Tag: philosophy

There are veiled implications in the personality of the person who, through philosophy, reaches the rigidity of character of a Socrates, a Seneca, capable of facing their own death with serenity and indifference. The indifference of someone like this, in practice, cannot be understood by those who have not reached it, and this is why the discourse of such wise men tends to hurt. There is something unacceptably and frighteningly unnatural about this attitude, which only solidifies after the annihilation of a human dimension. May it be wisdom to shield oneself from the world, to be unaffected by any of its troubles; but this imperturbable marble, this materialization of passive pessimism, of not acting, not feeling, not wanting, and not suffering, although it achieves a victory of reason over instinct, simultaneously operates a human mutilation, and it is perhaps less painful, for those who cherish him and are around him, that he is never allowed to sing of such a victory.

There is a flagrant injustice in the way Nietzsche is painted by both his opponents and his admirers. Everyone seems to strive to see, in every detail of his biography, the exaltations we find in his work. It is as if the man Nietzsche was deprived of discernment and contended daily in life as he did philosophically. They see in every trace of his personality an unhealthy imbalance, trying to make us believe that he was not lamentably assaulted by the disease, but it had progressed slowly since his birth. They deny his reason, and in the natural tendencies of any man whose vocation is serious study, in the natural manifestations of any man experiencing inner conflict, they see mental disorders. There are studies that defend it! Modern, modernly healthy men guarantee he was always sick! A man, therefore, unable to sit at a table and behave publicly: a mad. Words are lacking to address these imbeciles…

He who sinks his teeth into Stoicism, the French moralists, Eastern philosophy, and especially Schopenhauer, should pay only one homage to his buried humanity: remain silent and never, ever expose the learned philosophy to an ordinary human being. It is perfectly possible to achieve the annulment of feeling and detachment, complete indifference to the outside world; but one has to be a scoundrel not to experience insurmountable remorse after inoculating such philosophies into an innocent mind. They have the power to devastate after causing an atrocious shock for which there is no cure and no way back. The vast majority of people are not ready and do not deserve to have their innocence destroyed by the weight of such thoughts.

There is nothing less poetic and divine than remorse, that stabbing and invincible pain that sets in to hurt. To experience it is to allow the mind to blacken and the sight to catch only the unpleasantness in everything. It is like a dense force that pulls the spirit down in all circumstances. Curious to confront it with the repeated Buddhist recommendation to break and destroy attachments completely. I do not remember seeing them discoursing on the remorse resulting from the suffering generated by such an operation. Perhaps, it will be with effects and healing foreseen on this infinite path of self-annihilation. I am not sure that such a path leads to nirvana when traveled to the end; however, I do know what monsters it is capable of producing…