I like cliff notes sometimes
check it:
1/ Nietzsche on strength:
“Only excess of strength is proof of strength.”
You ONLY possess those things that you can afford to waste
Only excessive spending is proof of wealth
Going overboard demonstrates authenticity
Only *needless* risk is proof of courage
2/ LIMIT your information intake
Nietzsche: “Once and for all, there is a great deal I do not want to know – Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge”
Take care that acquiring knowledge doesn’t distract from acquiring power, sway, and clout
Real domination over the real world
3/ On Caesar
Is the world set up for survival of the fittest?
Nietzsche says NO
It’s the rudimentary microbe that is more robust than genius men and genius civilizations
4/ Nietzsche on humility:
“When it is trodden on a worm will curl up. That is prudent. It thereby reduces the chance of being trodden on again. In the language of morals: humility.”
Humility: scared animal reducing surface area
Pride: strong animal increasing surface area
5/ Nietzsche saw our age coming - a time when everyone feels permanently broken:
“Here everyone helps everyone else, here everyone is to a certain degree an invalid and everyone a nurse. This is then called virtue”
Stronger ages “overflowing” with life would PITY such cowardice
6/ When the psyche is PROPERLY calibrated, we instinctively make great decisions
Nietzsche:
“To have to combat one’s instincts – that is the formula for décadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness and instinct are one.”
Reason drives a WEDGE between us and our gut
7/ Nietzsche on the complainers:
“Every poor devil finds pleasure in scolding – it gives him a little of the intoxication of power. Even complaining and wailing can give life a charm for the sake of which one endures it: there is a small dose of revenge in every complaint.”
8/ How NOT to deal with powerful urges
Nietzsche:
“Castration is instinctively selected in a struggle against a desire by those who are too weak-willed, too degenerate to impose moderation.”
Lust, greed, wrath needn’t be castrated as sins but rather wielded as weapons
9/ Nietzsche's 4 questions of conscience:
Do you want to lead men or merely be different from them?
Are you living true to yourself, or LARPing?
Are you taking action, just watching, or turning away from it all?
Do you want to lead, to be equal, or to be alone?
10/ Turbulence, from mental contradictions to actual war, keeps us sharp:
“One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions; one remains young only on condition the soul does not relax, does not long for peace. One has renounced grand life when one renounces war”
11/ In the rituals of the past, a lot was “risked…demanded…squandered”
People could indulge in them due to their “superabundance of life”
One “consequence of decline” has been people giving up on rituals
Nietzsche: “What was formerly a spice of life would be poison to us”
12/ Nietzsche on equality:
“Equality belongs essentially to decline: the chasm between man & man, class & class, the multiplicity of types, the will to be oneself, to stand out – that which I call pathos of distance – characterizes every strong age”
Nobility wants to stand out
13/ In a passage titled BEAUTY NO ACCIDENT, Nietzsche writes that beauty can only result from generational labor
It takes collective sacrifice across the bloodline and a willingness to prioritize beauty over more immediate concerns
14/ The direction of real improvement is outside in
In our cerebral age, too much effort is wasted on perfecting “thoughts and feelings"
While great civilizations are actually built on the cult of the body
