Coming of Age for A Philosopher of the Conscience
February 13 2023
Nietzsche wrote a book called Untimely Meditations in which exhorted modern man toward a new way of thinking, which he had discovered. He did not expect to be understood, mostly because his way of thinking was itself so new and not easy to understand, certainly not familiar. Thus, he considered himself a man out of season, and it was in this sense that he named his book.
As for why I call this new blog Thoughts In the Key of Life, it is because I have been practicing his dithyrambic music for fifty years now. I am well-versed in his dithyrambic drama, which is a true representation of life itself, a process of growth. And all good things easily demonstrate themselves. With this blog, my hope is to show the good in dithyrambic music. The thoughts and ideas that I will articulate in this blog are very timely meditations that come at a time when the growth process that Nietzsche teaches through his dithyrambic drama now comes to fruition, a consummation, a completion. I offer them as a coming of age for an old man who has practiced Nietzsche’s dithyrambic tragedy for fifty years, a lifetime.
Theory of the Eternal Recurrence as a Gateway Myth
I struggled with this idea for decades. It was always easy enough to understand. Simply put, when you suffer a cataclysmic disturbance that is brought on by titanic emotion, those emotions and everything connected to them, such as the originating circumstances, live on within you with the same vitality, impact and meaning that they had the moment you first experienced them.
However, so long as those cataclysmic events remain relegated to the subconscious, they are not real insofar as they are not a dimension of Self, which means viewed through the perspective of Self. In the course of Nietzsche’s dithyrambic tragedy, the actor achieves a much more intense proximity to those subliminal events, but, nonetheless, despite that new proximity, those events remain shadowy, not quite reachable for their full reality. Tragedy cures that by collapsing the existent Self and therewith extending it to new limits.
When the actor learns that “all things recur eternally,” that shadow miraculously lifts and the actor realizes that those subliminal events are indeed real, so that they become a dimension of Self. The empowerment that results from belief in the theory of eternal recurrence is very substantial. It is tantamount to realizing that the underworld is not so shadowy and distant after all and is, in fact, quite proximate and quite real. It presents a complete transformation of the netherworld into this world, of that which was into that which is. And that is a lesson regarding the value of and use of history to life, which Nietzsche writes about in Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben and which I am presently (first winter of 2023, in Boston) reiterating.
In other words, regarding life’s most major and most difficult task, the incorporation of the subconscious into the conscious, the theory of eternal recurrence greatly assists that incorporation. Thus, as an enabler in the face of insuperable obstacles, the idea that “all things recur eternally” is a religion, or something that miraculously assists life.
And to be more precise about the empowerment that the theory provides, it completely achieves that stage of life that is represented by the camel, the need to take on the greatest burdens, to arch the bow to an extremely heightened tension, so that the lion (very strong instincts) may then come into play to throw off the yoke. In other words, the actor simply cannot do anything about the subliminal knots in which the conscience has become mired until he brings them into the conscious as a dimension of Self.
The idea of an eternally recurring world tells the individual that a traumatic past, which exists within him, exists unaltered from the moment it came into being but it exists outside of his Self and that, if he can bring it back into his Self, then it comes to exist within the present as reality. That is the route of development that defines the incorporation of the subconscious into the conscious. And as part of present‑day reality, then it becomes redeemable, which previously, in the subconscious, was not possible. Then, if redeemed, there comes into being a whole new reality, a whole new nature, and with all of that, a whole new future.
February 13 2023
Man is the animal that chooses according to his taste. He is the homo sapiens. And he chooses his way of getting through life as well via his taste. And there are many different ways in life that all have their own natures, and it is their nature that we taste and choose. Now let us say that a new way of life comes into being that possesses a unique and rare affinity with man’s innermost nature. Imagine the attraction that would pose to a man who is only just learning to seek his way in life, a young man.
February 13 2023
What makes the dithyramb so powerful as an art form is that, in the end, as a direct result of the music, the actor becomes intoxicated and enchanted with mythotropic will. Most importantly, that will then moves him.
And that intoxication is most apparent after the actor falters and loses his way and then forgets the will he has learned. As if having entered into the desert, where all growth ceases, he becomes barren in comparison to when he was intoxicated and driven. That is when the power of the dithyramb becomes most evident.
February 13 2023
What is the distance between a man and his conscience? That is the distance between that man and the dithyrambic music in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The man with no conscience, or who disregards his conscience, will see nothing in the music. By the same token, the man who does see his conscience in the music, then he will grow ever closer to his conscience through that music, until one day when he grows beyond his worst conscience and thereby redeems it, when he grows beyond the limits of individuation and into supra‑individuation. And all of that growth requires proto‑tragedy.
February 13 2023
For Nietzsche, life was a very specific process of becoming. That in itself, the idea of life as a process of becoming, not a state of being, was a new starting point. No philosopher before him had ever defined life and certainly not in the purview of the human soul. Nietzsche defined it, specifically as will to self‑empowerment. The vision of Self amidst the swirl of passion and disconnected thought was the most important element in the mix, along with the conscience that goes with that vision, as well as the question of that conscience being healthy or injured and infirm.
Having defined life as he did, he then found meaning in suffering, and then, in that meaning, he also found salvation and redemption. These are extraordinary claims, to speak of salvation and redemption, but the proof is in his drama, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and its enactment.
And the suffering in which he found this meaning is the suffering that lies within the subconscious, the individual’s history. Thus, Man’s view of his thinking about the subconscious becomes critical in his success at life, whether he takes that history seriously, too seriously, or not seriously at all. And throughout his very thorough and complicated discourse on those variations and their consequences and advantages, then Nietzsche proposes something entirely new: the notion of a supra‑historical viewpoint and its value in life. It is as if he went to the outer limits on our behalf, came back, and told us the way. That is the gist of what Thus Spoke Zarathustra teaches. That is the gift he has given us.
Nietzsche on HIstory and Supra-History
February 15 2023
For many months now, I have been crawling through a grueling reiteration of Nietzshe’s Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben. It has been like chiseling rock. I’ve actually completed the first draft of the entire essay already, but now I am going back through everything I wrote and rewriting it. But I think it is good work. It presents an explanation of Nietzsche’s view of the role that the subconscious plays in life. And if I can get the reader to understand it, then it would be that much easier to understand how relatable his dithyrambic music is. A good understanding of my reiteration will help the reader better understand Nietzsche’s dithyrambs.
Over the next few days, I will post the final draft of the first chapter.
November 15, 2023
Sometimes I wonder if the idea of an eternally recurring world is simply inarticulate; that there are insights to be divined from within it that are simply too profound to find their expression in concept or even speech; as if the idea of an eternally recurring world pertains only to a supra-individuated state of being that is beyond consciousness, and the idea cannot find meaning except beyond consciousness. In other words, the idea of an eternally recurring world carries on in a state of being that sometimes does not include consciousness. Sometimes I wonder.
What would Socrates say to that? And don’t we already know!