“Great literature can only be created by madmen and heretics, not diligent, hardworking men.” (Zamyatin)
The world has not changed very much from Nietzsche’s time.
Collective man needs to find reasons and excuses for his decisions and behaviour and I do agree with Dostoevsky when he writes about myth, miracle and authority, for man is lazy and seeks to escape and surrender his struggle ‘agon’, and making-creativity to others; and thus you have such thriving institutes that control the lives of all in the world. Ardono wrote that, "We are living in an open air prison".
It has been in our history to find "gods" that will sedate us and give us answers. Science is the new religion. This does not take away that there are sincere people as there are "elite" organizers of the cave. (Read Plato’s Book 7 'The Cave Simile', Nietzsche has something similar in 'Zarathustra'.
What I have seen is the "removing of the character" because it is easier for all concerned to sedate. We are even offering mind altering drugs to children. It is really sad, because in many cases there are reasons for this depression and you cannot find the root of the pain if you are not in the moment, in your life.
In many cases what "seems irrational" is rational because the person has not dealt with the impact that the human condition has on all of us.
If you are alive, you will be touched by life, and some of it will not tickle, but from this there is also growth, the "ownership of the self", "the discipline of suffering".
Nietzsche was a "gifted thinker".
There are people who are accelerated in learning. They are 0.5% of the population and are the inventors, the thinkers, the ones who go below and above and into areas that others do not think about or fear. I think in earlier times they used to call them "prodigies", nowadays at universities they are known as the "gifted".
In research there are more 'gifted' rather than 'gifted and creative'; the ‘gifted’ tend to be in science and music but the ‘gifted creative’ tend to be in music and arts. Nietzsche was a 'gifted thinker' and in the research of gifted thinkers they are independent, challenging, risk taking, have high ideals, and are sensory acute; they are "vividly alive".
It makes sense that being in this tension would bring about a "quivering despair and joy". Because they possess a high intelligence and sensitivity they "can see the whole picture". They cannot delude themselves with sedation and forgetfulness, therefore they know there is great loss and pain on our planet.
Since they are inventors, they do not follow the 'taught', so they speak a language alien to most. Nietzsche wrote and could speak more than one language but could not make himself understood in one.
It is not the language; it is the concepts and the journey of exploration that keeps them in solitude, and in this solitude there is both grief and joy.
What did Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein say?
“Why did you create me if there is no other like me. Did you not know that I cannot live without love" and Nietzsche writes that "love may have killed him".
So why does the world take the creativity of such a man but refuses to allow him his struggle, despair and longing? Why does it have to be labelled as a "mental illness" Creativity is not a mental illness, it is of truth and beauty, and it is dangerous for both the carrier and the receiver, it changes the hearts of men.
This area is really complex - not complicated, but layered. You can have a gifted person who is not creative. I sense that Nietzsche was both gifted and creative.
Now the world of formula and dogma has a problem with him.
We like to have our heroes" (and you know what Brecht writes about heroes, ‘A sorry state it is that needs heroes’) but we must make them like us, everyone must be the same; and since science is the new religion, then this difference must be a 'mental illness'.
Psychology does not take into account the human spirit, the will, the desire and the rebellious spark, and therefore this hypothesis (it is only a theory) is from the "predetermined" and "controlled forces of cause and effect; and although cause and effect exists, (stimuli and response), what this theory does not take into account is "rage, rage do not go gently into that good night."
There is also something like a small grain of sand in some people that refuses to surrender to the taught ways and all the 'following and leading' that leaves one without their life.
When Nietzsche was alive did anyone really speak with him?
And now that he is dead so many want to speak for him and with him?
What has changed?
I have asked this question in my lectures-dialogues about Vincent Van Gogh.
Why are his paintings worth millions now, and while alive he could not sell them?
What has changed?
At least his doctor admitted he could not help him and if you look at his painting of the doctor, he looks more depressed than his patient.
What did Kierkegaard write?
"The academic instructor is learned in the business of studying suffering thus he lives off the suffering of the glorious ones. The imitation of Christ is alien to him. But even worse, he robs them of the seriousness of their lives, he robs them of their impact by serving up the suffering of others as interesting knowledge." Romanticising Depression: Further Thoughts
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