is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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will to power.
Lately I keep having a dream about a hike I took last summer with a couple of friends. Nothing really happens. It�s just a really vivid happy dream about seeing beautiful things and being with good people. And, funny, it�s about a hike I took without bringing my camera, so it�s like my brain is providing the snapshots for me. And the snapshots may or may not be more vivid because of the high altitude low oxygen brain I had that day. The memories are heightened.
Anyway, I keep waking up thinking of writing an email to my two friends to tell them about my dream. But it just so happens that, love them as I do, I also know full well that both of them are highly unlikely to write me back, and at least one of them will never even read it, the second one may or may not. You age and you begin to accept things about friends�their idiosyncracies, the things you can and cannot rely on them to do. But sometimes it just feels like disappointment.
Also, at least one of these friends, and actually most likely both, usually can't be reached by telephone either. It is how it is. It�s OK. There�s still love there. But the lack of certainty about being able to reach someone when you�d like to, or if you someday might need to, well, it nags my back-brain sometimes.
Nietzsche says this about a world without certainty: �Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this? The most moderate; those who do not require any extreme article of faith; those who not only concede but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense; those who can think of man with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account.� (It�s from the Will to Power fragments, p 38.)
I can do all that. In fact I make it my purpose to do so, not only about relations with friends, but with the world in general. The world is chaos, and human beings aren�t the end all of what matters, nor are they masters of the universe. But sometimes it�s good to be able to expect more�that is part of what human beings do as they eke their way through an uncertain indifferent universe. We find friends and build relationships and tiny communities in order to stave off at least some of the chaos inherent in the larger world. So, when people I care about won�t do that with me it makes me a little crazy, or a little gloomy, depending on my mood and other factors, even when I know full well that they love me and that their actions have little to do with me.
But also there�s the teenage high-school unpopular Jill lurking in there somewhere. For her, when someone doesn�t write back, it�s not because that friend is busy or depressed or distracted. It�s because she doesn�t love you. You never quite grow out of that if you�ve ever had it be the world you inhabit. Most people have lived in that world, or still do, at least part of the time.
But that�s why Nietzsche also writes: �Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us.� (It�s from Daybreak, p 171.) We aren�t sole masters of who we are (people really really misunderstand what the will to power is, btw)�we are formed by our relations to others. Those relations and the larger world form us, and then we find others within ourselves, judging us for who we are and aren�t.
But Nietzsche also adds: �Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow up in him.� You can take what is given, what you didn�t get to choose, and live with it in many different ways. It�s too easy to think you�re the master, and too easy to think you have no choices. Much harder to realize it�s somewhere in between, every minute of every day.
10:48 p.m. - February 18, 2009
Carol - 2009-02-22 17:37:32
I very much appreciate this post as it gets at something I think about often. But in a more salient and eloquent way than the way in which I usually think about it.
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