Nietzsche against second hand adventures

Knowledge of history can stand in direct conflict with one's agency. One can feel so overwhelmed by everything that's been done - laws passed! oppression ended! tech invented! wars fought! - that one feels there's nothing new to be done. There's nothing more toxic than this idea.

Nietzsche's advise? Act "unhistorically," protect your "fire" from getting dulled, and retain your "honesty and boldness" in the face of "morbid doubt" and an "infinity of skepticism." Judge ideas by whether they enhance or retard your will to act. Cultivate real "hunger."

History can be useful. Great men, separated by time, live together in a “republic of genius”:

“One giant calls to another across the desert intervals of time and, undisturbed by the excited chattering dwarfs who creep about beneath them, the exalted spirit-dialogue goes on.”

Participate in the exalted spirit-dialogue.

On the masses, harsh but true? Nietzsche: "The masses seem to me to deserve notice in 3 respects only: first as faded copies of great men produced on poor paper with worn-out plates, then as a force of resistance to great men, finally as instruments in the hands of great men."

Nietzsche on people who seek adventure in films, video games, & other second-hand sources: “He wants the flower without the root and the stem: consequently he wants it in vain.” Levelling up, winning, feeling the ecstasy of triumph - only possible in this world. Come back to it.

Nietzsche: "Excess of history has attacked life's plastic powers, it no longer knows how to employ the past as a nourishing food."

The past is all indigestion now. Learn to use it as food again. Absorb what you need and pass out the rest.

If collapse hangs in the air, if our hearts have grown "desolate," it's because science has set off a "concept-quake" in our minds. An unending one. By questioning everything, science has destabilized everything. People feel "weak and fearful." Belief in the "enduring?" Gone.

Nietzsche's core message is that our weakness and fear will cling to us until we can create our own enduring values, our own "eternal" vision. Even post the death of God, the job of God needs to be done. Moral horizons need to be established. A terrible burden, ours to carry.

What is culture? A "unanimity of life, thought, appearance and will." Create this coherence in your life. Strike peace between the "inner and outer" worlds. Reject empty knowledge that blunts your blade. History is not over. It is only beginning.

Read on: Nietzsche on History