And now it’s October: we’re more than 80% through the end of the year "getting back to where we once belonged”, and for me…I’ve come upon a bit of a road block.
To best understand this road block, we have to talk about the philosophy of Nietzsche…and I know, I said I wasn’t going to talk about philosophy on Phedippidations…but there’s just no other way, (and I promise you that this is related to running).
In order to understand the nature of this “road block”, we have to spend some time talking about Friedrich, since to a great extent it’s because of him that I’ve come to this.
I told you at the start that this year’s journey might not end so well…and there’s still plenty of time to finish strong, but getting past this point is proving to be…well, difficult at best, impossible at worst. I’ve reached The Wall.
Have you ever gone swimming in a river, and tried to swim against the current?
What’s the point in doing that? Resistance is futile. What is the meaning of existence? What if there is no meaning? What if there is no purpose?
What happens when you stop swimming and just let the river take you where it wants you to go…and what if you really don’t care anymore where it takes you? That’s kinda what nihilism is, and it’s something that Nietzsche thought would help change the world for the better.
But too many people think that “nihilism” is a bad word, and I think they’re making the logical fallacy of “Ignoratio elenchi”…they’re missing the point.
I was born into this universe, told that I was very special and spent much of my waking hours trying to understand my purpose for being. I’ve spent much of my life trying to affix some kind of “meaning” to my life without ever pausing to consider that, maybe…just maybe, there doesn’t have to be any meaning to it.
Just because my life does not have any purpose or meaning, doesn’t imply that there is no logical reason to live and enjoy it…and that includes the experience of suffering.
Nietzsche didn’t enjoy suffering…but he did believe that growth and accomplishment can often come from pain.
“What if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other.” He wrote “You have a choice in life: either as little displeasure as possible, painlessness in brief or as much displeasure as possible as the price for an abundance of subtle pleasures and joys.”
To Nietzsche, suffering is not necessarily a sign of failure, it may just be evidence of the nobility and arduousness of the tasks we’ve undertaken.
In his book “Will to Power”, Nietzsche wrote:
“A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos — an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.”
Nietzsche was a fan of Buddhism, a practice that advocates separating oneself from “will and desire” in order to reduce suffering…what he called “the will to nothingness”.
He recognized both the danger of nihilism, and the great possibilities it offers. He wrote “I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"
In other words, it’s only when nihilism is overcome that a society can truly thrive. He embraced nihilism because he felt that the sooner we all became nihilists, the sooner we could overcome it.
“That which doesn’t kill us” he wrote “makes us stronger”.
Both opening and closing themes songs were by Jim Fidler at jimfidler.com
“The Curra Road” was composed by Ger Wolfe at gerwolf.com
Other music included:
- Nothing - The Fuggs
- Where is my Everything - Nick Lowe
- You can’t always get what you want - Rolling Stones
- Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols
- I’m Going Home - Tim Curry
- Truman Sleeps - Philip Glass
- Whiskey Your the Devil - The Clancy Brothers
Phedippidations is supported through the financial support of listeners who clicked on the ONLY IF YOU LIKE IT button at SteveRunner.com to subscribe to Patreon or Paypal where they send me one dollar a month.
Thank you:
Deborah, Michael, David, Mary, Cheryl, Vance, Gordon, Scott, Roberto, Mark, Terence, Evelyn, Al, Brad, Joerg, Martha, Jill, Rob, Jim, Wendee, Tom, Katie, Joseph, Tony, Richard, Vera, Robert, Dino, Louis, William, Christiane, Erik, Trey, Margaret, Martin, James, Doug and Russ.