is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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advice from Nietzsche on personal style.
"One thing is needful. -- To 'give style' to one's character--a great and rare art! It is practiced by those who survey all strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye. Here a large mass of second nature has been added; there a piece of original nature has been removed--both times through long practice and daily work at it. Here the ugly that could not be removed is concealed; there it has been reinterpreted and made sublime. Much that is vague and resisted shaping has been saved and exploited for distant views; it is meant to beckon toward the far and immeasurable. In the end, when the work is finished, it becomes evident how the constraint of a single taste governed and formed everything large and small. Whether this taste was good or bad is less important than one might suppose, if only it was a single taste!"
From The Gay Science, section 290.
It strikes me as good advice. Or at least it seems to have been the kind of advice I have been following all my life, without knowing that Nietzsche would recommend it.
4:25 p.m. - November 12, 2012
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