowds.

I began to see a new insight, Nietzsche thinks that although truth might be difficult to bear, but it also sets us free to take this relativist position (the thought that everything is relative) and I started trying to enjoy my new gained freedom. It is true I don't yet know what I should do, but there's a sense of freedom in this, since it involves less obligations. But on the other hand I don't want to be allowed to lie, to be lazy or to waste my time doing nothing, all this started because I wanted a better life, and although I just won my freedom from the irrational Good and Evil I always thought about, I still need good and evil, I still need a path to happiness.

Is freedom worth it? Ok, very well, I am free, but now what? what should i do with my new freedom? Now I said no to traditional morality, but then yes to what? I know what truth isn't but i don't know what it is. It is a strange fact about us humans but we need to be ruled by a moral law, we are afraid of total freedom, and that's why people are trying so hard to refute Nietzsche, meanwhile they are doing exactly what he accuses them of doing, they are taking their instincts to direct their thinking which in turn tries to prove that instincts don't control their thinking.

I thought of the book as a mystery that I have to solve. It mentioned free-will and how it is only a misconception, and that determinism is not right either, although they were usually conceived as the only possibilities and instead it says that there are strong and weak wills, but then again he said we don't know exactly what is meant by will. And then the book talks about the fact that saying "I think" is not an absolute truth, since we don't know exactly what is meant by "I" or "think". It seemed like Nietzsche was proposing a new way to see everything!! Also it seems like Nietzsche wants to say that most of the time we don't know exactly what our concepts mean, and that most of our disputes com from two different perspectives, which accords with the fact that "there's no truth, but only different interpretations of truth", I believe I read something about that position earlier, it was called perspectivism.

I felt, as in Nietzsche's metaphor, that I've sailed too far, and I can never go back to land, I have to go to the other shore or be lost forever, I have to find a solution to this problem, I have to learn how one can live 'Beyond Good and Evil'

Beyond Good and Evil: Chapter 1

2009-05-26T03:46:00.001-07:00

I was in the bookstore looking for books in the philosophy section when my eye fell on a black book with an unusual title 'Beyond Good and Evil' By Nietzsche. Just out of curiosity I grabbed the book and opened it. I first saw the contents of the book, again the chapters were unusually named, there were so different from what I expected from a philosophy book, the first chapter was called 'On the prejudices of philosophers' , this was shocking for me because all the philosophy books I have read so far were so technical, they used the results obtained by other philosophers, but to read that a philosopher thinks all others were prejudiced and intents to criticize philosophy itself as it has been so far...that was not expected.

'Prelude to a philosophy of the future' was the subtitle, and it seemed to me like this philosopher was offering something the least to say about it is that it is completely new, so I decided to buy the book. I was very excited about it and I read the first chapter right after I bought the book in the cafe near the bookstore. I read each paragraph and tried my best to interpret it and make sense of it, but I couldn't see the connection between the paragraphs at first. Then gradually I started to see the connection between all the paragraphs and how-although looking different- they are all united and related to the chapter's title. The first chapter was brilliant and extremely bold, not only did it challenge all philosophers and their philosophical views so far, but also it challenged morality held by everyone as 'The Morality' of God or reason.

Our highest values, God, reason, truth, the love of knowledge and many others are mere instincts in disguise and, to use the language of Nietzsche in the book, prejudices. I was really amazed by his courage and creativity, philosophers so far have tried really hard to justify and defend the values, and then he comes along examining them and even challenging them. The very beginning of the book is shocking; he asks why do we want truth anyway? Why wouldn't we rather error and ignorance? He is not of course suggesting that we should hold beliefs knowing they are wrong, that wouldn't make any sense, rather he means that this will to truth is not the real motive behind our actions and even our thinking. Perhaps the despised instincts are they themselves the origin of these highly held values ...perhaps? Who has the courage to suspect that what is perceived to be the highest values is nothing but what is perceived to be the lowest instincts? A philosophy that does that is the philosophy of the future, and is 'Beyond Good and Evil'

It is not that we discover the truth and shape our morality to suite it, it is that our instincts dictate our morality and we shape the truth accordingly. I once saw someone who had a sign on his wall saying 'If God did not exist, all values are worthless', and now that I think about it, values are not worthy because God exists, but God exists to keep them worthy of holding, to punish those who choose different values, to offer absolute values that are timeless and universal in which we have a need to believe, an instinct and nothing more, so the all the high values of religion came from one of the instincts that religion itself despises.

And thus a psychologist or a philosopher when trying to interpret the actions and evaluating the motives behind actions should not hold such values so high; he should go deeper and darker inside where the instincts are hiding. A man of knowledge who wants truth and not illusions should look at man as an animal satisfying his needs (including the need to disguise these needs as values).

For example when Jesus or Muhammad say 'forgive them father (or Allah) they don't know what they are doing' they are actually saying 'They hate us, they hurt us, but we are so superior to them and a man does not get angry at a bug even if it bites him. They don't know what they are doing but we are, they don't know the truth but we do' and as much as we would like to think the contrary; that these are 'Noble' acts, they are, in fact, aren't.

Reading it over and over again I began to be terrified, all the values I have held so far, all the beliefs in a higher nature, in selfless acts and all what I saw as noble are just prejudices, I am prejudiced and I have lied to myself all along. I lost almost all my beliefs, all my values, and I became a nihilist; someone who holds no values, nothing to me was higher or more worthy of believing. At one blow, in one chapter, I realized all my beliefs are empty, that I have lived in self deception this whole time. I closed the book with my eyes still wide open and the look of terror still on my face.