Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the precursors of existentialism, which emphasized the idea
that the human being is a free and responsible agent, capable of determining his own actions
in life through acts of will.
He was one of the greatest and most unusual philosophers and in line with the theory of
existentialism, he preached about the importance of being a free spirit.
According to Nietzsche, a free spirit is someone who is able to be in charge of his own actions,
who is capable of formulating his own worldview, free of prejudices and social norms, who is
not dependent on his relationships with other people, and who has the courage to be authentic
and fight against the tyranny of popular beliefs.
In some ways, we, the inhabitants of current democracies, are an initial version of what
Nietzsche called “free spirits”, or in other words, we have great potential to be
free spirits, most of our societies being characterized by moral liberality.
However, we are still far from the original definition of “free spirit” that Nietzsche
envisioned.
He wrote several books, like “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “Beyond Good and Evil”,
“The Birth of Tragedy” and “The Twilight of the Idols”.
According to Nietzsche, only by becoming a free spirit, would you be able to enjoy this
life to the fullest and become who you truly are.
So to help you become that true free spirit, here are 8 lessons that you can learn from
the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche:
1.
Become a master over yourself Nietzsche says: “You had to become master
over yourself, master of your own good qualities.”
To become a free spirit requires a special kind of willingness, a singular capacity for
self-liberation, in other words, a lot of willpower.
Nietzsche dedicated a great deal of efforts in the attempt to define the free spirit.
His book “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits'' is in fact dedicated to the
romantic ideal of the free spirit.
According to Nietzsche, one of the most important obligations to fulfil for the free spirit
is to be a master of oneself.
As self-mastery primarily means self-knowledge, it is important to learn about ourselves,
about our likes and dislikes, about our limits and potential.
Only when we know these essential things about ourselves, can we start to plan a future which
can satisfy us.
We can learn to control our actions - learn to say yes only to the things which are beneficial
for us in the long run, and are compatible with our higher aims.
Similarly, we should say no to anything that can block our development towards those aims.
Failure to achieve self-mastery can lead us to stagnation or decay; pursuing meaningless
temporary pleasures will make us wander aimlessly through life.
For example, if you are not working on becoming a master of yourself, you can be tempted to
accept a high paid job instead of an appropriate job which can lead to a dream career that
can unleash your best talents and skills.
Or, tempted by temporary pleasures, you can cheat on your spouse, destroying your marriage
and losing contact with your children if you have any.
If you are not a master of yourself, you might become dependent on junk food, which could
make you diabetic, potentially ruining your goal for a long and healthy life.
In order to be a free spirit, it is essential to be a master over yourself, and in doing
so, have the mental toolkit to make better decisions in your life.
2.
Think differently According to Nietzsche: “We call ‘free
spirit’ one who thinks in a different way from what he is expected to do regarding his
origin, his milieu, his condition and his position, or regarding the prevailing opinions
of his time.”
The free spirit has the strength to abandon his habits, his social and moral inherited
values.
In Nietzsche’s view, it is crucial to learn to think on our own, to filter the societal
morals and values through our own personal system of values.
This might require a specific strength of character.
It takes power to be able to resist the peer pressure to do things in a certain way, it
takes courage to refuse traditional opinions and ways of living.
A free spirit is more susceptible to self-development, for inventing new things, new systems or new
ways of living.
In the past, it was considered a fact that people cannot fly.
If everybody was a realist, nobody would have invented the first airplanes.
Hence it is better to be open minded, to dream about what can be possible, to free your mind,
and open it to new horizons.
To learn to be more open minded and to have the courage to think differently, a good rule
would be to ask “why” to everything you think you are supposed to do.
For example, consider you are the owner of a small business of around 20 employees.
If you follow the traditional way of doing business, you would ask your employees to
come and work in the office for 8 hours per day.
But you might ask yourself “why?
Is that really beneficial for my business?”.
Pondering on these questions might lead you to create new agreements with your employees,
allowing them to work both in their office and remotely, not necessarily 8 hours per
day, but depending on their workload.
By questioning everything you do, you can open your mind to new possibilities, creating
more freedom of action in your life and even in the lives of others.
This way you can be free from the conventional ways of working or of living.
3.
Learn to live with contradictions Nietzsche teaches us: “As a free spirit
you had to find out the inevitable error in every Yes and in every No, error as inseparable
from life, life itself as conditioned by the perspective and its inaccuracy...”
According to Nietzsche, truth is relative, an absolute truth doesn’t really exist.
He went so as far to say that the will to systematize reality is a sign of dishonesty.
To be a free spirit is to have the capacity to see beyond what is considered right or
wrong, beyond what is generally accepted as a truth.
Nietzsche was one of the philosophers who was the closest to being free spirits because
he didn’t follow a system, he even contradicted himself in his writing, probably convinced
that the true readers can read beyond the words.
Therefore, in order to learn to be a free spirit, we need to allow ourselves to accept
the contradictions around us, accept that something can be “black” and “white”
at the same time, the fact that our nature might be in itself contradictory.
For example, some might support the death penalty, but advocate against abortion.
Others might be an evolutionist and a religious person at the same time.
Others might advocate for freedom of speech but can be against hateful speech.
Following a moral system bluntly might force you to adopt one extreme against another,
depriving you from a part of your convictions.
One of the best ways to practice being a free spirit is to avoid having strong convictions,
to learn to live with your contradictions and try to judge every situation according
to its context, rather than following a rigid system of values.
