On Obeying Yourself
Artful Prudence | September 27, 2021 | by Artful Prudence
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NOBILITY IN DEFIANCE

In _Beyond Good and Evil,_ Nietzsche attributes nobility to a kind of
unwillingness, a lack of enthusiasm toward the cheapening of our
duties by adapting them to those of the rabble. That is to say, the
noble man refuses relinquishment of responsibility. This loftiness has
imbued a resistance against disgrace and humiliation and a hidden
disdain toward the indisposition of the mob. It suggests a cultured
detachment and lack of concern toward the dormancy and blind
conformity of the weak. As many an ordinary man, who carefully
attempts to fashion his shape according to the greater, who are out of
shape, hardly worthy of emulation. Remember why, as he picks out a
sense of estrangement from the degenerate crowd. It is good to be
upstanding, but bad when you don’t know that for yourself. Must you
ask, whether that estrangement pushes away rectitude or restores
harmony with a transcendent streak of goodness. A strength that rises
above the crowd, that fuses his being with intention and chance, tying
him to his topmost power. For any man to carry out duty, he must
aspire to strenghten himself and make himself sturdy. Only when he can
bear a heavy charge can he continue the course and unfold upwards, as
it were – there is then no enduring hesitancy, no itch to abdicate
responsibility, no besetting propensity to accept defeat.

> “Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.”
> 
> Friedrich Nietzsche

The weighty man – he does not look to share his duty, especially
not with those who hinge on him. As his role entails and as he knows,
single-handedness is called for and reclusiveness is many a time
inescapable. Those who rest on him should not be handicapped by his
incapacity to bear it. It is his responsibility to shoulder it without
help, as his capacity and function demonstrates that he can, if he’s
truly man, pacify any excess suffering while fathering peace among his
loved ones – he contends with chaos for their security, that too is
a manifestation of great fondness and masculine vehemence. That man is
conscious, knowing of his necessities, of what his family entails to
harbour unassailability, protection, love and guidance. An awareness
that is neither too egotistic nor merciless – oriented toward his
community, his chief concern is hinged on inheritance, blood and
brotherhood. When man knows the impression of his excellence, his
attention and positioning transcends. A sweeping and intelligent
approach. The righteous man acknowledges the magnitude of his
responsibility and by its desire feels disposed to exalt the already
prosperous fruits of his labour, with the hope that it reproduces
itself outside its usual confines. With a perceptible degree of
triumph, one conscious man can prompt in other men a great yearning to
respect and do good unto themselves – to master one’s lack of
understanding in pursuit of illuminating man’s spirit, finding law
and order in a world muddled in chaos.

AN AGE OF UNTIDINESS

This time in which we live is pervaded by an untidiness, an age of
great hesitation and ignorance, where people are inconclusive; of
themselves, of others, of their desires, of their affairs. They have a
foggy vision and it’s hard for them to see anything. So, we need a
great clarity and a civilized intelligence if we are to take aim and
do things rightly. Excellence is short and undervalued and quality is
muddled in dirty water; many are reckless and many are drifting
through life unconsciously, without any real forethought or concern
for themselves and others. Further, there ought to be a willingness, a
determination, an ambition to make living an art, to reject the lures
of mediocrity and pursue a long and unavoidably lonely road paved with
a progression of collapses and frustrations – inevitably, the price
we pay for being excellent is repeated defeat, isolation, deprivation,
restlessness and unease – does it stop there? I don’t believe that
most people thoroughly comprehend to what extent one must venture to
achieve a towering grade of self-mastery, but that probably explains
why the greater part never see what lies beyond the edge, as they
rarely consider embarking on such a pursuit, and even if they do, how
many follow through? and of those who may follow through, how many
endure it till the end? That kind of pertinacity is hard to come by.

THE DISCIPLINE OF SUFFERING

I believe it takes a good measure of both madness and absurdity to
stick the course, to preserve a degree of sanity and to sustain the
cultivation of an expansive creative power and ability, one that
bullishly reaches up high and ties itself to the boundless heavens.
The question you may ask yourself is whether such a road is worth the
hardship and privation, to which I will respond with this: is the
alternative more or less worthwhile and significant? Great suffering
is an indispensability for excellence. And if man were not built to
endure great suffering, is he really man? we are tough, with a
capacity to suffer because it’s not bad for us and secondly, because
it’s a necessary precursor to wisdom, understanding and will to
power. Was it not the brilliant Nietzsche who said, “To live is to
suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

> “The discipline of suffering, of great suffering—know ye not
> that it is only this discipline that has produced all the elevations
> of humanity hitherto? The tension of soul in misfortune which
> communicates to it its energy, its shuddering in view of rack and
> ruin, its inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, enduring,
> interpreting, and exploiting misfortune, and whatever depth,
> mystery, disguise, spirit, artifice, or greatness has been bestowed
> upon the soul—has it not been bestowed through suffering?”
> 
> Friedrich Nietzsche

As Nietzsche intimates in his intensity, is it not suffering that
elevates the soul, that polishes our steel and straightens our spine?
If it weren’t for our hardship, life wouldn’t be worth a king’s
ransom, as it is precisely the afflictions and sorrows that give life
depth, profundity, significance and stability. And it is thus the man
who recognises this characteristic of life who is capable of laughing
it off, as it were, and not take it personally, readily meeting it
without a statement of dissatisfaction. This is not to say that he
ought not to take life seriously, there are misfortunes that are
precarious by nature – by their gravity, they shake up our soul and
drive us down the bottom-most trenches of hell, where one can’t
conceive of anything more miserable than the insufferable nightmare
that scorches the spirit so generously and viciously, even when man
has already been vanquished by torment.

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