How to Think Like Nietzsche

The aphoristic style of Friedrich Nietzsche is a wellspring of inspiration. In this episode we explore the connection between this style and Nietzsche's hiking (10 hours of hiking a day, if he is to be believed). It is Nietzsche's walking that gave birth to the aphorisms in a passive form of thinking that stands in stark contrast to the thorough linear thinking of philosophers like Kant and Hegel.
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📚 Further Reading:
- Nietzsche FW (2000) _Basic Writings of Nietzsche_. translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modern Library.
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🎼 Media Used:
1. Juniper - Kevin MacLeod
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3. Anguish - Kevin MacLeod
4. Letting Go
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⌛ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
3:48 The Walking Philosopher
6:20 The Walking Muse
10:41 How to Think Like Nietzsche

[@levinb1]

When you learn that your walking habits are similar to the late “mad” philosopher.

[@la8076]

You forgot about Kierkegaard, he endorsed walking too for solving problems

[@James-ll3jb]

I'VE BEEN THINKING LIKE Nietzsche since reading Will to Power in 1979. First gobbled BG&E in 1976. I lived and breathed Nietzsche thru 37 states and 13 countries 25 years. WHAT A GAS!😊

[@matgonzalez6272]

this just connected for me a bit differently. I used to live in NYC, and would easily fill notebook after notebook; both pocket sized and A5s, filled cover to cover. the reason was how much stimulus the city provided; riding the subway, meeting/seeing new people daily, it was disorienting for dreams but one of the most powerful things for thinking. Sitting on a train and watching people come and go on my hourly commute was strangely like the thinking process described here. Someone new would board, and someone familiar exit; events and lives intertwined in such a way that I hardly ever had the same experience twice, just sitting and watching. I’ve long tried to capture that, but living in a much smaller city of only ~80k now, working from home, and hardly ever having time to watch has not been conducive. I’m going to make more time to simply wander, and i thank you for bringing this into my focus.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

It's not about distance or time. I've "lost the village" at the local recreation ground just ten minutes away. One of the most spiritually and intellectually fertile places I've been in my entire life is my own small and unremarkable back garden where I used to have a trampoline. What it takes is an absence of cares and distractions. Both of which people are all too determined to thoughtlessly heap upon me.

[@XanderDDS]

that pilgrimage looks incredible, i've gotta add it to my bucket list!

[@ryanrohn4561]

Well done. Very insightful and useful.

[@liltick102]

Best thoughts are revealed to us while walking-it’s actually like a book writing itself non stop in your idle mind - always while walking, Herzog talks about this a lot, as did many

[@Themissinglink65]

What a revealing video, my thoughts actually work like that of the fox, I jump between different literary styles in my artistic practice, doing them in short but powerful and bountiful bursts, even the walking muse, the methodology of cooking your thoughts, letting them simmer, taking a life of their own and stealing your mind; that's how I'm writing my current fiction books, songs and poems (I'm 15) and to think, my train of thought works like Nietzsche's is a really nice thought. Although my mind can seem at times to be it's own self, leading me to different thoughts, ideas and artistic paths, regardless of what I want. It's still very fun, to put it plainly. I think that's why Nietzsche's writings talk to me. They are reflections of how my mind works, not saying I'm as much of a genius as he is, but they simply mirror my brain on a broader level, their outlining structure, to put it into words. Glad I was Thinking like Nietzsche❤ I'll continue to do so, love you man

[@ginru4126]

"I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches."

[@scotthjackson5651]

When you talk about Nietzsche's aphorism writing style it sounded exactly like Madlib's style as a hip-hop producer and Beat Conductor.... he doesn't just put out full length tracks, there is this organic flow as he lays out the beats. Some of them are long enough for a full track, but often he throws out little chunks of beats that are 100% good enough to expand into a full track, and other time just a few seconds of other beats that are also amazing but you only get one or two bars and it's gone. He might be under the constraints of sampling rules (i.e. the economic costs thereof) but still, there is the varied texture where you get full value as a listener across a tapestry of meaningful components - from macro to mini beat concepts.

[@michaelmcclure3383]

Its interesting that you mention how Nietzsche tends to abandon old ideas in order to focus on the new and how his aphoristic style suited that. There was a very interesting video on Nietzsche by an Australian professor called Dr Adrian Heathcote and he claims that Nietzsche completely abandoned the idea of the will to power (and in fact argues that individual will is a fiction) in his late work. He made a really convincing case. Its possible that its wrong to try and read Nietzsche Iike he's formulating some consistent thread that runs right through his philosophy, it's possible that each chapter is new.

