Rhealysms

Heroism is called "heroism" because it takes the worst disadvantage head on.

Sometimes keeping the ideal of a standard alive is more "prudent" and oxygenating than safeguarding a secure reality - it becomes self-limiting.

What does life matter living on any solid ground, when it'll come at the cost of what it is most to be human - lust, daring, spiritual excess beyond any certainty of temporality…

Not just duration of life, but intensity of life lived is what has raised the bar of evolution.


The highest heroism all through the ages have ever spoken in one language: Beyond rational cost/benefit.

Best wrote:

"From this recognition of the truth, this refusal to contemplate a definitive solution, must emerge a new moral code unrelated to the teleology of existing doctrines. Doctrines necessarily direct action towards a certain end and so lay down what that action should consist of. The unbending rules of orthodoxy prescribe what the individual is to do in each individual circumstance. The new moral code cannot lay down ‘what’ because it recognises no such thing. It is not directed towards a specific end and does not serve some purpose of fulfilment or completion. Every moment calls into question the events of its predecessor. No set of values for which we may at one time have fought can necessarily be regarded as positive or permanent. The yardstick of the new code of morality therefore is not its context, not ‘what’ but ‘how’.

In other words the manner of achievement. "The important point is not what we fight for but how we fight." The fight itself is essential and permanent, the aims of that fight are temporary and changeable.

‘There can therefore be no question of success in our fight. Desire for victory is the immediate impulse in any fight but victory is not the decisive or governing factor for those engaged in the struggle. Anyone can fight in the expectation that he will win or that ‘good cause’ will one day triumph.

‘Such a man believes in an ultimate aim and so the fight becomes tolerable to him. The criterion of the new mental attitude, on the other hand, is the acceptance of a fight in a lost position for a lost cause; the essence is to fight a good fight, whether it is for a good cause or whether it is successful matters little. Thus from a realistic acceptance of the truth will emerge a heroic code of morals. Consequently the attitude of mind which is the hallmark of National Socialism may be described as heroic realism.’ "

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Bhagavad Gita wrote:

"Son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly realms, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly realm. Therefore get up and fight with determination. Fight for the sake of fighting, without considering happiness or distress, loss or gain, victory or defeat - and, by so doing, you will never incur sin." [2:37,2:38]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Never keep back or bury in silence that which can be thought against your thoughts! Give it praise! It is among the foremost requirements of honesty of thought. Everyday you must conduct your campaign also against yourself. A victory and a conquered fortress are no longer your concern, your concern is truth - but your defeat is no longer your concern, either! [Nietzsche; Daybreak, 370]

Yes, and with no end, no absolute, one struggles just for the sake of struggling, to feel alive, to experience living, and fills in the absence of an absolute with other goals, motives.

Life itself is constant struggle with no goal, no purpose, no telos.

A goal within life if not coming from you, is an adopted one.
A primitive organism accepts genetically produced goals, such as sexual gratification, feeding etc.
Humans can give themselves alternate goals in alignment with these primitive ones or in contradiction to them.
A christian Monk, for example, may give himself the goal of remaining celibate, or adhering to the rules given to him by a god.
Another may give himself the goal to remain celibate simply to remain celibate, as a hedonist's goal is pleasure for the sake of pleasure.
Whatever the goal is cost/benefit is the evaluation of the outcome in relation to it.
Otherwise all would be equally good and bad, as there would be no standard to evaluate your performance, your accuracy, your own understanding.

Non living patterns follow the path-of-least-resistance. A river follows a path broken through by its aggregate force...it cannot flow upwards or through stone, so it flows through sand, or weaknesses in stone.
Only organisms with a will, can choose a path-of-more-resistance and then because they wish to outperform competitors....and only man can choose to ignore even this instinctive drive, and place another goal other than life, as his guiding principle his destination.

If there is no motive other than to do something just for the sake of doing it, then one can say all motives are equally valid, including the motive not to do something for the sake of not doing it.

To do something because everyone else is doing it, is a motive in itself.

To fight, in the case of life is agon, is motivated by the desire to experience life, but then no one motive, or justification is better than another because, like with hedonism and pleasure it is the agon itself that is the motive.

One fight for a reason, a goal, and cares not for the outcome but the fight towards it.
But then how would he evaluate his performance unless he compares his fight towards a destination to the destination itself, as cost/benefit, or good/bad tactics, performance, choices, judgments....or an evaluation of the goal itself as good/bade based on the outcome of the struggle towards it.

Nietzsche wrote:

"Existence as it is, without meaning or aim, yet recurring inevitably without any finale of nothingness…
This is the most extreme form of nihilism: the nothing (the "meaningless"), eternally!
The European form of Buddhism: the energy of knowledge and strength compels this belief. It is the most scientific of all possible hypotheses. We deny end goals: if existence had one it would have to have been reached.

Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this? The most moderate; those who do not require any extreme articles of faith; those who not only concede but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense; those who can think of man with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account: those richest in health who are equal to most misfortunes and therefore not so afraid of misfortunes-human beings who are sure of their power and represent the attained strength of humanity with conscious pride." [WTP, 55]

Nietzsche wrote:

"My Dionysus ideal- The perspective of all organic functions, all the strongest instincts of life: the force in all life that wills error; error as the precondition even of thought. Before there is "thought" there must have been "invention"; the construction of identical cases, of the appearance of sameness, is more primitive than the knowledge of sameness." [WTP, 544]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Toward a critique oj the herd virtues.- Inertia operates. ...in the sense of truth. What is true? Where an explanation is given which causes us the minimum of spiritual effort." [WTP, 279]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Whoever is incapable of laying his will into things, lacking will and strength, at least lays some meaning into them, i.e., the faith that there is a will in them already.'

It is a measure of the degree of strength of will to what extent one can do without meaning in things, to what extent one can endure to live in a meaningless world because one organizes a small portion of it oneself.

