The past offers many great models worth mimicking, yes, and many institutions worth conserving - but also much that is obsolete, broken, unsuited to now. In this Memo, discover Nietzsche's ideas on how the past paralyses us and how we should struggle against its inertia 👇


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The past offers many great models worth mimicking, yes, and many institutions worth conserving - but also much that is obsolete, broken, unsuited to now. In this Memo, discover Nietzsche's ideas on how the past paralyses us and how we should struggle against its inertia 👇

Nietzsche: "If he is to live, man must possess and from time to time employ the strength to break up and dissolve a part of the past: he does this by bringing it before the tribunal, scrupulously examining it and finally condemning it." Discard much of the past that slows you.

Nietzsche: "If he is to live, man must possess and from time to time employ the strength to break up and dissolve a part of the past: he does this by bringing it before the tribunal, scrupulously examining it and finally condemning it." Discard much of the past that slows you.


Nietzsche writes that we are the "outcome of earlier generations," but what does that mean? It means that we are the outcomes of their "aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes." We must develop a "second nature" but unfortunately they're "weaker than first."

Nietzsche writes that we are the "outcome of earlier generations," but what does that mean? It means that we are the outcomes of their "aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes." We must develop a "second nature" but unfortunately they're "weaker than first."


Second nature is the composite of new habits and new instincts that we develop consciously. These are replacements for our historical ways that weren't serving us. The second nature is weak at first but Nietzsche writes: "Every victorious second nature will become first."

Second nature is the composite of new habits and new instincts that we develop consciously. These are replacements for our historical ways that weren't serving us. The second nature is weak at first but Nietzsche writes: "Every victorious second nature will become first."


New victorious instincts passed on from father to son? Nietzsche's logic: What's achieved with labor, bloodshed, &amp; pain by the father will be the son's inheritance, who will walk with grace and sublime power the path that his father trudged on haltingly, awkwardly and painfully.

New victorious instincts passed on from father to son? Nietzsche's logic: What's achieved with labor, bloodshed, & pain by the father will be the son's inheritance, who will walk with grace and sublime power the path that his father trudged on haltingly, awkwardly and painfully.


Imagine having a brain where "memory opens all its gates." An unmanageable number of past events will engage in "conflict with one another" and it will become "necessary to constrain and control them if one is not oneself to perish in their conflict." And that's not all...

Imagine having a brain where "memory opens all its gates." An unmanageable number of past events will engage in "conflict with one another" and it will become "necessary to constrain and control them if one is not oneself to perish in their conflict." And that's not all...


Nietzsche: " Habituation to such a disorderly, stormy and conflict-ridden household gradually becomes a second nature, though this second nature is beyond question much weaker, much more restless, and thoroughly less sound than the first." Great description of the modern psyche.

Nietzsche: " Habituation to such a disorderly, stormy and conflict-ridden household gradually becomes a second nature, though this second nature is beyond question much weaker, much more restless, and thoroughly less sound than the first." Great description of the modern psyche.


Nietzsche: "In the end, modern man drags around with him a huge quantity of indigestible stones of knowledge, which then, as in the fairy tale, can sometimes be heard rumbling about inside him." Historical knowledge no longer energizing, not absorbable - just mere weight inside.

Nietzsche: "In the end, modern man drags around with him a huge quantity of indigestible stones of knowledge, which then, as in the fairy tale, can sometimes be heard rumbling about inside him." Historical knowledge no longer energizing, not absorbable - just mere weight inside.


Nietzsche's definition of modern man: "Most characteristic quality of modern man: the remarkable antithesis between an interior which fails to correspond to any exterior and an exterior which fails to correspond to any interior." The mask and the face are divorced.

Nietzsche's definition of modern man: "Most characteristic quality of modern man: the remarkable antithesis between an interior which fails to correspond to any exterior and an exterior which fails to correspond to any interior." The mask and the face are divorced.


Nietzsche complains about the “re-run” quality of modern life: "We moderns have nothing whatever of our own; only by replenishing and cramming ourselves with the ages, customs, arts, philosophies, religions, discoveries of others do we become anything worthy."

Nietzsche complains about the “re-run” quality of modern life: "We moderns have nothing whatever of our own; only by replenishing and cramming ourselves with the ages, customs, arts, philosophies, religions, discoveries of others do we become anything worthy."


Nietzsche on when and how to burn bridges with the past

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Nietzsche on when and how to burn bridges with the past

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