Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's life is an embodiment of his philosophy in all its austere grandeur and tragedy. He knew a lot about pain, difficulties and suffering, and only he could help himself. Facing difficulties in our lives, it is very difficult to overcome them and to make them perspective. Nietzsche had very clever point of view in dealing with difficulties. He emphasized that all the failures and suffering should be welcomed by everyone seeking happiness. He thought that it is an advantage for the people to have serious experiences in their lives:

To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities - I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not - that one endures (Nietzsche).

According to De Botton,  “we all have top periods in our lives, we all face difficulties that seeming mountable, we all county setbacks and when we do, we often temp to growing the town” (De Botton). Most philosophers tried to help to relieve the suffering, and they gave advice “how to make the pain go away”, but there was only one philosopher who really had helped.

It is very important to understand what it means. According De Botton, “to guess this will help to scale on his favorite mountain” (De Botton). It is very hard for ever person to climb there, but it is worth seeing that beauty from the top, “the view is extraordinary, there is a complete stillness in the air, clouds are drifting over us, we can see clouds below us, and  then through the clouds villages and forests, you feel like you are on the top of the world…  from the tops of mountains come the finest views, but it is extremely hard to get to them”(De Botton).  

Nietzsche thought that there will be the most beautiful view at the top of the mountains, but it is very difficult to get there. According to Nietzsche, “to reach anything worthwhile, you have to go through an extraordinary amount of effort” (Nietzsche):

Nietzsche was unlike other philosophers by viewing serious setbacks as advantageous. The heart of Nietzsche’s philosophy is simple: Difficulty in life is normal. We shouldn’t give up when we experience it. We feel pain because of the gap of who we are at the moment, and the person we can ideally be. It’s because we can’t master the ingredients of happiness straight away that we suffer as much as we do.

But it’s not just enough to suffer, if hardship was all it took to be fulfilled, then all of us would be happy. The challenge is to learn to respond well to suffering (De Botton ).

But moral philosophy of Nietzsche is that efforts are required to rise to the height of 3451 meters above sea level. It will take at least five hours only to rise up, but everyone will have to climb through the steep path, to bypass the rocks and to wade through pine thickets, catching thin air by the mouth and put on new sweater to keep warm in the wind.

Personal power finds itself in the special quality of human experience, which is called resource to overcome. As argued by the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "man is something that should transcend"(Nietzsche). It is about the subjectivity mature of the personality and the ability to solve difficult issues and to act responsibly in situations of high importance.

  A man or a woman becomes a person only in the process of overcoming difficulties. An experience in overcoming the hardship is a key to finding the actual individual human traits. Individual beauty, personal wealth, and weight of a person in society, its contribution to society are directly dependent on the nature of solved problems and difficulties he or she had to overcome. And this experience on hardship is the greatest value for everyone, the value of gaining awareness and personal identity (De Botton ).

Nietzsche knew a lot about effort, but physically mental his life was one of the exceptional hardship, he constantly struggled against illness, dizziness, headaches.

When Nietzsche was 12, he was released from summer classes at school because of headaches and eye disease, than began the deterioration of his health, and when he was 29, he had severe headaches and stomach cramps. He had syphilis, which he brought up when he was a student.

In 1879, before his death, which he was expecting almost his entire life, Nietzsche wrote, "My condition is the threshold of hell, and no different from the state of the animal" (Nietzsche).

Nietzsche used to spend summers in Switzerland (in the vicinity of MountSt. Moritz), and winter in the Italian cities of Genoa, Turin and Genoa and Nice, France. It was very poor living on a disability pension from the University of Basel, but also received financial support from their friends. He was married, and his solitude was killing him. According to De Botton, “Nietzsche’s love life was a disaster, all the attempts to seduce women were in vain, many of them were frightened of his large moustache” (De Botton).

Creative activities of Nietzsche ended in 1889 due to mental illness (nuclear "mosaic" schizophrenia). Perhaps the disease was caused by syphilis, but it was during the previous atypical for syphilis. He died in 1900 in a psychiatric hospital in Weimar.

Nietzsche made his way through the pain to the heights of joy. However, sustainable combination of extraordinary and tragic fate of mind in character that de Botton describes with great respect and awe, can emphasize that philosophy only increases the suffering. One consolation is that whatever was the cause of our troubles, it had been much worse for the great thinkers. Love of wisdom does not eliminate the loneliness, confusion, madness, death, and just makes them the subject of speculation. Therefore, the possibility of consolation by the philosophy seems very doubtful. For example, this sentence, "Nietzsche found that difficulties were necessary conditions for success?"(De Botton ). Obviously, Nietzsche is not the best example of those who want to achieve success and happiness, "popularity" and "sex appeal."

De Botton shares his impressions of the trip to the Engadine - a place that Nietzsche was so fond of, "You start smiling without any reason and even laugh out loudly, this innocent laughter coming out of the depths of the soul and expresses the simple joy that you are alive and you see such beauty.”(De Botton) According to Nietzsche, “the laughter is an expression of a pessimist lies, as rooted in a tragic world view for which a terrible and absurd constitute is the basic law of life in the world”(Nietzsche).

Nietzsche was despising the political means of success achievement, which required to neglect the aims and to translate the rest, he deprived himself of this opportunity in life. He was adamant in defending his ideas and does not forgive even close friends the retreatment from their opinions. In theory, the philosopher firmly separated himself from the mass of the people and therefore he did not find recognition in it.

According to De Botton, Nietzsche teaches us that the path from the "mediocrity" (which we still are) to the "achievements" (which we expect) is going through "the pain" Writer even shows this path as a simple curve. But it requires effort and philosophy of thought: those who refuse to take it, neither pleasure nor comfort is guaranteed. De Botton provides philosophical material in such an overcooked form that the consumer loses the opportunity to "experience the true taste." Quoting Nietzsche mocks "dentists pull teeth, so they will not hurt anymore" (Nietzsche), de Botton, in turn, is like the dentist who has concluded an advertising contract with the manufacturer of philosophical rumination and tells about its preventive properties. Therefore, there is a feeling of redundancy reflection, and we leaf through the pages looking for the episodes "of life" - about how women and men make the acquaintance in the train, as Montaigne is going to the toilet, as Nietzsche is engaged in agriculture.

Thus, the life of Nietzsche is not only dramatic, but it is the destiny of his legacy. Hunted by misunderstanding and loneliness in life, he was slandered and distorted after death, but he lived smiling and sufferings played a big role in his life, Nietzsche is famous all over the world. Friedrich faced difficulties during his life but he got through all these troubles. It is supposed that success comes easily, but only to some people, who are gifted. However, even geniuses struggle and work hard to achieve something, “no pain, no gain”.