The philosophical objective outlook can therefore be a sign that will and strength are small. For strength organizes what is close and closest; "men of knowledge," who desire only to ascertain what is, are those who cannot fix anything as it ought to be.

Artists, an intermediary species: they at least fix an image of that which ought to be; they are productive, to the extent that they actually alter and transform; unlike men of knowledge, who leave everything as it is.

The belief that the world as it ought to be is, really exists, is a belief of the unproductive who do not desire to create a world as it ought to be. They posit it as already available, they seek ways and means of reaching it. "Will to truth"--as the impotence of the will to create.

"To know that something is thus and thus":

"To act so that something becomes thus":

- Antagonism in the degree of power in different natures." [WTP, 585]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Owing to the nature of animal consciousness, the world of which we can become conscious is only a surface-and sign-world, a world that is made common and meaner; whatever becomes conscious becomes by the same token shallow, thin, relatively stupid, general, sign, herd signal; all becoming conscious involves a great and thorough corruption, falsification, reduction to superficialities, and generalization." [1882]

Quote :

"Nothing is more erroneous than to make of psychical and physical phenomena the two faces, the two revelations of one and the same substanoe. Nothing is explained thereby: the concept "substance" is perfectly useless as an explanation. Consciousness in a subsidiary role, almost indifferent, superfluous, perhaps destined to vanish and give way to a perfect automatism-
When we observe ouly the inner phenomena we may be compared with the deaf-and-dumb, who divine through movements of the lips the words they do not hear. From the phenomena of the inner sense we conclude the existence of invisible and other phenomena that we would apprehend if our means of observation were adequate and that one calls the nerve current.
We" lack any sensitive organs for this inner world, so we sense a thousandfold complexity as a unity; so we introduce causation where any reason for motion and change remains invisible to us -the sequence of thoughts and feelings is only their becoming- visible in consciousness. That this sequence has anything to do with a causal chain is completely unbelievable: consciousness has never furnished us with an example of cause and effect." [WTP, 523]

Quote :

"The role of "consciousness."- It is essential that one should not make a mistake over the role of "consciousness": it is our relation with the "outer world" that evolved it. On the other hand, the direction or protection and care in respect of the co-ordination of the bodily functions does not enter our consciousness; any more
than spiritual accumulation: that a higher court rules over these things cannot be doubted-a kind of directing committee on which the various chief desires make their votes and power felt. "Pleasure," "displeasure" are hints from this sphere; also the act of will; also
ideas.
In summa: That which becomes conscious is involved in causal relations which are entirely withheld from us - the sequence of thoughts, feelings, ideas in consciousness does not signify that this sequence is a causal sequence; but apparently it is so, to the highest degree. Upon this appearance we have founded our whole idea of spirit, reason, logic, etc.
( - none of these exist: they are fictitious syntheses and unities), and projected these into things and behind things!
Usually, one takes consciousness itself as the general sensorium and supreme court; nonetheless, it is only a means of com- munication: it is evolved through social intercourse and with a view to the interests of social intercourse- "Intercourse" here under- stood to include the influences of the outer world and the reactions they compel on our side; also our effect upon the outer world. It
is not the directing agent, but an organ of the directing agent." [WTP, 524]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism.
For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or displeasure.

But that is how a kind of man speaks that no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, a meaning: for any healthier kind of man the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. And suffering might predominate, and in spite of that a powerful will might exist, a Yes to life, a need for this predominance.

"Life is not worthwhile"; "resignation"; "why the tears?"- a weakly and sentimental way of thinking.
"Un monstre gai vaut mieux qu'un sentimental ennuyeux."" [WTP, 35]

Nietzsche wrote:

"...one does not take the means as the supreme measure of value (therefore not states of consciousness, such as pleasure and pain, if becoming conscious itself is only a means..." [N., WTP, 711]

Nietzsche wrote:

"...strength as- pleasure in the proof of strength..." [WTP, 800]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Pleasure appears where there is the feeling of power.
Happiness: in the triumphant consciousness of power and victory.
Progress: the strengthening of the type, the ability for great willing; everything else is misunderstanding, danger." [WTP, 1023]

Nietzsche wrote:

"More natural is our first society, that of the rich, the leisure class: they hunt each other, love between the sexes is a kind of sport in which marriage furnishes an obstacle and a provocation; they amuse themselves and live for pleasure; they esteem physical advantages above all, are curious and bold." [WTP, 120]

Nietzsche wrote:

"...that all strong feelings of pleasure (wild spirits, voluptuousness, triumph, pride, audacity, knowledge, self-assurance and happiness as such) have been branded as sinful, as a seduction, as suspicious;
...that feelings of weakness, inward acts of cowardice, lack of courage for oneself have been overlaid with sanctifying names and taught as being desirable in the highest degree..." [WTP, 296]

Nietzsche wrote:

"...no one had the courage to define the typical element in pleasure, every sort of pleasure ("happiness") as the feeling of power: for to take pleasure in power was considered immoral..." [WTP, 428]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The will to power" is so hated in democratic ages that their entire psychology seems directed toward belittling and defaming it. The type of the great ambitious man who thirsts after honor is supposed to be Napoleon! And Caesar! And Alexander! - As if these were not precisely the great despisers of honor!
And Helvtius demonstrates to us that men strive after power so as to possess the enjoyments available to the powerful: he understands this striving for power as will to enjoyment! as hedonism!" [WTP, 751]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The will to grow is of the essence of pleasure: that power increases, that the difference enters consciousness." [WTP, 695]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The "predominance of suffering over pleasure" or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism.
For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or displeasure." [WTP, 35]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Spiritual weariness. The reduction of problems to questions of pleasure and displeasure." [WTP, 64]

Nietzsche wrote:

"This hedonistic turn, the proof from pleasure, is a symptom of decline:
it replaces the proof from strength..." [WTP, 240]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Progress toward "naturalness": questions of power are at stake - "what one can do," and only after that what one ought to do.'" [WTP, 124]

Nietzsche wrote:

