Tag: nietzsche

week 18/day 10

I am getting used to my new lifestyle here. I get up between 5:30 to 6:00, make lunch and breakfast for the kids, drive them to school from 7:40, return home, do the washing-up and housekeeping, then plan for the day and write from 9:00. I am so hungry right now and I feel my stomach is going to roar.

Last night I began to read the used book I bought this Saturday. It’s called “Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction” by Perl and Schwartz. I am so glad that I’ve found the book because I think creative non-fiction is the genre that I have been writing under. I am not writing in an academic way, or fictional; I felt out of place in writing children’s stories. Although my writing is about my experiences of everyday lives, it’s not like a report: the object being described is non-fictional (the world), but I describe it in a creative way (my world).

The reading on creative non-fiction reminded me of Nietzsche because his argument emphasized on the importance of subjectivity. Nietzsche seemed to say that a person’s subjective world view is the only thing that’s valid. I’ll keep reading and working on my writing, with a sense of direction at last.  Time for breakfast!

#67

Einstein-quotes

The weather was pretty rough today. After M went to the movies, the storm warning alert came. I spent all morning trying to download the piano recital’s video and share it, but it didn’t work. I was struggling and basically just too lazy to do anything else, but I managed to go out for lunch with E.

How can one not acknowledge a writer’s background when trying to understand his philosophy? It’s like understanding a sentence without its context, or seeing a tree without seeing the tree being part of the forest.

I am tired of typing the word “Nietzsche”. I am just going to call him N. N’s text made me think he was lonely because his words revealed what kind of situation he was in. N’s idea idea on human subjective understanding is the same concept Kant has, but N has a political aim.

If I were to pick someone I want to pretend to be, I’d pick a writer; I don’t need to pretend to be someone else.
I can forgive myself for not understanding a concept, but I cannot forgive myself for not doing what I am inclined to do, which is to understand.

#62

davidson-park-picnic-area-03

Today we had our piano recital. I had jet lag so I wasn’t so nervous. I was imagining the park in Ohio, which relates to Rosamunde in my mind, as I played. I could stay focused on the music by imagining the place.

I still have to finish my writing on Nietzsche. Nietzsche might be saying the right thing, but the problem with his writings is too many interpretations are possible, and what he really meant becomes ambiguous. Maybe he was trying to prove only interpretations are possible instead of truth.

Even though I often find myself wanting to understand new things, I realise that doing the same thing repetitively makes one better at doing it, especially playing the piano. “Practice makes perfect.” is also true for almost everything else I do.

#59

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Nietzsche was angry because he saw the people and the country he cared deeply about being passive, so he criticized everything and everyone except the people who were leaders. But mostly, he was upset with himself.

Nietzsche seemed to be lonely, and he longed for companionship. The passages he wrote were full of anger and disrespect for the society, but he seemed to be waiting for friends at the end of his book, and he always writes as if he was talking to another person for action.

He reminds me of my kid’s teacher, who said, “I only scold you because I love you guys.”

Nietzsche had great love for human beings, but how can one justify his action only because the reason behind an action is based on “love”? If someone comes and tells me, this is my standard, this standard is the rule that you need to accept and try to become because I love you, then I’d think he is only being arrogant.

#53

brick-wall

I am often aware of things that others do not want to see.

When a character in the movie “The Maze Runner” says, “Thomas always sees the good in people.”, that someone implies that Thomas is a good character. But if I see the flaw in people, does that make me a bad character? I don’t know, but I know I see both the good and the flaws, and I try to accept people the way they are.

Why doesn’t anyone care why Nietzsche went crazy? He must’ve been heartbroken to have been rejected by the women he proposed to, but I can’t say the women who rejected him were not smart.