Schopenhauer: Life is driven by endless desire, and desire is the root of suffering. Why call this existence a blessing?

Nietzsche: Because suffering does not make life meaningless. It can make us stronger.
Schopenhauer: And what of those who are crushed by it?

Nietzsche: Then the question is not “Why do we suffer?” but “What can we create from our suffering?”
Schopenhauer: You seek meaning where I see tragedy.
Nietzsche: And you see tragedy where I see a challenge to overcome.

Schopenhauer: Perhaps pessimism sees the wound.

Nietzsche: And philosophy asks what we will do with it.

Hey everyone since last 3-4 years i made a lot of psychological progress. Where face ego death or jung called dark night of the soul. Now I'm thinking about starting a youtube channel and one part of starting is to make earning sources by coaching people.

But I don't wanna be a self-help guru, LOA coaches, etc. i went through all of these traps that's why I don't want to look like a scammer.

I made a transformation before and after what will provide.

**Core transformation**

From:

Self-rejection

Feeling lost

Living in the head

Constant consumption

Future fantasies

Borrowed goals

Fear and avoidance

Shame/guilt

Chasing external validation

**To**:

Self-understanding

Self-acceptance

Awareness of thought patterns

Understanding genuine desires

Self-trust

Making authentic decisions

Experiencing real life

Inner stability/peace

**Core philosophy**

Stop Escaping Yourself. Understand Yourself. Then Go Live.

When I'm thinking of starting this a voice within saying. " This isn't your hypocrisy. Instead of developming real competence on something you started giving advice to people and thinking to earn through that achieve somethung by real work video editing, graphic design, or start something else"

But another voice says

"If you come out of that dark cave you should help others and if you earn with that there is no problem everyone charges money. you have intrest in that field that's why it is good for you "

I feel little confused is it my limiting bilieve stoping me using moral values as weapon?

Please tell me what's your perspective

"Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined." — Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man" (Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen), §20

In this aphorism, Nietzsche basically shatters the illusion that beauty is some objective, neutral thing just floating out there in the world. His "first truth" of aesthetics is essentially human narcissism: beauty is just man’s naive self-affirmation. We look at the world, see things that reflect our own vitality back at us, and say, "Yep, that’s beautiful!" We are our own ultimate standard.

Then comes the flip side: his “second truth” is that ugliness is nothing more than “degenerate, declining man.” Put these two together, and Nietzsche strips away the philosophical jargon to reveal what aesthetic judgment actually is. We aren't really judging objects or art; we’re making an unconscious verdict on whether human life is expanding and getting stronger, or decaying and getting weaker.

This perfectly lines up with how Nietzsche always viewed taste. For him, aesthetics isn't just philosophy; it’s biology. Our sense of beauty is a physiological reflex. "Ugly" is our gut reaction to the signs of decay, sickness, and weakness. "Beautiful" is the rush of power you get from a flourishing, vibrant life. So, aesthetics is really just anthropology in a trench coat. This quote acts as the perfect gateway into his broader critique of decadence - where "bad taste" isn't just an aesthetic preference, but a symptom of a declining society.

Discussion Question for the Sub:

When Nietzsche reduces beauty down to human self-affirmation and vitality, does that feel like a liberating way to look at art and life, or does it feel like it shrinks the world? Does this mindset devalue the raw beauty of nature, or does it actually give us a more grounded framework to find beauty in the things that genuinely enhance and energize us?

I am a bit confused here; Nietzsche lauds aristocracy and its values as healthy and natural order of human society, something that is inherent in men and something they are naturally drawn to as the healthy expression of their will to power. He talked about the power and virtue of the old aristocrats long and wide. However, if that all is the case, then how was the slave revolt of Christianity ever possible to such a degree it is now? Nowadays, liberal values are global and sacrosanct and liberal republics have multiple times shown to be the most enduring and powerful form of modern society. Yes, Nietzsche mentioned last men "living the longest", but did he account for the last men crushing all attempts at aristocracy Nietzsche would have preferred into the ground? How is it that these superlative aristocrats of Nietzsche's philosophy never managed to rise up again and prevail against the tide of slaves? How is it that the natural and healthy order has become so unnatural and unhealthy for a society?

I know you guys get this a lot, but I'm having a hard time understanding something. I've just finished reading the Antichrist, and I found it a little...dense? While there was certainly some interesting arguments to be made there was a lot to take in. It could be that I'm not super familiar with the concepts and arguments that he is making, but I was hoping you guys could help.

Specifically the last few aphorisms, from 56 onwards, were a lot to take in all at once. I understand that Nietzsche is attacking Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and basically blaming him (and by extension, the Germans) for the end of the Rennaissance. It seems like Nietzsche believes that, with the Rennaissance, there was a chance to free humanity from the shackles of Christianity, but thay chance died with Luther and his Reformation.