"All perfect acts are unconscious and no longer subject to will; consciousness is the expression of an imperfect and often morbid state in a person. Personal perfection as conditioned by will, as consciousness, as reasoning with dialectics, is a caricature, a kind of self-contradiction - A degree of consciousness makes perfection impossible." [WTP, 289]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Principal error of psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as a lower kind of idea than the distinct: but that which removes itself from our consciousness and for that reason becomes obscure can on that account be perfectly clear in itself. Becoming obscure is a matter of perspective of consciousness." [WTP, 528]

Nietzsche wrote:

"In the Greek philosophers I see a decline of the instincts: otherwise they could not have blundered so far as to posit the conscious state as more valuable. Intensity of consciousness stands in inverse ratio to ease and speed of cerebral transmission.
We must in fact seek perfect life where it has become least conscious (i.e., least aware of its logic, its reasons, its means and intentions, its utility). ...The stored-up integrity and shrewdness of generations which are never conscious of their principles and are even a little afraid of principles." [WTP, 439]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The great man... is unhesitating." [WTP, 962]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Mastery. - One has attained to mastery when one neither goes wrong nor hesitates in the performance." [Daybreak, 537]

Nietzsche wrote:

"The whole surface of consciousness - conscious­ness is a surface - has to be kept free from all of the great imperatives. Be careful even of great words, great attitudes . . . . I have no memory of ever having made an effort-you will not detect any trace of struggle in my life, I am the opposite of a heroic nature. To "will" anything, to "strive" after anything, to have a "goal," a "wish" in mind­ I have never experienced this. Right now I am still looking out over my future-an immense future!-as if it were a calm sea: there is not a ripple of longing. I do not have the slightest wish for anything to be different from how it is; I do not want to become anything other than what I am. But this is how my life has always been.

To react slowly; a great consciousness; no feeling of struggle."

Andre Gide wrote:

"Know thyself! A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly."

The highest species are not determined by cost/benefit; it is they who determine it, they who set and re-arrange, re-define, revalue, the limit of what was pleasure and what displeasure, and thus determine cost/benefit.

Goals that seem to be expressions of our rational drive, are first posited by the pure quantum of power and spirit we are. The limits of our consciousness is a function of increased self-scope, that is our lust and passion and daring.
The quality and scope of a goal is a product of our spiritual will-to-power Beyond Rational Cost/Beneft, Pleasure/Pain, Loss/Gain.

In the Apollonian perspective, pleasure is satiation, the absence of suffering from the satisfaction of the will's desire.
It says, "I suffer, therefore I seek to grow."
In the Dionysian perspective, pleasure is the dissatisfaction of the will, as the sight of obstruction and resistance is a chance for overcoming and stimulus for self-growth.
It says, "I seek to grow, therefore I suffer."

One cannot separate the two, they go hand in hand.

But one cannot relativize this highest Dionysian heroism to mere cost/benefit rationalisms as if positing anything as a goal from self-maintenance, were the same as from sheer entropic excess that is the primal surge of life.

Life is an OVERCOMING, and Not a preserving of the conditions that preserve one. Life IS the path to max. resistance innately, and NOT self-preservation.

Therefore, justifications for legitimate distinctions can always be made starting with the natural basis of Life itself, which is the striving for max. efficiency, and not path of self-preserving least resistance. Its Only in the blind basis of power, the healthy distinguish themselves from the decadents, and within the healthy, the masters of lust distinguish themselves from the merchants of greed. (Not every ordering is life-affirmative.)

Nietzsche wrote:

"it assigns common tasks to meu who have opposite ways of thinking-and it also brings to light the weaker and less secure among them and thus promotes an order of rank according to strength, from the point of view of health: those who
command are recognized as those who command, those who obey as those who obey. Of course, outside every existing social order." [WTP, 55]

Its only in the neutral background of the power that one is, one shows oneself for what/who one is - contesting their mark on value-standards.

If strength is in the pleasure of proof of strength, then the proof of strength is in sheer will-to-power, daring, overcoming, lust, passion to take on ever greater resistance that is solely a matter of Self-trust:

Nietzsche wrote:

"Who will prove to be the strongest in the course of this? The most moderate; those who do not require any extreme articles of faith; those who not only concede but love a fair amount of accidents and nonsense; those who can think of man with a considerable reduction of his value without becoming small and weak on that account: those richest in health who are equal to most misfortunes and therefore not so afraid of misfortunes-human beings who are sure of their power and represent the attained strength of humanity with conscious pride." [WTP, 55]

One does not act for pleasure, one acts from pleasure of trust in self, stored strength to face the worst and being maximally open to life.

The highest heroism is not in the result, but in the Manner;

not in the pattern, but in the Pathos of How one stood to life… from which costs/benefits of such a stance come to light….

Nietzsche wrote:

      "They wrote letters of blood on the path they followed, and their folly taught that truth is proved by blood.
      But blood is the worst witness of truth; blood poisons and transforms the purest teaching to delusion and hatred of the heart.
      And if someone goes through fire for his teaching - what does that prove?  Truly, it is more when one's own teaching comes out of one's own burning!

      Sultry heart and cold head: where these meet there arises the blusterer, the 'Redeemer'." [YZ, Priests]

Nietzsche wrote:

"Common natures consider all noble, magnanimous feelings inexpedient and therefore first of all incredible. They blink when they hear of such things and seem to feel like saying: "Surely, there must be some advantage involved; one cannot see through everything." They are suspicious of the noble person, as if he surreptitiously sought his advantage. When they are irresistibly persuaded of the absence of selfish gains, they see the noble person as a kind of fool; they despise him in his joy and laugh at his shining eyes.

"How can one enjoy being at a disadvantage? How could one desire with one's eyes open to be disadvantaged?

Some disease of reason must be associated with the noble affection."

Thus they think and sneer..." [JW, 3][/size]

To put your will into things one must first ascertain what is, otherwise he will the ridiculous, and makes a fool of himself, damning himself to wild goose chases.


