Monday, May 30, 2005
The Dawn by Nietzsche
The morality of voluntary suffering.— What is the supreme enjoyment for men who live in the state of war of those small, continually endangered communities which are characterized by the strictest mores? In other words, for vigorous, vindictive, vicious, suspicious souls who are prepared for what is most terrible and hardened by deprivations and mores? The enjoyment of cruelty; and in these circumstances it is even accounted among the virtues of such a soul if it is inventive and insatiable in cruelty. The community feels refreshed by cruel deeds, and casts off for once the gloom of continual anxiety and caution. Cruelty belongs to the most ancient festive joys of mankind. Hence one supposes that the gods, too, feel refreshed and festive when one offers them the sight of cruelty; and so the idea creeps into the world that voluntary suffering, torture one has chosen oneself, has value and makes good sense.
Gradually, the mores shape a communal practice in accordance with this idea: all extravagant well-being henceforth arouses some mistrust, and all hard and painful states more and more confidence. One supposes that the gods might look upon us ungraciously because of our happiness, and graciously because of our suffering—not by any means with pity. For pity is considered contemptible and unworthy of a strong and terrible soul. Rather, graciously, because it delights them and puts them into good spirits; for those who are cruel enjoy the supreme titillation of the feeling of power.
Thus the concept of the "most moral man" of the community comes to contain the virtue of frequent suffering, deprivation, a hard way of life, and of cruel self-mortification—not, to say this again and again, as a means of self-discipline, self-control, and the desire for individual happiness, but as a virtue that makes the community look good to the evil gods, steaming up to them like a continual sacrifice of atonement upon some altar. All those spiritual leaders of peoples who succeeded in stirring something in the inert but fertile mud of their mores, had need not only of madness but also of voluntary torture to engender faith—and most and first of all, as always, their faith in themselves. The more their own spirit moved along novel paths and was therefore tormented by pangs of conscience and anxieties, the more cruelly they raged against their own flesh, their own desires, and their own health—as if they wanted to offer the deity some substitute gratification in case it should perhaps be embittered on account of customs one had neglected and fought against and new goals one had championed.
Let us not believe too quickly that now we have rid ourselves completely of such a logic of feeling. Let the most heroic souls question themselves about this. Every smallest step on the field of free thought and the individually formed life has always been fought for with spiritual and physical torments: not only moving forward, no, above all moving, motion, change have required innumerable martyrs, all through the long path-seeking and basic millennia of which, to be sure, people don't think when they talk, as usual, about "world history," that ridiculously small segment of human existence. And even in this so-called world history, which is at bottom much ado about the latest news, there is no really more important theme than the primordial tragedy of the martyrs who wanted to move the swamps.
Nothing has been bought more dearly than that little bit of human reason and of a feeling of freedom that now constitutes our pride. But it is this very pride that now makes it almost impossible for us to feel with those vast spans of time characterized by the "morality of mores" which antedate "world history" as the real and decisive main history that determined the character of humanity—when suffering was a virtue, cruelty a virtue, dissimulation a virtue, revenge a virtue, the slander of reason a virtue, while well-being was a danger, the craving for knowledge a danger, peace a danger, pity a danger, being pitied ignominy, work ignominy, madness divine, change immoral and pregnant with disaster.
You think that all this has changed, and that humanity must thus have changed its character? You who think you know men, learn to know yourselves better!
Gradually, the mores shape a communal practice in accordance with this idea: all extravagant well-being henceforth arouses some mistrust, and all hard and painful states more and more confidence. One supposes that the gods might look upon us ungraciously because of our happiness, and graciously because of our suffering—not by any means with pity. For pity is considered contemptible and unworthy of a strong and terrible soul. Rather, graciously, because it delights them and puts them into good spirits; for those who are cruel enjoy the supreme titillation of the feeling of power.
