Thursday, 11 September 2008

Proving Nietzsche Wrong

Nietzsche once said that compassion is the weakest human faculty. He prided instinct over what he called the "paralyzing subterfuge" of what we refer to as altruism - "you come first, I come second" - and wanted to reverse the pattern of forgoing something for someone else; he wanted to examine what he called the whole process of self-deception. For him, there was a certain beauty in the sincerity of "knowing oneself", a beauty in the instinctual reaction that always comes first and in the ability to live life with a charged authenticity to it.

Tonight I hurt someone I love very much. I said things without thinking, I offered up a part of me that I knew spoke false things, a part that I never want a part of. And I wish I could take it all back but I can't.

Perhaps Nietzsche was right when he talked about the authenticity of life; perhaps he felt suffocated by the self-decption around him; or perhaps, he never had someone he loved so much that he would want to seek to do right by that person. If I look deep down into myself, I would find that how I really feel and what I really want to say is something very different from the words that poured out of my mouth tonight; I would see truth and not be deceieved by an unconscious selfishness that sought to provoke and not love.

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