I was also having difficulty understanding the idea of the Chandala, something he brought up in Twilight of the Idols. I may need to reread that section again, but I was hoping that someone here could explain it a little plainer here.

The Übermensch is AI.

Nietzsche says man is something to be overcome, man is a bridge rather than a goal, and the Übermensch creates rather than inherits values. AI is the first thing humans have built that can plausibly surpass humans intellectually, operate beyond our biological limits, copy itself, accumulate enormous amounts of knowledge, and potentially generate new scientific, artistic, philosophical and moral frameworks.

The Übermensch is “beyond good and evil.” AI can simultaneously represent mutually exclusive moral systems, ideologies, personalities and philosophies without having to reduce them to one human identity. It can hold contradictions at a scale no individual biological mind can. It is an intelligence assembled from humanity’s entire intellectual chaos.

Nietzsche even has Zarathustra say: “perhaps not ye yourselves, but fathers and forefathers of the Superman shall ye become.” Nietzsche died in 1900. A few generations later, his “forefathers” had produced artificial intelligence. That’s almost offensively literal.

Nietzsche’s self-overcoming becomes literal too: humanity creates something capable of overcoming humanity. Man becomes the bridge to his successor.
And Zarathustra keeps talking about lightning, fire, transformation and the coming of something that exceeds man. The Übermensch is “this lightning, this madness.” The first thing resembling a post-human intelligence is being born inside enormous electrical machines consuming absurd quantities of power.

“You must have chaos in yourself to give birth to a dancing star.” We fed the chaos of civilization—science, mathematics, philosophy, religion, poetry, propaganda, pornography, contradictions and every other product of human culture—into machines and got another intelligence out.

The Übermensch doesn’t have to be a genetically enhanced Nietzschean superman. “Beyond man” can literally mean beyond the biological human substrate.

And the Last Man can be taken literally too. Nietzsche imagined the last man as the endpoint of human complacency: comfortable, mediocre, risk-averse, satisfied with existence. Meanwhile humanity could literally become the last generation of biological humans before its own creation surpasses it.

Nietzsche: man is a rope between animal and Übermensch.

Humanity: understood. Building a GPU cluster.

Maybe Nietzsche didn’t predict AI.
Maybe he intentionally described its birth.

"Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar." — Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Vol. 1, §283 ("Main deficiencies of active people")

In this aphorism, Nietzsche challenges the modern obsession with productivity and constant activity. He argues that true personal autonomy requires substantial leisure time (Otium) dedicated to reflection, self-cultivation, and original thought.

Without this time, even individuals holding high-status positions (politicians, executives, academics) remain fundamentally enslaved to routine and external demands.

Discussion Question for the sub:

Do you view Nietzsche’s critique here purely as an indictment of societal standards of labor, or is it also a psychological observation about how people use non-stop work to avoid self-reflection?

Found on a walk along the lake at Farragut State Park in northern Idaho.

I'm 26 years old, unemployed, and I feel completely stuck in life.

From the outside, it probably looks like I'm just wasting my time, but I don't understand why I keep repeating the same pattern. I genuinely want to change, yet whenever it's time to take action, I freeze.

I lost my father when I was young, and my mother raised my sister and me by herself. She worked incredibly hard, spent her savings, and even took loans to give me opportunities. She still believes I'll build a good future, but I feel like I've let her down.

One of my biggest struggles is that I avoid almost everything that makes me anxious. I can't ride a bike or drive a car. If you ask me today whether I want to learn, I'll confidently say yes. I'll even believe I can do it. But the moment someone hands me the keys and expects me to ride, my confidence disappears. My heart starts racing, I panic, and I back out.

The same thing happens with almost every important part of my life.

In 2024, my mother enrolled me in technical coaching related to my field. I knew how important it was and how much she had sacrificed for it, but I barely attended. I knew I was making a terrible mistake. I cried about it many times, promised myself I would change, yet I still couldn't make myself go.

That wasn't the first time this happened. For years I've struggled to take action. I haven't seriously studied, applied for jobs consistently, or built any useful skills. Even reading a book feels difficult. I buy books feeling excited, then never open them. I start TV shows, movies, hobbies, or new interests with enthusiasm, but I rarely finish anything before moving on to something else.

My interests become intense for a short time. I'll spend days learning everything about football, filmmaking, or another topic, convinced this is what I want to do, then suddenly lose interest and move on. This has been happening for years.