Thus the concept of the "most moral man" of the community comes to contain the virtue of frequent suffering, deprivation, a hard way of life, and of cruel self-mortification—not, to say this again and again, as a means of self-discipline, self-control, and the desire for individual happiness, but as a virtue that makes the community look good to the evil gods, steaming up to them like a continual sacrifice of atonement upon some altar. All those spiritual leaders of peoples who succeeded in stirring something in the inert but fertile mud of their mores, had need not only of madness but also of voluntary torture to engender faith—and most and first of all, as always, their faith in themselves. The more their own spirit moved along novel paths and was therefore tormented by pangs of conscience and anxieties, the more cruelly they raged against their own flesh, their own desires, and their own health—as if they wanted to offer the deity some substitute gratification in case it should perhaps be embittered on account of customs one had neglected and fought against and new goals one had championed.
Let us not believe too quickly that now we have rid ourselves completely of such a logic of feeling. Let the most heroic souls question themselves about this. Every smallest step on the field of free thought and the individually formed life has always been fought for with spiritual and physical torments: not only moving forward, no, above all moving, motion, change have required innumerable martyrs, all through the long path-seeking and basic millennia of which, to be sure, people don't think when they talk, as usual, about "world history," that ridiculously small segment of human existence. And even in this so-called world history, which is at bottom much ado about the latest news, there is no really more important theme than the primordial tragedy of the martyrs who wanted to move the swamps.
Nothing has been bought more dearly than that little bit of human reason and of a feeling of freedom that now constitutes our pride. But it is this very pride that now makes it almost impossible for us to feel with those vast spans of time characterized by the "morality of mores" which antedate "world history" as the real and decisive main history that determined the character of humanity—when suffering was a virtue, cruelty a virtue, dissimulation a virtue, revenge a virtue, the slander of reason a virtue, while well-being was a danger, the craving for knowledge a danger, peace a danger, pity a danger, being pitied ignominy, work ignominy, madness divine, change immoral and pregnant with disaster.
You think that all this has changed, and that humanity must thus have changed its character? You who think you know men, learn to know yourselves better!
The Dawn
Everything has its day.— When man gave all things a sex he thought, not that he was playing, but that he had gained a profound insight:—it was only very late that he confessed to himself what an enormous error this was, and perhaps even now he has not confessed it completely.— In the same way man has ascribed to all that exists a connection with morality and laid an ethical significance on the world's back. One day this will have as much value, and no more, as the belief in the masculinity or femininity of the sun has today.
The Dawn
Thoughts on the Prejudices of morality.
by Nietzsche
http://www.publicappeal.org/library/nietzsche/Nietzsche_the_dawn_or_daybreak/the_dawn.htm
The Dawn
Thoughts on the Prejudices of morality.
by Nietzsche
http://www.publicappeal.org/library/nietzsche/Nietzsche_the_dawn_or_daybreak/the_dawn.htm
Monday, May 23, 2005
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Yay!
Finally got ma haircut! And I dont think I wanna get ma hair straightened anymore !!!!
Yeah started studying vocabulary. Its gonna help me in ma aptitude test plus help me build an 'educated' vocabulary :)
Yeah I like having something to do! Morning walks are frequent ALHAMDULILAH. I enjoy the 45 minutes with myself and the beauty of life.
Life's good. Thank You Allah :)
Yeah started studying vocabulary. Its gonna help me in ma aptitude test plus help me build an 'educated' vocabulary :)
Yeah I like having something to do! Morning walks are frequent ALHAMDULILAH. I enjoy the 45 minutes with myself and the beauty of life.
Life's good. Thank You Allah :)
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Quotes...
"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes."
"To win, the first thing you have to do is not lose."
(not lose it?
"Life is a grindstone- it either grinds you down or polishes you up."
"A good idea in the hands of the right person is the most powerful tool ever discovered."
"To win, the first thing you have to do is not lose."
(not lose it?
"Life is a grindstone- it either grinds you down or polishes you up."
"A good idea in the hands of the right person is the most powerful tool ever discovered."
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Ahem!
I need a haircut!!! I just do!!! and absar... i wont get ma hair straightened... gonna see first what the hair straightening has done to u ;)
Monday, May 09, 2005
Chocolate Cake
I want a chocolate cake... a chocolate fudge cake! YUM yeah thats MY 1:45 am cravingg! YUMMM!! I'd bake a cake but the last 3 cakes i baked were total disasters! They cudnt even be chewed! YEAH! tasted like rubber! Without those Betty Crocker Cake batter... I havent done well!! :P Dosent matter thats what bakeries are for!
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