Thus spoke Zarathustra

 Hello guys, welcome to just think. Today we will explore the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche through his book Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, critic, poet, and philologist. His philosophy has inspired many people. Many people think of him as a Nihilist while in fact, he was an existentialist. Nihilist is a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects any religious and moral principles as opposed to an existentialist who gives life personal meaning. existentialist may or may not believe in god. Through Nietzsche’s philosophy and insights we are able to fight the meaninglessness of the world. His writings are very dense and eccentric. Because of that, he is often misinterpreted. 

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

For example, in this video https://youtu.be/MCOw0eJ84d8 , famous psychology Professor Jordan Peterson explains one or two paragraphs of beyond good and evil written by Nietzsche, he took 45 minutes for that! Another example is his famous quote “God is dead, god remains dead and we have killed him”. Many people take this as a nihilist’s assertion and as in celebrating the death of god i.e. the rise of rationalism and belief in science. but upon reading the full citation from the book the Gay Science (the joyous wisdom), we see that it's a warning of what’s about to come as the human lose faith in God and choose science.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra portrays the journey of the prophet named Zarathustra, he remains in solitude for 10 years and now is ready to come out and impart the wisdom he has gained. There are countless things that can be debated, questioned, and to be explored in this book. In this blog I will try to explain two of the main ideas from the book namely, will to power and the eternal recurrence.

Will to power

Today in the age of science it is common to see the world rationally, as made up of atoms. But the inability of science to explain the difference between the living atoms (life) and nonliving one is the reason for us to venture into the world of philosophy. Nietzsche claims that every living thing has this will to power that explains its existence and gives it the reason; moreover, he says that the will to life or will to existence, “to live'' is the byproduct of the will to power. Let us understand what will to power is? In the simple sense, it is the will to grow, to gain more, to expand, and to exert or manifest power. Power can be subjective, for some it may be physical strength, for some it may be knowledge.

Let us look at the concept from another perspective. What is Will? Will is our innermost desire, our motive, not at the personal level but generally as a human that, roughly speaking is will. Nietzsche says that will is the spectator to all that has until happened, all the past, all the joys, and suffering that we have endured. Now the will is unable to undo the past; it cannot break the time, it cannot change what has happened. The will desires to change the past. Or in other words, we do things in order to change the past and in doing so we repeat it. But when our will reconciles with the past, when after all that has happened to us, after all we have experienced, if we don’t desire to change it, or to chase it, but to accept it at its fullest, then the will becomes free. This free will is the will to create new. Indifferent to what has happened, when our will desires to create then it is converted to will to power.

The Eternal Recurrence

Another main idea of Nietzsche is the Eternal recurrence of all things. According to him everything comes, stays and goes, and then returns. Let’s think about time, time is infinite but not our body we are finite. But what are we, what do we consist of? Atoms, living atoms! So physically when we die, our atoms still remain. Then what about our ‘self’? What about our individuality? That also returns.

Let’s take one example for better understanding. What happens when an artist creates art, and here any kind of art whether it be painting, music, etc. Whenever the creator creates, there at the moment of creation, all the lessons and experiences of the past and all the expectations and hope of the future come together and are bound into the present and that present then becomes eternal. Eternally recurring present. The activity, the creator, the thought, the idea all are combined into the eternally recurring moments. And these moments are repeated. Repeated not in the same artist but in another self-same creator who experiences the same pain and longing to create and in this sense the creator returns.

Now after discussing the will to power and the eternal recurrence, what I think of them if I put in a single line is, Each of us have the will to power, everyone has one or other kind of potential to achieve great heights and deep depths and when we exercise that potential and create any kind of art we theoretically becomes immortal, forever stamped in the history of humans. Another thing is that we all think life and progress in a linear manner. The reason I think is that as time flows in a linear manner we think our progress is also linear and to model that progress (in any field) we made categories like beginner, intermediate, expert etc. in life also we see progress as school, degree, job, buy a house, etc (depends on the culture and the place you’re born ). what we don’t realize is that this is just one of many possible ways to live. we should see life as multidimensional each new experience adds another dimension to our life and being, so keep exploring, achieving, becoming, and living till we meet again.