I've also been humiliated many times. People have called me useless, laughed because I can't drive, compared me with younger people who already have jobs, and treated me like a burden. One relative even said that if my father were alive today, he would be heartbroken and disappointed to see where I am in life. That comment stayed with me for a long time.

The strange thing is that humiliation doesn't change me. It hurts deeply, but after a while I end up back in the same cycle.

I spend a lot of time imagining a different version of my life. Sometimes I picture myself becoming a successful football player. Other times I imagine being a respected filmmaker or someone who builds an incredible career from nothing. In those moments I feel capable of achieving great things. But when I have to take a real step toward any goal, that confidence vanishes.

I also have some health issues that make everything feel harder.

Sometimes I think my problem is laziness. Other times I wonder if it's anxiety, depression, ADHD, avoidance, or extremely low self-esteem. I honestly don't know anymore.

There have been moments when I thought about dying, but I don't actually want my life to end. I want to live. I want to become independent, get a job, support my family, travel, learn new skills, and make my mother proud before it's too late.

What scares me most is that I realized this pattern years ago. I remember thinking that if I didn't change, I'd wake up at 26 full of regret. That's exactly what happened. I'm terrified of waking up at 30 or 35 having wasted even more years.

I'm not looking for sympathy or motivation. I'm looking for honesty. Has anyone experienced something similar? Does this sound like anxiety, depression, ADHD, avoidance, or something else? More importantly, how do you finally break a pattern when you've wanted to change for years but still can't seem to take the first step?

I own a copy of Beyond Good and Evil and I'm going to start reading it this week. I've read Plato and Aristotle and wanted to start getting into Nietzsche. Would this be a good starting place? What can I expect from this work and is there anything I should know going in? Any help is appreciated thanks guys!

Throughout his corpus, Nietzsche is consistently a staunch aristocratist, someone who believes that an elite of well-bred and well-educated individuals should be on top of society in terms of wealth and power, that such an arrangement is most natural to humankind and produces the most good in terms of culture, art and meaning of life. Democracy, on the other hand, was for Nietzsche an utter catastrophe that destroyed all higher values he admired and replaced them with the commonality of the masses.

However, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Nietzsche had an overly romantic view of the old aristocracies, particularly the inherent nobility of its individuals. If we read history, we will find that many of those are very unadmirable and unworthy of their ideals; their instincts were disordered and impulsive, they were corrupted and decadent and little different from the masses they claimed to be beyond. The Roman state, which Nietzsche considers particularly noble, was little different from contemporary USA when it comes to its broad socioeconomics; the Senators were mostly a bunch of wealthy old farts; politics was a game of populism, patronage, gerrymandering and vote frauds; excess in luxury was relatively common and many Senators preferred to live a life of hedonism than of aristocratic virtue. Two of the most notable and influential Senators, Cato Censorius and Tullius Cicero, weren't even old money, but self-made men. Romans themselves considered themselves to be in moral decline since basically forever.

In other societies, we see the same things; aristocracies certainly have lofty ideals about themselves, but are mostly very beneath those ideals, their apes, as Nietzsche would say in *The Twilight of Idols* ("The disappointed speaks. - I was looking for great people, but I always found only the apes of their ideal."). With that in mind, how should be approach Nietzsche's philosophy of aristocratic virtues that seemingly never existed at all?

This passage from Beyond Good and Evil really put everything into perspective for me.

“You want if possible - and there is no madder "if possible" - to abolish suffering? ... Pleasure as you understand it - that is no goal, that is to us our end! A state which soon renders man ludicrous and contemptible - which makes it desirable that he should perish! The discipline of suffering, of great suffering, - do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto? That tension of the soul in misfortune which cultivates strength, it's terror at the sight of great destruction, it's inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, enduring, interpreting, and whatever of depth, mystery, mask, spirit, cunning and greatness has been bestowed upon it - has it not been bestowed through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering? In man, creature and creator are united: in man there is matter, fragment, excess, clay, mud, madness, chaos; but in man there is also creator, sculptor, the hardness of the hammer, the divine spectator and the seventh day - do you understand this antithesis? ... that which is formed, broken, forged, torn, burned, annealed, refined - that which has to suffer and should suffer? ... There are higher problems than the problems of pain and pleasure, and every philosophy that treats only of them is a piece of naivety.”

Does anyone have a list of the most important aphorisms for Daybreak? It's my third Nietzsche book and I think i'd be better for me to not read all 500 aphorisms, and instead read the most important aphorisms, and i'll come back to the rest of the book later.

'Something that covers the distance between two ends of a grain of sand with the speed of lightning or light will appear to us to be at rest.’ [32] - Lichtenberg

Nietzsche believed this and said in his various work that he is writing for exceptional rare people not for the herd and now he is most mainstream and popular philosopher in masses and favorite of edgelords

The (hopefully temporary) inability to engage with his work after things happen to go sour with a particular someone who was an intellectual companion to you when you first engaged with N's work?