Need born in absence and need born of excess, the latter dependent on the former.
Sexual need diminishes if the body experiences prolonged starvation. Women stop menstruating, stop producing and shedding excess.

Preserving is a misnomer....it means overcoming constant attrition.
A man resisting the river's current may not move up-river, he may fail to gain ground, but that he holds his place is a constant agon, an overcoming.
Without this holding your ground growth is a nonsensical idea.
What its growing if it is not first holding its ground.

How does one learn, for example with no cost/benefit, whether conscious, or unconscious?
How would he adjust his strategy if he never assesses the success and failures of what he has done?
There would not even be a self to act, let alone grow, with no maintenance of what was and is.

The continuum we call self is held together by memory.
With no memory to hold it together can we speak of a human, or a self?

This holding your ground is constant.
Even at rest the body is struggling, exerting effort, fighting off intruders, healing would, replacing cells, breathing, oxygenating the cells.
It is perpetual agon.

It is of the EXCESS that it can direct wilfully towards an objective, or towards growth.
Whether the mind acknowledges it or not, because the body automatic self-maintenance processes need not disturb the thoughts of the mind to continue - mind is the manifestation of the body's excess.

Primal self-maintenance is not selfish, for this presupposes a self maintaining something not itself.
Self is this self-maintenance, before advancement preoccupies the mind.
The "noble spirit" need not preoccupy with the automatic processes that preserve it, and accumulate energies, allowing it to focus on expending excess magnanimously.

The nervous system is an organ that collects energies/data, preserves some on standby for the fight/flight mechanism, stores some for the libidinal energies, again in reserve, directs excess towards healing, fighting viruses, the everyday mechanics necessary for self to continue, and then expends what remains in exploration, play, thinking, etc.
For the brain, the most energy consuming organ of all, energies are in excess, because it is an organ born of excess energies, in order to more effectively and efficiently direct excess energies - Will.
Bigger brains evolved when man began consuming flesh - a dense source of energy.
Only carnivores and/or omnivores could have evolved higher faculties and the brains to produce higher thinking - abstract thinking.
First to hunt, to gain an advantage over herbivores, and then with the free-time gained due to their success, to evolved, to play, to explore, to think.

Herbivores dependent on energy poor sources are slower, simpler, relying on cooperation to compensate for their slowness. They spend all their time consuming and processing the nutrients to maintain themselves. There is no time for much play, exploration contemplation, nor much excess energies to grow larger brains.

The cost/benefit of consuming vegetation is less efficient than the cost/benefit of consuming flesh.

Most cerebral people, that is individuals where the brain is the dominant organ forget the body.
They may, in theory, understand and include that mind and body are one, but they assume that the working of the brain are indicative of the congruity they call self.
This is how Nihilism is born.
It can deny the physical, focusing on the intellectual, the idea(l), which, in their case is contradicted by the real, or their own body.
They can deny their sex, call it a social construct, because they have been given excess, allowing their brains to dominate, and to construct an ideology that rejects the body as relevant, or as an identifier - they can remain entirely noetic, directing the excess energies towards creating noumena they can immerse themselves within.
The brain can create theories, fantasies, the body will contradict, because the body is a manifestation of past/nature, whereas the brain manifesting as mind, is interested in presence, and projected future, and how to direct aggregate energies within shifting dynamics.
The mind can fantasize and idealize and lie....not the body.
The mind can idealize what the body finds deplorable.
The body can disagree with the mind.

An example is in how some couples cannot conceive because her body rejects his sperm.
She may thinks she's 'in love with him' but her body judges differently.
Similarly, a man may find a woman to be his ideal and yet physically he is not excited by her.

The mental ideal can contradict the physical ideal.
This is obvious in modern culture where effete, submissive males are the ones that succeed economically because they are the ones willing to work, and discipline themselves to the rules, and adopt popular ambitions are their own, and believe the myths of the meme they belong to.

But they are usually the ones forced to compensate for a genetic deficiency, attain reproductive potentials, through females.
We've seen the pretty model marrying the rich, ugly, old man, or the nice guy she eventually cheats on because he does not sexually satisfy her.
Mind and body are in disharmony.
Intellectually a particular male is pragmatically desirable, but her body evolved withing different environments, and its reacts differently to stimuli, despite what the mind intends.
This is what they call the feminine mystique, or why modern females that have married and had family's eventually face a midlife crisis and what to 'find themselves' or 'discover who they really are'.
This is why younger girls eventually must make compromises and become adult women, their sexual tastes and behaviour changing.

But, yes it's not the destination but the road to it.
The ideal produces the type of man when it becomes for said man, a goal.

The difference between Noble and Nihilist, is that the first constructs his ideals based on precedent, tradition, nature/past, becoming a conduit, a connecting segment, between past/nature and ideal....whereas the Nihilist's denial, rejection, contradiction, of past/nature places the ideal, the noumenon in some fantasy realm, in the beyond, or the future, without any limiting past/nature.
In other words disregarding the physical, and making his ideals entirely theoretical, noumena, or making the physical and end in itself, inverting the noumenon back upon itself, to create a loop, entirely contained by the body.


Cerebral types place theory, hypothesis, ideal, about the physical, the body, the pragmatic.
They are convinced that the excess the brain enjoys expunging, are magically produced, when it is the body that produces and makes them available to the brain.
They demand that their theories be made natural laws, and although with training they can discipline the body, the world does not.
For the brain to make the world submit to it, it must first understand it, in the same way a hunter can hunt a particular prey when it first understands the specific prey's behaviour, or gain such understanding with the more costly trial and error adjusting tactics over time, based no success/failure - cost/benefit.
We call this learning, or evolving.

