Post by cerulean on Jan 28, 2019 12:52:46 GMT
"Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping."
I read this a while back, although the first part of it "beast/overman" is easily understandable, the part about the dangerous abyss is what I didn't understand.
Until recently, it just hit me.
In layman terms it's equivalent to "self actualization". When what you do matches exactly what you believe in. It brings a feeling of fulfillment and content. But what if what you believe in is a hard thing to accomplish ? Or simply, a thing that requires a lot of understanding and awareness and control, which you may not have yet or may lose at any moment.
So unless you reach that which you have set your mind to do, you might have to endure a chaotic life.
If you seek to be something better than the beast in you, tired of bending your will to your irrational emotions and want to claim the control of your own life and how you live it at each moment then know that it is going to be very difficult to meet the high standards that you set for yourself and because of that you may get stuck between the beast and the overman. You will likely fall into heavy anxiety / depression / social withdrawal because of how much you despise your own actions for they do not meet your own standards. That's what I think is the danger of this crossing over this abyss. a dangerous stopping in the middle and a dangerous looking back.
Is it a necessary thing to go through a chaotic life to bring about such definitive change ? I do not know but the same author goes on and says: "one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star". So chaos might actually mark change, and could be inevitable. Be careful.
By the way it's Friedrich Nietzsche
I read this a while back, although the first part of it "beast/overman" is easily understandable, the part about the dangerous abyss is what I didn't understand.
Until recently, it just hit me.
In layman terms it's equivalent to "self actualization". When what you do matches exactly what you believe in. It brings a feeling of fulfillment and content. But what if what you believe in is a hard thing to accomplish ? Or simply, a thing that requires a lot of understanding and awareness and control, which you may not have yet or may lose at any moment.
So unless you reach that which you have set your mind to do, you might have to endure a chaotic life.
If you seek to be something better than the beast in you, tired of bending your will to your irrational emotions and want to claim the control of your own life and how you live it at each moment then know that it is going to be very difficult to meet the high standards that you set for yourself and because of that you may get stuck between the beast and the overman. You will likely fall into heavy anxiety / depression / social withdrawal because of how much you despise your own actions for they do not meet your own standards. That's what I think is the danger of this crossing over this abyss. a dangerous stopping in the middle and a dangerous looking back.
Is it a necessary thing to go through a chaotic life to bring about such definitive change ? I do not know but the same author goes on and says: "one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star". So chaos might actually mark change, and could be inevitable. Be careful.
By the way it's Friedrich Nietzsche