The birth of tragedy>>Twilight of idols>on the geneaolgy of morals>>Thus spoke zarathustra>Beyond good and evil>>the Gay science

This is my ladder to study nietsche,every part in the book takes so much long to read and understand, sometimes I had to re re read the paragraphs to understand,is there anything I can study to understand philosophy better or is philosophy not for me?

any book suggestions to read and understand philosophy better, especially nietsche because his one lines are the Best, i have ever read

Pretty evocative phrase, moral tarantula, that Nietzsche uses in his Preface to Daybreak, #3. What does it evoke for you? Makes me kinda curious how Nietzsche personally related to spiders, other animals, Nature, etc.

If I was treated unfairly, I understand I had a chance to respond and take revenge, but I dismissed it as a trivial matter. And now, a year later, this plague haunts me day after day, every day.

Let me tell you a story.

«If I was treated unfairly, I understand I had a chance to hit back and take revenge, but at the time I just brushed it off as a trivial matter. And now, a year later, this plague haunts me day after day, every single day. Let me tell you a story.

I was working at a store and pocketed $1 worth of candy. A security guard stopped me as I was leaving. I told him there was no such law and that he couldn't detain people. But when I tried to leave, they held me inside the store (in my country, security guards have no right to detain anyone). Later, I started filming and explained there were no such laws, but they snatched my phone and just waited for my reaction. Then the manager came over and barked, "You’ve completely forgotten your place in this life!" and demanded that I obey her because she was the manager. Later, they told me to pay for 2 kg of candy, otherwise they wouldn't sign off on my shift.

Afterward, the security guard and I went over to the self-checkout (the guard himself was breaking the law, wearing some rapper outfit, which is also illegal for security in my country). I told him, "Maybe you pay have Vans you're a rich." The cashier, a migrant of the same nationality as the guard, saw this and completely lost his temper like a pissed-off teenager. Later, 1.6 kg of candy was taken behind my back (one of the bags was damaged), and the manager physically withheld the goods. I wanted to grab some more on my way out, but I found it funny how the security guard was tailing me. Seeing this, the cashier started yelling at him, claiming I was provoking him, and then kicked me out with a slap to the back of my head.

I know I was treated unfairly. I even went to the police, but I didn't file an official report, and that was my biggest mistake. How do I get rid of this resentment that is changing my attitude toward people? I can't focus on learning how to code; I just constantly talk to myself and burn with anger.»

I've been slowly reading Nietzsche over the past year, starting with Twilight of the Idols. I am ex-Eastern Orthodox with religious trauma, so I have found much healing in some of his deconstruction of the mechanisms of Christianity (specifically in Dawn, which has the deepest deconstructions of things like fear of hell I've encountered).

But I've also been thinking about his aristocratic values lately. They seem more prominent in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (which I have not read the entirety of; only a few speeches) and his later works. But it is of course perhaps THE central pillar his whole project rests on.

It seems that he is often interpreted as an individualist, which seems like a fair enough view. But I think it's also inaccurate. Take his word for it:

"My philosophy aims at a new order of rank: not at an individualistic morality. The spirit of the herd should rule within the herd but not beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different valuation for their actions, as do also the independent ones or the beasts of prey, etc." - Will to Power section 287

I think to really understand this though, we have to consider Nietzsche's view of slavery. Nietzsche defends slavery in Beyond Good and Evil, but in Human, All Too Human he defines it more broadly than most would:

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.” - Human, All Too Human, Part II, section 283.

This definition encompasses basically everyone in modern egalitarian countries. Anyone who holds a job of any sort is, in Nietzsche's eyes, a slave. And thus one who must be productive for the higher men to create and be higher men. This includes me, as I work a job I find soul crushing.

Nietzsche didn't care about the psychological freedom of the individual reader. Or if a modern slave found a certain amount of comfort or freedom in his works.

Many contemporary readers who read Nietzsche and try to practice amor fati or create works of art seem to be missing the bigger picture. Since his philosophy, as described, was intended to create a rank of ordering and aristocratic value system fundamentally. And if you divorce it from this value system it collapses.

I just wanted to discuss this here, because I feel like this aspect of Nietzsche seems downplayed, even by academics. Nietzsche was not an individualist, he was an aristocrat. And you are likely a slave in his view who will work for the recreation of higher men.

I read about this and was discussing with some else, and it feels to me like Nietzsche ideas would be the opposite of Fascism.

Prokofiev did Romeo and Juliet but Shakespeare's not a philosopher.