[@Vooodooolicious]

It's clear to see in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that he goes from will to power to something like a will to being human. It is a misunderstanding general that the superman is all about the will to power. The superman is a transcendence of values. No other philosopher is as misunderstood as Nietzsche. Now that I think about it, I think that he wanted it that way. I think that he didn't want to teach people. He wanted them to read, think and understand.

[@michaelmcclure3383]

@@Vooodooolicious Yes, very misunderstood. This Professor said the misunderstanding about the will to power came mostly from the dubious posthumous publication of "The Will to Power" and from the notion that we don't need to consider the late work like Twilight of the Idols, Ecce Homo, Beyond Good and Evil... because it's the product of a Syphilitic brain (another false narrative). I guess thats how it was easy to lazily draw the conclusion that there is a continuity in his thought on will, but the Prof looked at the late work in isolation, as a kind of final conclusion of Nietzsche's metaphysical views on the matter and there really is a dramatic departure. Anyway. I found it really illuminating, although this might have been obvious to others who have gone deeply into the late work.

[@michaelmcclure3383]

@@Vooodooolicious from Twilight of the Idols "At the beginning stands the great fateful error that the will is something which produces an effect --- that will is a facility... Today we know it is merely a word" "The 'inner world' is full of phantoms and false lights: the will is one of them. The Will no longer moves anything --- consequently no longer explains anything --- it merely accompanies events, it can also be absent. The so called motive is another error. Merely a surface phenomenon of consciousness, an accompaniment to an act, which conceals rather than exposes the antecedentia of the act. And as for the I? It has became a fable, a fiction, a play on words: it has totally ceased to think, to feel and to will" Here he's basically saying personal will is a chimera, a fiction, an afterthought.. This is because Nietzsche negates the concept of the individual I.. so if there is no I, then how can there be an individual doer?. This is due to his final embrace of Heraclitan wholeism, where there is apparently no room for any I to stand apart from the whole.

[@Vooodooolicious]

@@michaelmcclure3383 Carl Jung wrote about how professors were glad when he died because they could finally breathe easy.

[@michaelmcclure3383]

@@Vooodooolicious As many have pointed out Kaufman (the atheist) did his best to shape Nietzsche's death of God into a declaration of atheism, when his actual views were more agnostic than anything, just opposed to the Christian version of God because he thought it fell short of divinity. And ever since we've seen different theorists and ideologues on the left and the right use Nietzsche to their various ends. But it seems his aphoristic style and the various discontinuous stages his work took lent itself to different interpretations. Would you say?

[@pencilsandlight1318]

Of Nietzsche did go mad in later life. Perhaps we should aspire to think a bit less intensely …

[@Everywhere4]

In my few, popular philosophers like Plato and Nietzsche do not really invent new ideas, rather they act like a seed Cristal in a chaotic solution of ideas around which those ideas try to crystallize in a coherent structure. Philosophers don’t invent ideas, they put them together. Sometimes multiple distinct Cristal structures can emerge from the same seed Cristal, allowing for different phases and interpretations of the same philosopher.

[@decline.enjoyer]

Good video

[@kingdm8315]

nice

[@liltick102]

This sort of writing you find in Henry Miller, Elie Faure, Schopenhauer, Montaigne. . Stream of consciousness basically- the best, is going up in the air, J A Baker, Maya Deren, Tarkovsky, Nijinski, all good examples- Dostoyevski- Cervantes technically.

[@Fazmatical]

My question is: why the hell would you want to?

[@gurrenmed5319]

Trust me a person must think for himself rather than think as another person, What is even to live if you live by another person's ideology Even this goes against Nietzsche

[@christophersnedeker]

Why would I want to go insane?

[@TheExistenceClass0]

If You Want To Think Like Anyone you Like You Have To Become Like Him To Think Like Him !

[@ciroalberto397]

Comment left 4 the algorithm

[@robertabrahamsen9076]

In April I hiked at least 40 miles of mostly empty beach on the Washington State coast alone and read The Gay Science cover to cover. It was a profound experience.

