Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Happiness is highly overrated…

Self-help books on display – shelf after shelf, shop after shop… The self-professed gurus claim to be able to teach us how to be happy. Lets assume that these writers indeed know what happiness means and how to attain it, why should we care? Apparently many do. These books are purchased by many in the vain hope they contain the Holy Grail. We should not ponder, though, on the question of happiness. On the other hand, we should care about this-worldly life, how to create. To create a life is the life. “Pleasure and displeasure are mere consequences [… Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power, section 702]. Whether it be hedonism or pessimism or utilitarianism or eudaemonism: all these modes of thought which assess the value of things according to pleasure and pain […] are foreground modes of thought and naiveties which anyone conscious of creative powers and an artist’s conscience will look down on with derision, though not without pity. […] In man, creature and creator are united […Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, section 225].” (Nietzsche as educator.)

1 comment:

s.u.n.d.a.y.g.i.r.l said...

somebody told me, happiness is the way to life.