The Superman vs. Weltschmerz

Nietzsche vs. Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer's concept of cosmic pain (Weltschmerz) and his philosophy of compassion (Mitleid), explore the human experience of empathy, and thus to our interconnectedness as human beings. 

Despite of Nietzsche's admiration for Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was strictly against his philosophy of pity. Even though it is known that Nietzsche aimed at transvaluing all values, one still wonders how one could possibly resent such a beautiful idea. 

Nietzsche however, believed that feelings of compassion only weakened the possibility to become a Superman (Übermensch). For him, the Superman is not someone with super-magical powers, but one who has transcendent the ego completely. In order to reach this state of mind, the individual has to surpass three stages. First, there is "the camel" with it's burden on it's back. Carrying the weight of the world, he eventually reaches the stage of the lion in which no more suffering exists, but total control, will power and strength. The final stage however, has surpassed all these conscious and ego ridden stages and results in the blissful state of "the child". This stage can be compared to the Golden Age, in which we see the wonders of the world with the innocence of childlike eyes.

As Nietzsche believed to carry the pain of the world on his shoulders, he chose to live in solitude in the Swiss Alps for several years. Here, according to his three stages, he found himself to be in the stage of the camel, indulging on his calamity. When he eventually believed to have surpassed this stage, he was ready to become the lion, and thus to re-socialise in order to teach his philosophy, just as the prophets had done before him after their enlightenment in solitude. In the form of Zarathustra, he finally walks down from his ivory tower in the mountains, but only to find that the first villagers he speaks to have no ears to listen! Nietzsche never reached the last stage on the way to transcend and become the Superman. Instead, he escaped from the conscious state of mind that he intended to surpass with his forthcoming insanity. 

Erich Fromm

Interviewed by Mike Wallace in 1958

Pardonner

Et conserver mon humanité,

 du caprice et de la volonté, 

qui sont aussi amers parfois,

 mais ne m'oublient pas jamais encore;

 Dans moments de souffrance,

 des privations aussi,

 ou des fils d'hommes qui m'ont utilisé,

 qui vivent hautain mais sans dignité, 

je voudrais pardonner pourtant à la fin.

***

And preserve my humanity
from whim, will and mercy,
 which may be bitter at times
but still never forgets me;
In times of despair, of deprivation too,
from children of man who exploit to make do,
who are living with pride but without amend,
 I still want to forgive after all in the end.

Tricksters and Fools

Tricksters and fools have always been very intriguing characters in mythology, folklore and literature.  Their tendency to deconstruct the moral values and conventions of the status quo shatters even the most secure constructs, beliefs, or people. Unlike their contemporaries, the masters of deception float between two worlds; the conscious and the subconscious. This ability develops a highly ambiguous personality, which the trickster may use to motivate others for revolutionary change. Their anomaly evades them from any laws of logic or punishment, why they literally "enjoy the privilege of fools". An all time favourite trickster is Mephisto in Goethe's Faust: 

"Part of the Power which would the evil ever do, and ever does the Good."

Frankenstein

in one sentence:

I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom though drivest from joy for no misdeed.

"Beauty is Truth, and Truth is Beauty"

On John Keats

With Keats being one of the first lyricists to introduce the idea of art as independent from any elitist expectations, he establishes it as a substitute for religion, eventually sowing the seed for a l'art pour l'art notion liberated of any defining metric.

The fact that he was suffering from tuberculosis (he died before his 27th birthday), has probably lead to an extreme and existential approach to life in general and thus to literature in particular. In his eyes the writer, equipped with the gift of "negative capability", does not only adapt to his outer circumstances whatever they be, but unlike the scientist, he is also able to endure any given contradictions with patience. He is stepping back from his own ego for the sake of divine art. As we can see in "On first Looking into Chapman's Homer", or "Ode an a Grecian Urn", the ultimate function of art is the timelessness and beauty emanating from it, which in his eyes equals truth and vice versa. 

Chimera

Chimera by Seri Cig on Mixcloud