[@brreezy421]

My favorite of his

[@chadsensei-ue6jn]

I'd rather think like Voltaire.

[@Themissinglink65]

It'd be cool if you make a video on the hedgehog next

[@liltick102]

Being from Newfoundland hearing an Irishman must be similar to being an Englishman in Australia or Kenya

[@alecmisra4964]

The problem with thinking like nietzsche, besides the stupendous knowledge he commands is his rich figural language which few can match, even if naturally inclined to the aphoristic style. Its what makes the rest of us also rans.

[@brreezy421]

Ya the man was no doubt an intellectual genius. You don't get a professorship at 24 at the time if you're not

[@grimjhaixus]

Dude writes like how I talk.

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

I don't think walking gave Nietzsche thoughts. That's not how it works in my case. It's rather than, when you have a tremendous thought, it is physically impossible to repress it's energy and sit down.

[@thebigmanwithwalkingtree7471]

I definetely agree with you

[@ejenkins4711]

And then jung seen how he seen it.

[@stevesmith4901]

What a self-indulgent video. Did not expect this from this channel.

[@Archimedeeez]

insightful

[@BlueDusk95]

That's a very ableist video to which I oppose the examples of Pascal and Leopardi who lived practically as recluse and yet where allegedly as creative and original thinkers as Nietzsche.

[@brreezy421]

Maybe I'm just being generous but if you asked him he'd probably agree there's various ways to keep an active stimulated and creative mind (however u wanna describe it), but this is what Nietzche used and is effective

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

"No . . . let him walk."

[@travisbplank]

1. See the meaninglessness of existence. 2. Insist on some BS like "we can make our own meaning" or some other nonsensical platitude. 3. Declare victory over nihilism.

[@DamienWalter]

The big N would have been a demon at Twitter

[@TheLivingPhilosophy]

It’s a cruel fate that has kept us from seeing that reality 😆

[@darksydeeee]

I think the Eternal recurrence exist because Nietzsche's back in the Form of you and nobody's paying attention with it

[@siyaindagulag.]

He,of the distinctively European forehead.

[@kevinbeck8836]

Hello sir 👋 I like your videos but I have a problem with this one. You draw attention to his aphoristic style but you never bring up how his sickness influenced it. His migraines sometimes only allowed him a few moments to write, so he’d jot down what he was thinking and go back to vomiting and rest. He even credits some of his deeper insights as arising spontaneously after particularly terrible bouts of sickness. It should be brought up as much as the hiking if you are going to talk about his thinking

[@CJusticeHappen21]

Positive Thinking Isn't Thinking, It's Exercise. Use Your Brain For It's Original Purpose. Live First, Find A Reason For Living Later

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

I don't think there is a way to think like Nietzsche. Ways and methods are for other philsophers. If you think like Nietzsche at all, it isn't a way of thinking you've learned but _the way you think._ Period. The idea that his philosopy is an innate aspect of his psychological temprament, rather than a skill, would certainly appeal to Nietzsche pretensions fo elitism, but were that not the case far more people would be able to do. The would be incapable of not doing it.

[@ejenkins4711]

So did he tap into this core tesla used and that why they are short and sweet because there is no point 🍀💚🦍

[@traildoggy]

"I wish God were alive to see this." -- Homer J Simpson

[@asaiira]

I used to love this channel 1 or so years ago when it was so welcoming to people despite their gender. This disease of male-centric vanity is a corruption of soul that seeps into the language you use to address your audiences. Using 'he', 'man' and 'himself' doesn't make your ideas immediately "deep"

[@GregMilner]

Step 1: Get syphilus.

[@kevinbeck8836]

Step 1: Learn to read

[@davidegioletta6238]

First step : Stop speaking English, it's too simple a language to have complex thoughts, and yes the complexity of the languages ​​spoken influences the depth of thought

[@jam1087]

Because he's not a normal person. And "Thank God" he isn't!!!. Did you hear that? Walking, not video games ,even though he is "The"Boss incel with pasty skin and dishpan hands he would not be suffering any video games

[@kingdompreparation6943]

Why in the world would I want to think like him?!?! Nietzsche lost his mind, mostly due to his insane ideas and lack of faith. No thank you.

[@brreezy421]

He went crazy from a brain tumor or syphilis. Although it's funny and mysterious or something to think his ideas drove him insane, it's kind of silly and childish to actually believe it