In superfluous environments cost/benefit is a remnant of a previous austerity.
for example, oxygen is superfluous here on earth, and we become aware of how valuable it is when we are placed in an environment where it is limited, and we have to compete with others for it.
In oxygen rich environments an organism does not comer itself with breathing. It is generous with its oxygen sharing.
Directs its thoughts elsewhere, towards expending oxygen carelessly.
But place the same organism within a oxygen starved environment and see how fast its attitude changes.
Suddenly breathing is all ti thinks about, its generosity becoming more careful, who is breathing the same air adjusting its selflessness magnanimity, to more disseminating selfishness.

What enters consciousness is not the success of this or that result, but the Manner of fighting that re-sets and re-defines the contours of war by its very fighting, and thus makes way for new standards.

One does not fight a war, but the war that Is one, defines what a good fight is - beyond loss/gain.

In the Dionysian path, there is no typing back to the past, as much as the past is swept forward into the future by the fullness of one's spirit, the excess of generational current disposing of him in its over fullness.

To repeat what I have already posted in this thread:

Lyssa wrote:

The Apollonian is a distinguishing itself by a "That which I am not"; it is a recession, a breaking-away to put distance, de-fining itself.

The Dionysian is a distinguishing itself by a "This is what I am"; in its highest and heartfull affirmation, it is the deepest historical current that draws along everything good and bad in its sweep, its exaltation, beyond pain/pleaure. It pulls the whole force of a history with it, and leaves back what doesnt stick to it… akin to a soil EROS-ion, a slow deforestation, the loosening of earth and soil by an alluvion… and opens distance, chasms… new remote islands depositing its riches elsewhere, preparing new Individual trees as the sum total of this time EROS-ion, floating glaciers, and new sea-beds of life rearranging, revaluing, regenerating, and re-fining itself.


In every generation, we have Traditionalists who safeguard norms,

and we have the Individualists [not the Stirner type] who Exceed old norms and raise the bar of the Ideal, creating new norms.

Quote :

"Ennoblement through degeneration. History teaches us that that part of a people maintains itself best whose members generally share a vital public spirit, due to the similarity of their long-standing, incontrovertible principles, that is, of their common faith. In their case, good, sound custom strengthens them; they are taught to subordinate the individual, and their character is given solidity, at first innately and later through education. The danger in these strong communities, founded on similar, steadfast individual members, is an increasing, inherited stupidity, which follows all stability like a shadow. In such communities, spiritual progress depends on those individuals who are less bound, much less certain, and morally weaker; they are men who try new things, and many different things. Because of their weakness, countless such men are destroyed without having much visible effect; but in general, especially if they have descendants, they loosen things up, and, from time to time, deliver a wound to the stable element of a community. Precisely at this wounded, weakened place, the common body is inoculated, so to speak, with something new; however, the community's overall strength, has to be great enough to take this new thing into its bloodstream and assimilate it. Wherever progress is to ensue, deviating natures are of greatest importance. Every progress of the whole must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures retain the type, the weaker ones help to advance it." [N., HATH, 224]

There is nothing wrong at all with reading books.

But the Manner of reading.

Not just as a passive-reactive recipient, but as an Active-interpretive engagement.

If experience is an asset, then it ought to be one born of discipline. And discipline means here, the attaining to thorough consciousness of everything that has preceeded one and harvesting the fruits of mankind into developing the broadest, comprehensive be-ing as possible.

Not every reading or Vicarious living is a degeneration; living through another is also how one develops perspective, and empathy, and broadens one's being by having sat in as many places and turned things over in many a way in rumination.

Proxies must be differentiated from Affirmative-appropriation.

The word Theory literally means wide-scope of seeing.

Our borders of 'self' is more than what stops at the edge of our finger-tips; but is the whole scope of our eye-reach and spirit-reach into the deep and distant abyss.
How far and wide our daring will take us, sets the span of our being.

What enter consciousness is an excess of need, produced by lack or by excess.

To state "This is what I am" is what Moderns do.
I am not animal, I am not my sex, I am a hermaphrodite, a man trapped in a woman's body, I am beyond nature, I am whatever I say I am....exactly what Nihilism is about.
I decide what I am, and nothing limits me....I am contained by nothing.
I will myself as anything I desire.

The eye cannot see itself, but only through reflection.
to then claim that the eye declares itself to be a snake-eye, or a robot eye, is what Moderns do.
They want to free themselves from past/nature and declare themselves as being whatever the will.
Like a child plays make-believe, with mommy and daddy present protecting ti from what ACTUALLY IS.

The IDEAL can usurp self-preservation as the motive - this is ideology, romanticism, the human condition.
But not all ideals are realistic.
The Nihilist also places his ideals above the real, or contradicts the real with his ideal.
His ideal might be equality, and he is willing to die for his ideal.

There was a story a while back coming out of California about a sect that committed suicide after the males castrated themselves, when Haley's comet passed by the earth.
In their minds self-preservation was secondary to their ideal = returning to their home-world on the tail of the comet.


Cost/Benefit is an assessment, not necessarily a motive.
I assess my performance, in relation to an ideal, to adjust my performance ...this is learning.
How, the hell, did the Vikings learn how to sail, if they did not give a shit about the outcome, and being thrown upon the rocks, or swept away by currents, was just as good as finding new lands to exploit?
If they did not give a shit about costs/benefits drowning in the ocean would be just as good a fight as sailing to Greenland.

No...theory comes from the Greek to Theo Oro {θεο-ορω}, God-see, ....it was a reference to the yearly trip to the sacred island of Delos, an Athenian tradition, where the temple of Apollo was built. Delos was a sacred island encircled by a string of islands named Kyklades [Κυκλαδες], encircliers, from kyklos [κυκλος], circle, because they encircled the sacred island of Apollo.

To go and see the God, Theoro. God seeing.
The god is not Apollo, by chance.
One goes to see the god Apollo on Delos....Theory.

I have explained the aesthetic difference of Apollo/Dionysos [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], and will not be uselessly repeating myself.

To state ''This is what I am' is what Modernism is', is in itself a piece of modernism, that imposes its limitations as limits of reality.

