Radical Reversal
I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves. Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas. the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself.
Behold, I show you the last man. Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was misunderstood by endless numbers of people when he used ‘beyond’ (über) as the basis for the new humanity (übermensch). He sought to revere life with tremendous passion, living immediately in the Abyss of freedom to ‘overcome the fallen power’ that seeks to dominate and contain life.
External values are contrary to the freedom of human personality. We are to become one with the Creator by doing art, sharing responsibility for destiny by legislating the Being of beings. We are situated with a consciousness of things ’seen’; and then, occasionally, we are aware of deeper and more profound aspects of things ‘not seen’.
Most people are simply not willing to ‘turn inward’, warning others not to go off the deep-end, convinced that the ‘real world’ is outside. These neurotic people are unable to be aware of who-they-are, living external, ego-adaptive-lives with only a persona (sham personality). They encourage conforming, being well-adjusted, fitting-in, adapting by insisting that it is not healthy to take oneself so seriously.
On the contrary, a few are self-aware, self-creative, and self-transcending people, still having chaos within, are able to have a cosmic sense of themselves. Having been asked to be more than they know how to be, they despise themselves in order to overcome themselves, looking forward to a time when they live according to their own individual wills, seeking a community based on individual differences, while enjoying the uncertainties of human life, including the spirit of gravity.
Art becomes the stimulus of life that excites and enhances, “that eternally compels us to life, to eternal life.” What have you done to overcome yourself?