> As long as we are trapped in the
> Christian worldview, life really is not worth living, since it is past sin
> and the possible afterlife that rules us. We seem to agree thus far. To
> overcome the Christian worldview, one must create a new perspective, that
> of the overman, of which the ER is a essential part. This overcoming is not
> a "leap to faith" and requires long and arduous work. For this reason, I
> propose, we must "make" existence worthwhile, as we create any work of art.
> Not only must we create an affirmative worldview based the the tragic, we
> must make it our own, to the point where it becomes instinct. The ways for
> an individual to do this may be as varied as fingerprints, but one way is
> to "Know thyself," to dig beyond what we were taught and what we have done:
> "That which you are doing and opining right now is not really you!" If this
> person who was one part of the Christian worldview is not really the real
> person, then who? This voyage to self discovery can result in the
> experience of the ER. I think Hesse tried to reveal this idea through fiction.
>
The Christian worldview was one that asked the question about why we
should live one kind of life rather than another, why act morally rather
than immorally; they were of course not the first to ask such questions
but they were unique in proposing an answer, namely, for the eternal
reward which makes the hardships of temptation bearable and vitally
important. This reward sets up a psychology of exchange of one thing for
another, of "faith" for "salvation" with the priest as the middleman.
What this presuposes is that life on its own terms would not be worth it,
that it's essentialy meaningless unless you believe. Now, as I see it,
the challange is not to answer this question on these terms, to alter the
terrain of values and also of possible questions and answers. By this I
mean, for example, Nietzsche's liberating prohibition that the value of
life can't be judged, that any claim to knowledge at this point is a
naive error. ( See the Twilight sections on Socrates and the so called
wise men ). He goes on in his elliptical way to simply declare the
universe innocent and on that bases makes amor fati possible. All other
riddles, such who we are or how we become what we are, are only possible
as supplemental luxuries of life, as an excess that only permits being
expended, that is not "work" as much as it's a form of unworking
or unemployment. True, to the extent we are alive we are employed by life
but as to the larger picture we reach a state of dispossesion that is not
quite like getting "fired" or "quiting" but more like the pink slip of
the gift, more like slipping and falling into the full consequences of
the gift of life. And you see how the Christian requires a Giver for
their gifts that makes them into bad debts being born into a
sinful world. The gift becomes debt, the Giver a creditor, an official or
officer of the Law. I propose that we live as parasites on the excess
gift of life, that we are runoff or overflow when we "create" in a
festive, generous and highly erotic way. That's the impulse whose work
does not seem like work, which is not a burden, nor a task as such but an
impossible position. Those rare moments.
> Yes, the world is the same, but one's
> view of it can be different, less pessimistic. To use the painting analogy
> again, and anyone who has completed a work of art will know the joy of it,
> life becomes a whole, where all the we thought was bad (the dark colors
> necessary in any painting) is really fine with us, since they are
> necessary. We no longer resent those darker experiences because we love the
> joy and wholeness of the now, of the complete painting.
>
> Sure, life is still cold and hard, but we can affirm and love even that, in
> which case "coldness" and "hardness" may no longer contain their barbaric
> undertones, which is not to say cruelty would not longer be cruelty or that
> the tragic would longer be tragic. For example, one can take great delight
> in the suffering requisite to a tragic play, but this suffering, borne out
> of love of life, is not indifference--quite the opposite.
>
> >
> George
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> A man's maturity--consists in having found again the seriousness one had as
> a child, at play" ~ Nietzsche.
I wonder what sort of making would guarantee our delight. Would any
art be better off if "coldness" lost its barbaric undertone? It would
only lose its distance and what keeps it apart. Nietzsche himself was
somewhat of a cruel barbarian with a moustache...
Leonardo Raggo///////\\\
ac857@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca
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