The Modern problem, to be accurate, is not with subjectivity, but with the concept of Self that was adopted during Enlightenment, where owing to the J.-Xt. nihilism that denied becoming and flux as reality, formulated that which is changeless as supreme truth, and Reason as that which provides max. self-preservation postulated self-clinging and life-clinging certainty as the highest ideal of man.

Nothing more nihilistic, life-stunting, self-dwarfing than the stagnating solipsism bred by this utilitarian stoic rational pragmatism that referred to the reality of its limits as The reality, never moving beyond its comfort-level, and producing nihilistic stirnerite atomic individuality and a whole philosophy of cowardice.

The Apollonian path of cost/benefit is valuable as tool of discriminate boundary setting and cannot become a life-path in itself, as self-preservation and survivalism is only a secondary effect subservient to the primary feature of life - that is the lust for growth, expansion, domination, increased efficiency, the surge to power. The result otherwise is the modern dis/ease of Narcissism and Paranoia. The result otherwise is Hedonism and remaining pleasurably sheltered in the same limit of the past with no progress.

One needs to shake off and detach oneself from the shadow of the past, to emerge more past-fully, more lethe-ally, to be able to draw, and draw from, an even more comprehensive past, widen the scope of be-ing. The revaluation of all values.

Nobody claimed, and certainly not I Vikings did not test boats, but testing of boats was only an epiphenomenon in the service of the primary lust for domination and one's measure of daring. Success was not a matter of certain knowledge that this boat at this moment would survive the waters and therefore I shall set out now like some cowardly need for abs. guarantee,,, but daring to set out on the waters first with what one built, one then learned of efficient building.
Among All daring pioneers with self-trust, the will-to-error preceded the will-to-truth beyond success/failure of results, and the fear of death.
More so, in the strongest composed soul, it is strength itself that pushes one ahead, than acting from a conscious weighing of this or that.

For Apollonians, there is only death ahead and the need is to resist change, and hold back, than rushing forward.
For Dionysians, there is a form that becomes firm with every renewal of matter that is experienced as a temporary death, and death is being held back in a stagnation of being.
Like dough that coheres more tightly after every tearing down of the binding gluten...

The breeding of daring and heroic souls is what is most neded urgently, and cannot be thwarted in fear of how it can be abused. If so, then that argument can apply to anything.

All things are double-edged like a sword.

There is a positive and negative Apollonianism, as much as to the Dionysianism.
Describing Nihilism as a problem only of the dionysian will remain an incomplete account of the world, no matter how so ever it is justified.

The most superior path is apollo-affirmative dionysos.

Satyr wrote:

No...theory comes from the Greek to Theo Oro {θεο-ορω}, God-see, ....it was a reference to the yearly trip to the sacred island of Delos, an Athenian tradition, where the temple of Apollo was built. Delos was a sacred island encircled by a string of islands named Kyklades [Κυκλαδες], encircliers, from kyklos [κυκλος], circle, because they encircled the sacred island of Apollo.

To go and see the God, Theoro. God seeing.
The god is not Apollo, by chance.
One goes to see the god Apollo on Delos....Theory.

No.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]


The implication being, THE SEPARATION that occurred from LEAVING BEHIND one's native city for the PROCESSION TOWARDS the festival to BE ABLE TO glimpse/be-hold Apollo…

One had to leave back to see more.

Theory really means the Break away from the limits of what grounds one, towards increased scope-of-seeing.

Not tying back to the past, but pulling the past along with one's increased scope of seeing and being, standing in a greater light, re-setting what we thought was the limit under this more comprehensive light, seeing more, being more, Un-Earthing more.

Theory literally means becoming Lethe-al.

If your understanding of cost/benefit is not daring to go beyond one's "comfort level" then your understanding of "odds" is contrary to the behaviour of gamblers.
The gambler's 'high' is based on going against the odds, not being ignorant of them.

Easier to gamble not caring about the odds, than doing so fully aware of the odds.
To know the odds, or to approximate the odds is to evaluate probability - to be conscious of your potential actions outcome, based on precedent.
How would you even know that your fight is doomed, if you had no prior knowledge...otherwise you would be a fool fighting as if the outcome were a certain victory.

A christian believes carelessly about the reality of his faith.
He has faith, despite the actual world, more so because his conviction is contradicted by reality.
This is why fanatics, like Muslims and Christians and zealots, act with such abandon.


The origins of the term is found in the yearly ritual I described.
how it then morphed to mean other things, up to our time when it means a hypothesis, is how words evolve to encompass multiple meaning, to represent connections that develop...such as with the term 'love'.

Theory is not breaking away form grounding, otherwise it is fantasy....and all theories would be just as possible as any other. Uniformity of hypothetical is what Nihilism is about.
a theory with no precedent and no reference....pure noetic construct.
One goes to the God of reason and beauty to seek insight.
To ground one's thoughts and actions.

When one reaches upward, one has his feet firmly on the round, otherwise one can leap and theoretically fly upon noetic winds, with nothing hypothetically restricting him because ti's all in his head.
In practice such thoughts lead to death.....and this is why those that profess to uphold them never,e ever practice them, but only theorize and live in their hypothetical wonder.

Ignorance of danger, is not courage.
Ignorance of the risk, is not bravery.
Ignorance of the potential costs in relation to the potential benefits, is not nobility.

An animal can be equally ignorant.

DESPITE it....despite it.
Knowing and acting despite the knowing.
But then the acting DOES have a motive.

The unknown simply means one does not know and steps foot anyway - because one does not know and lusts to. This is not ignoring. This is warlust, wanderlust, *because* one does not know and wants to.
The most comprehensive spirits belong here.

Even assessed costs bring no foolproof guarantee.
Even after so many years, rockets still burst apart, but that hasnt stopped exploration.

Not every courting danger is reckless; if it were so, we would have no peacocks.

All there is, is trust in one's strength.

