Nietzsche, in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Of the Blessed Isles", stated:
"Figs fall from the trees, they are good and sweet; when they fall, their red skin tears. A wind from the north is I to the ripe figs. So, like ripe figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: drink their juice and of its sweet pulp! It is autumn all around, and pure sky and afternoon."
Nietzsche guides us: “become who you are”, and he himself follows this formula in "Ecce Homo". But what does the person who wants to “become what he is” seek? Are we trying to reach some specific destination? We already know that such a task transcends good and evil, but what would be the appropriate or inappropriate route for this? The answer is that this task is, first of all, an experience and, secondly, a cultivation. Okay, but where do we want to get to? And how do we know that we have finally become what we are?
The German Philosopher continues:
"Sea and destiny! Towards you I must now descend! I find myself before my highest mountain and my longest walk: therefore I must descend deeper than I have ever descended: – descend deeper into pain than I have ever descended, until its darkest tide! That's what my destiny wants: well, I'm ready. Where do the highest mountains come from? I once asked that they come from the sea. . It is from the deepest that the highest must reach its height."
Nietzsche delved deeply into European culture to diagnose his time: man is tired and exhausted. We give it a purpose and anticipate everything it could/should do! Man has become a universal! A God! One way! When Nietzsche says “Become who you are”, he does not want to fit the human being into this model universally accepted and validated by common sense. On the contrary, the great danger for the German philosopher has always been the contempt for the common man, the European man, the average man. That's why we want to surpass man. He was given a goal outside of himself, as if he were imperfect and needed to find it in another world.
We can then see that the task “become who you are” is immeasurable and beyond what we can understand within morality! We cannot define what man is or what he must experience, much less cultivate, to become what he is. But we know that he must abandon this last idol: humanity, good and evil. What “is” can only be understood in the sense of a destiny, a necessity, not a possibility or a duty.
In "Gaia Science", Nietzsche continues:
“At the reunion – A: Do I still understand you well? Are you searching? Where, in the midst of the real world now, is your corner and your star? Where can you lie down in the sun, so that a surplus of well-being comes to you and your existence is justified? I want more, I'm not a seeker. I want to create my own sun for myself.”
The experience of nihilism reveals that present values only meet our need for survival (sometimes not even that). Thus, we are always looking for something outside of ourselves, as if one day everything would come together and be completed, a re-enactment of the final Christian judgment. That is why the experience of the “Eternal Return” is lived with such horror by religious, mediocre, common, neurotic man: “This life, again and again? No, please don't... it's a lot of suffering, give me a sky, a place to rest.” Only the transvaluation of all values makes possible a new experience with reality, with life, with who we are; only she can overcome the man tired of himself. Yes, because it alone contains the formula “become who you are”: after the Camel and the Lion there is the Child, the one who learned to say yes, the one who, even in his continuous process, simply is.
Surprising? No... just the suspension of intentionality and that small reason that wants to impose duties on us. What “being” wants here is its own affirmation! There is renewed confidence in the world in following this path. There is no option! Even what we didn't want is necessary to want. Like a sea of forces that asserts itself. Desire pure affirmation! Whatever it is, whatever it is, in ourselves, in others, in the universe. Only then do we become a piece of fatality.
We are not cowards, we do not need to instrumentalize life out of fear or incapacity. We suspend all mediations to face the world in its maximum possibility, in a vertical dive. What if all institutions up until now were nothing more than deceptions? What if all the idols that made us kneel had feet of clay? We are tired of this outdated world! The life in us, the feeling of power in us, fights against all of this.
As Nietzsche says,
"We, however, want to become who we are – the new, unique, incomparable, self-giving, self-creating!"
The passion for knowledge here becomes much greater than the desire to judge life. After all, life cannot be classified with grades, as if you could fail or not. Every life, regardless of what it is, always asserts itself as much as it can. This is what Nietzsche says Yes to! But it is in this same sea of forces that someone becomes who they are! Diving in head first and appropriating them, affirming the affirmation, which creates, which is gifting, which is mutant! This is what opens man to the unknown, to transmutation! It is not possible to specify what we need to go through to become what we are; the task of “becoming what you are” is entirely open and fluid! It stops being a straight line and finds lines of flight that we could not even imagine before.
In "Ecce Homo – Why I'm So Intelligent", Nietzsche states:
“At this point, there is no avoiding the answer to the question of how someone becomes what they are. And with that I touch on the ultimate work of the art of self-preservation – of self-love… Because assuming that the task, the destination, the destiny of the task goes far beyond ordinary measurement, no danger would be greater than perceiving oneself with this task. That someone becomes what they are presupposes that they do not even remotely suspect what they are.”
You have to become what you are, precisely what you are! This is the inevitable fate! There is no other possibility because it will be so, whether we like it or not! And what are we? We already know: Will to Power and nothing more! The whole question is there: will these forces that assert themselves in us have an outlet? Where? Will they dig an infinite hole inside us and corrode us from the inside? Or will they be forces of creation of something new, unprecedented, expansive?
Destiny is for these forces to be pure affirmation, wherever they lead. Nietzsche throws man back into the world, into this world, naked and raw, and says: “Now it is necessary for you to affirm it, with all your strength! Only then can you become what you are!” In return, he gives us his writings, which are not a manual on how we should be and behave, but rather broaden the horizon of possibilities. “One repays a master badly when he remains always and only a disciple.”
We already know, there is no prescription! Maybe just one: live! But live taking into account that life seeks to assert itself. It is in the flow of life that the cultivation of experiences takes place; It is in the cultivation of becomings that man becomes a destiny. The paradox is the same as that of the nomad, who carries his home on his back. “Become who you are”: that is, take ownership of the forces that constitute you, be aware of what comes in and out, notice the surface of the skin, the pores, carry the difference with you. Who said that philosophical concepts are abstract and useless? It was certainly someone who had not read Nietzsche, much less had the chance to “become who he is”. A concept is a machine to which we attach ourselves, it is a tool, it is a hammer, it is a brush, it is a chisel. And thought is practice itself! Therefore, we cannot and should not know in advance what we will become.
And when do we know we have arrived? The answer can be outlined in amor-fati. Only when the heaviest of tasks becomes light do we know we have arrived! With a big smile, the part becomes one with the whole! And, finally, “that’s how it was” becomes “that’s how I wanted it”. Being part becomes taking part. Only by leaving this tight shell called culture, morals, good customs, man, can we finally walk more lightly, perhaps even like dancers! Amor-fati is proof that we have become what we are: “eternally grateful for our existence”, with its pains, its pleasures and everything that makes it up. Life is no longer good despite the pain or despite the regrets; She is everything she can be, and that's great! Only those who say “Yes” to themselves and to this existence have learned to be what they are.
“Wanting” something, “committing” to something, having an “end” in mind, a “desire” – none of this I know from my own experience. Even now I look at my future – a vast future – as at a smooth sea: no desire makes it rough. I absolutely don't want something to become different from what it is; I don't want to become different myself...
Thus, Nietzsche, in "Ecce Homo – Why I am so intelligent", concludes today's thought.
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