The following is an excerpt from Nietzsche: Great Thinkers on Modern Life, a new series published by The School of Life. In this particular chapter, author John Armstrong uses the philosopher’s works to explain the best way to discern your true passions.
Sometimes we feel frustrated with “who we are”. We yearn to be better than we are. But we are not quite sure what that means.
Nietzsche was very sympathetic to this kind of restlessness. He doesn’t chide us to count our blessings and remember that things could be a lot worse; or say that in the overall condition of the world we could ourselves terribly lucky, and that we should pull ourselves together. Instead, he invites us to get interested in what is going on when we feel dissatisfied with ourselves. He sees this as a sign of good psychological health. He wants us to get to know this dissatisfaction, take it seriously and do something about it.
Some first shots at imaging a better version of oneself might be: make more money, do more exciting things, get a job you love, move house, find an exit from an unsatisfactory relationship, make some new friends, get a masters degree. These could be very good goals. But notice that they are all external. They are about things we could do or have. What about what it is like to be us: who are we, really, in and of ourselves? And why don’t we set about it. Why don’t we become the people we want to be? Are we too lazy? This is the question Nietzsche asks in an essay called Schopenhauer as Educator:
A traveller, who has seen many countries, was asked what common attribute he found among people. He answered: “They have a tendency to sloth.”
Many may think that the fuller truth would have been: “They are all timid.” They hide themselves behind “manners” and “opinions”.
At bottom every man knows that he is a unique being, the like of which can appear only once on this earth. By no extraordinary chance will such a marvelous piece of diversity in unity, as he is, ever be put together a second time. He knows this, but hides it like a guilty secret. Why? From fear of his neighbor, who looks only for the latest conventionalities in him, and is wrapped up in himself.
But what is it that forces man to fear his neighbor, to think and act with his herd, and not seek his own joy?
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But those insinuations of our vanity aside, the activity of genius seems in no way fundamentally different form the activity of the mechanical inventor, or the scholar of astronomy or history, a master tactician. All these activities are explained when one imagines men whose thinking is active in one particular direction; who used everything to that end; who always observes eagerly their inner life and that of other people; who see models, simulation everywhere; who do not tire of rearranging their material.
The genius, too, does nothing other than first learn to place stones, then to build, always seeking material, always forming and reforming it. Every human activity is amazingly complicated, not only that of the genius: but none is a “miracle”.
From where, then, the belief that there is genius only in the artist, orator or philosopher? That only they have “intuition” (thus attributing to them a kind of magical eye glass by which they can see directly into “being”)? It is evident that people speak of genius only where they find the effects of the great intellect most agreeable to and, on the other hand, where the not want to feel envy. To call someone “divine” means “here we do not have to compete.” Furthermore, everything that is complete and perfect is admired; everything evolved is underestimated. Now, no one can see in an artist’s work how it evolved: that is its advantage, for wherever we can see the evolution we grow somewhat cooler.
–Human, All Too Human, 1878
But to “grow cooler” is, really, a good thing. Because what it does is bring us closer to the sense that we too have it in our power to reach after great things. But not — as we formerly imagined — by some magnificent act of accomplishment. Rather by concentration of our efforts, slow mastery, the gradual accumulation of relevant insights, the painstaking sorting out of what is crucial from what is misleading, by practice and repetition.
Paradoxical as it might sound, Nietzsche warns that such recognition is heard as bad news. For if the great things are doable, then, indeed, we can compete. The great work is no longer “divine”. It is no longer cast as something utterly distant.
In essence, what Nietzsche is saying is this: the things we long to do and accomplish — the kind of person we might hope to become — are in fact within reach. But the path to each of those goals has this difficulty to it: it is a path that involves suffering, annoyance with oneself, disappointment, envy and frustration. He is saying that it is always through such pains that good things emerge. They do not occur as a matter of spontaneous luck. Looking on from the outside of what we admire (a successful person) we see the effect. But we do not usually get the chance to closely observe the fears, the insecurity. Such insight, however, is strangely heartening. It helps us see that suffering is not a sign of failing to be the best version of oneself, but a necessary part of the process of becoming who want to — and should — be.