300 spartans did not know how many would be enough, but they knew 300 would not be enough, and went to war anyway. Beyond loss/gain, success/defeat. It was the Stance, the pathos, the leaning towards life - their very standing that way, that birthed a value-standard and with it a rheality.
There was no precedence to assess their move,, it was they who set precedence. It was they who Created history out of thin air, their spirit.

Else you have scientific fanatics and rationalist zealots stifling growth in ever more certainty and nihilistic sheltering, making of science a charter of justifications for the same benefits.

Theory is as I described, a breaking away from the limitedness of the limits we receive as 'history', or 'past'; without a revaluation, the premise never changes, and in the larger economy of things, this becomes a regression of the spirit.

Life's paradox is such, that the past grows more, with more un-earthing, and every un-earthing requires daring into an unknown future, to re-collect the past more vastly.

Danger and abuse of balance belongs to both Apollo and Dionysos - modern and postmodern nihilism respectively.
Daring is beyond hedonism and takes pain and pleasure, gift and danger equanimously.
Wanting only the gift, only the pleasantness, only the pleasurable aspects of life, belongs to the realm of animal hedonism.

Exactly!!
Even knowing is an approximation....simply increasing the odds in your favour, not guaranteeing them.
In an unknown and world in Flux every advantage is an increase is probability.

Even confidence and knowledge in one's own strength is a product of precedent, trial and error.
A confident warrior is one who has tested himself and survived.

300 Spartans knew they would die.
They knew the end was most probable.

Rheason is precedent.

Before there is trial and error and rational cost/benefit assessments, what precedes first is the passionate soul that dares to try, to test, to attempt, to experiment.

In everyday life, we are hardly concscious of the amount of self-t(h)rust, we bank on. We hardly think of the 'little victory' in getting to move the hands where and when we want it to, the 'naturalness' of a mind-body obedience we experience unconsciously as freedom, as health, as "Strength".

Prior to any strength that enters consciousness from a rational trial/error cost/benefit assessment, what is operative and where we draw from and bank on, is the stored strength of our unconscious, 'careful' organization over generations - a 'carefulness' in turn, that is from a wide sampling of passionate testing on all fronts.

During WWI, no matter how rooted in the past it could be, a word like "Nation" could only have so much significance.

During WWII, with increased sense of self, we 'broke ground' and the same past came to signify so much more. The scope of where and how far, the past could be driven, and directed into the future, tremendously increased.

It is thus today, we call the former 'petty nationalism'.

The War on Hedonism cannot only be a case of reality we measure, but must also be case of giving our daring measure to reality.

We must be Rhealists.

Eros is not shoddy.

It is only in the midst of war and passionate engagement in/with life,, those who experience the unconscious as a strength, are able to see, grasp and affirm more of life.

In the healthy view, science sharpens the mind, while religion enthuses [en-theos], en-cou-rages, expands the spirit.

As I've said before, life is a double edged sword.

Those who are only able to wield only one approach tyrannically [either/or, apollo/dionyos,, objective/subjective] will end up with a one-track narrow mind, a scurvied soul, and a stunted view of the world.

The wisest artist is able to hold as many complexities as possible by being ABLE to switch and wield his weapons both ways.

To know when and where and to what extent is paramount; else deconstructing away religion using a rational mind and believing in science abs. with a religious mind - both can become fatal errors.

Cowardice is like an algae, a green moss that spreads slowly, steadily, stealthily, and before soon, engulfs a whole topos and submerges all that is healthy with it.

Thus the ancients said, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness."

Mysticism is based on the effect of data the body unable to adequately perceive, or perceives is influenced by but cannot convert to neural form of such degree as to impact the brain, or the data is received by the brain but it cannot process or convert to abstraction, so it converts it to the more primal sensation or emotion.

All emotions are automatic reaction to stimuli, in otters words to neural pulses triggered by phenomena.
Reason is the sum of data abstracted, converted to cohesive models, to be analyzed studied, used to form concepts, to direct actions, to formulate goals based on motives triggered by needs.


Emotion is also precedent...but it does not require consciousness...it is raw material established as automatic process, automatic reaction, based no trial and error.
The automatic reactions that did not die, were passed no as effective.

Reason is precedent made lucid.

This thread is dedicated to affirming the highest rheality as one beginning from beyond cost/benefit.

For any other take on the matter, the rest of the forum is available.

To repeat for the third time;

Nietzsche wrote:

"Principal error of psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as a lower kind of idea than the distinct: but that which removes itself from our consciousness and for that reason becomes obscure can on that account be perfectly clear in itself. Becoming obscure is a matter of perspective of consciousness." [WTP, 528]

Nietzsche wrote:

"All perfect acts are unconscious and no longer subject to will; consciousness is the expression of an imperfect and often morbid state in a person. Personal perfection as conditioned by will, as consciousness, as reasoning with dialectics, is a caricature, a kind of self-contradiction - A degree of consciousness makes perfection impossible."[WTP, 289]

To view mysticism as some superstitious backwardness is the view of those who do not experience their animal consciousness as a strength.

For those who do, what is indistinct is not automatically objectionable - what is Indistinct, is consciousness become second instinct that phenomenalizes in the next generation as "indistinct spontaneity".

The piano I master now, will possibly manifest as "indistinct unconscious strength" in my child in the next generation. What is indistinct need not immediately amount to something backwardly inferior.

At every step of evolution, although the stored second instinct maybe a product of conscious development and organization, every turn however presences a new environment, that the unconscious strength and daring alone has the power to translate this engagement to new possibilities of conscious self-mastery.

Every thing has in the irreducible minimum, two sides to it. Life itself exhibits this 'paradox' foremost.

Before there were rational scientists, there were some amazing witch-doctors.

Nobody said backward superstition....but it does lend itself to it, when the same sensation, automatic, reactions occur in the minds of idiots, cowards, and charlatans.

In fact, the advantage of reactive automatic analysis, intuition, is that it can process more data....what it lacks in precision, lucidity, it makes up with quantity.
This is why it is the first method to evolve and lucidity, clarity, trying to bring into focus, is what follows, with the inclination to affect the mind in the manner we observe in cAnus or Iakob, or Ecmandu.
Nihilism is the product of this bringing into focus, going awry.

Automatic intuitive emotional reactions are more intimate, primal, and reliable.
Nature is full of organisms who are reactive and intuitive/instinctive...and do not need to be lucid, rational.
Lucidity has also proven to be dangerous, as the mind can go insane or shatter, splinter into fragments...as it has in many....check-out ILP.
If all could endure the real made clear, all would be philosophers...and even among the philosopher rare type many have gone mad, because of this fact.
If all could simply rely on their intuitions and formulate bizarre, confused, mental models, unhindered by the natural order that preexists man, then every mystical concept would be just as good as any other.

Even in mysticism some limits, some order must apply, to make it useful, and not another version of a mind going mad within a protective environment - every feeling, every sensation, every gut feeling, every unexplained sensation would be just as good as any other.

Emotion, need, ego, and many other factor convert clarity to superstition, and madness....the few that can clarify and endure what is made clear, are called "philosophers"....of varying degrees of quality.

By the way...
Order = consistency, repetition, reliability, but since there is no absolute this order is always imperfect - chaos is always a part of it - complexity & randomness.  
Thusly, Apollonian spirit is an ideal that is never completed....and if taken literally it is insanity.
In the Flux of existence, chaos is increasing, making ordering a process that never ends - an unwinnable war.
Yet, to simply ADD to chaos, rather than add to it, as much as you can, is also madness, or a death wish.

Spamus is a case of dangerous Apollonian NP, which I have explained and demonstrated in the dungeon.

As to the others, the danger is not subjectivity per se, but the Cowardly notion of what self is and stopping at where their comfort and pleasure stops. This is a consequence of poor spirit, and not the method per se.

Again, danger is ever-present in any approach. Those who want to eliminate danger altogether and affirm only the blissfulness of a neat life are more dangerous hedonists than all three above put together.

By the way, not every order is a positive order, else the order of the modern institution or the church should be hailed as a genius. Consistency in itself amounts to just a poor pattern and means nothing in comparison to Intensity that takes pathos into account.

In the flux of things, the hero who ventures forth into the jaws of death lends his spiritual vitality into rebirthing a culture of greater consciousness. His border of be-ing is more than the limits of cost/benefit rationale, and extends as high, wide, and deep as the fury of life itself, and is where he dares to draw it.
Without such daring, we should have no words for honor, honesty, nobility and with prudence alone must count the same as the next tribe. It is with Daring that qualitative Distinction arises.
Death is those who remain clinging to life - a stagnant mass of ignorance and devolved fragments who will never amount to knowing the comrehensiveness of life in its full apsect of greatness as well as terribleness.

Human-ity is an affirmation of not only the humility in the face of life, but also the manifest Pride of Life itself re-creating itself into ever-wider scope, with ever wider stride.

Not the cowardly midgetry of resigning to 'facts'.

Unless I see any new point, I will not be repeating myself again here.


Hail, wide strider [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

By danger I do not only mean physical threats....but mental ones.
The danger to go insane, like cAnus has, and like Ecmandu has.

Cost/Benefit is how he attempts to evaluate his progress, so that he does not go off on wild goose chases, does not become trapped in his own mind, does not repeat himself, does not perpetuate an error, expecting a different outcome and so on.
All organisms evaluate cost/benefit if not lucidity then intuitively
Fear, the emotion, is an evaluation of cost, in relation to benefit....the possible risks in relation to the possible outcome.

I did not understand danger narrowly.

Without passion and daring, the strength to take on new trials itself would be sorely lacking,, never mind cost/benefit which comes later.

It is our zest and lust for life that determines the threshold of where we draw cost/benefit.

For some any kind of life will do.

For some, only a certain kind of life, and any other life IS death.

The unexamined life is not worth living said Socrates.

The undaring life WILL be no life at all, says Rheality.

Without distinctions and pathos of distance born of daring, consciousness would devolve in the absence of distinguishable patterns.

Daring is part of life.
We risk it every time we wake up.
It's all matter of degree.
How much risk are we willing to take on....and why not reduce ti with analysis, understanding....the human tools that helped man dominate over lesser organisms that simply reacted.

Therefor, the path-of-least-resistance is the comic rule, that lower life-forms follow....and higher ones attempt to circumvent so as to gain an advantage over those they are competing against.
Path-of-more-resistance is what is willed by knowing and controlling and focusing the organism's patterns - its aggregate energies.
Because this method of out-competing others increases resistance, or the risks and possible costs, it is associated with growth, and surpassing, and breaking out of evolved mechanisms.

I repeat for the 1000th time, I am concerned with the highest value-standards and ideals that birth a richer reality.
Apollo has to do with conserving norms, Dionysos has to do with surpassing standards and breaking grounds.

Repeating the points I made today, back to me using other words is fine with me.
As if it wasn't I who brought up the fact of relating daring to unconscious movement of a muscle, and such things we take for granted, etc.

As to the rest, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].

Life is lust for max. expansion for which sake, preservation and maintenance are prompted in as a secondary phenomenon.
Life is WTP.

"Chaos gives birth to a dancing star."

Those who perceive chaos as something trying to deplete them, as an evil force, will remain cowardly  clinging to life owing to this Manichean one-sided view.

The rest may discern that life as we know was birthed from out of chaos.
It is in chaos one finds new prompts to muster anew a new reign of order, rejuvenated configurations of existence, new permutations of existence and the recharge and propelling pressure to assert an even higher meaning to life, where there is none.

The onus is on one.
Such daring is self-selective.

Pioneers daring to step foot into the untried and unchartered and the unknown, set the trends for those who follow after.

Then your mentor preaches for homosexuality.


What I repeat is your misunderstandings preached to me as if they were teaching me something new.

Yes need does produce such growth.