For example, it might be extremely important to advocate about freedom of speech in an
authoritarian society.
But, at the same time, in a developed democracy, it might be appropriate to fight against hateful
speech which threatens to transform that democracy back into fascism.
4.
Be an experimenter To quote Nietzsche: “The free spirit is
a monster of courage and curiosity…a born adventurer and discoverer.”
Nietzsche defined the free spirits as being "experimenters", they are free spirits who
will fight against dogmatism and embrace the hardships of independence of mind and spirit.
These are individuals strong enough to seek the truth, Nietzsche advocated a method of
attaining knowledge called “experimentalism”.
While the vast majority of people are “bound spirits”, prisoners of beliefs that have
been inculcated into them by their parents, governments, and religions, the free spirit
is one who has liberated himself from these chains.
The free spirits are true explorers, they can act in life without needing to be absolutely
sure about a thing before taking action on it.
One example of a free spirit offered by Nietzsche is Christopher Columbus, the great symbol
of the quest for the unknown.
Christopher Columbus had the courage to explore the oceans with the goal to reach India even
if he was not absolutely certain how long the trip would take.
The experiment characterizes the way of living like a free spirit, being open to adventure
and new discoveries.
To be an experimenter or a free spirit, we should try to be more adventurous.
For example, if you have lived in the same country since the day you were born, you might
prepare your own experiment: to leave your country for a period of one year, you might
take a sabbatical year in which you can work as a volunteer in a third world country, or
you can travel the world.
Whatever you have done in your life for a very long period of time, you should question
it, create your own experiments to test if your way of living is the right one for you;
go back to it in the case that it is the right one or leave it forever in the case it isn’t.
You can never truly know what is good for you unless you test the opposite of what you
are currently doing in life.
A free spirit is never afraid to take their chances.
5.
Fight against tyranny In the words of Nietzsche: “Wherever there
has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum
to a man into which no tyranny can force its way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the
heart: and that annoys the tyrants.”
In seeking truths, the free spirit – the “genuine and solitary philosopher” – becomes
an enemy of all those who attempt to promote ignorance for the sake of gaining power over
others.
A free spirit would never accept others to tell him what to think.
He would protect his own thoughts carefully no matter what happens outside himself.
For example, in Nietzsche’s time, at the end of the nineteenth century, it was unfashionable
to be an atheist.
However, he was a force of resistance against the dogmatism of Christianity.
Many times in his writing, what he calls free spirits were those like him, who were willing
to talk about atheistic and revolutionary ideas.
Another example of a philosopher fighting against tyranny was Socrates.
The free spirit becomes an enemy of all those who attempt to promote ignorance for the sake
of gaining power over others, and, in doing so, he might even risk his life, just as Socrates
did.
Nowadays we can, for the most part, change things without risking our lives and we can
learn from the examples of past free spirits who acted as heroes of humanity.
For example, if we care deeply about protecting the rights of animals, we can join big campaigns,
promote our view on social media, organize events, and protest in front of governmental
buildings.
Sooner or later, somebody powerful may listen and a change could be made.
It is important to think that it is within our power to change the things we don’t
agree with.
We need to fight against the tyranny of unfair legislation and duplicitous governments.
6.
Be authentic Nietzsche asks: “What does your conscience
say?
— ‘You should become the person you are’.”
Once we understand that we are limitless, that we should not have prejudices about ourselves,
it is important to know that we also need to be authentic, meaning we need to be honest
regarding our emotions, our likes and dislikes, our real opinions about certain things.
Thus, the free spirit focuses on the reality of their own tendencies and emotions.
The changes in your mood and emotions are extremely important.
They might be annoying sometimes, but they are an expression of your freedom.
The more you listen to them, the more free you allow yourself to be.
Nietzsche believed this is the way to stop avoiding life.
It is important to have goals in life, but there is no meaning to reach these goals if
your happiness is not assured along the way.
According to him, our real ideals or our goals are an end product of our animal dimension,
therefore we cannot ignore our tendencies and emotions when we pursue a goal, in other
words, we should always connect our thinking with our feelings, only in this way will that
special self-confidence in life emerge.
In real life, we can try this teaching by listening more to our “gut feeling” when
making decisions, by being more honest with ourselves.
To be free requires you to be authentic, to be a complete person, one that thinks with
his head but feels with his heart at the same time.
For example, if you have just graduated from a college of engineering and suddenly you
realized that what you love is art, you have to be authentic and inform your parents about
your plans.
Of course, you might instead make a “rational decision” to find a job in engineering because
you have invested so much time in learning the subject, but to be a free spirit you need
to have the courage to make “unreasonable decisions” if your gut feeling tells you
that art is the best career for you.
7.
Be joyful Nietzsche writes: “And we should consider
every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”
Nietzsche often used the word “dance” to indicate a free way of being.
In other words, every day in which we are not free is a day lost.
To be free means to know how to laugh, to dance, to enjoy life.
For Nietzsche, laughter represents a special form of knowledge, giving us a fresh perspective
over life, to understand to not take things too “seriously” because everything is
temporary and in continuous evolution.
A bad mood is nothing more than a state of “irremediable seriousness”, in which we
give too much importance to things which come and go.
For example, there is no meaning in getting depressed that you lost your job because there
are so many jobs in the world and most probably you wouldn’t have stayed in that job for
more than a few years anyway.
There is no meaning in getting upset that your partner left you because there are billions
of people out there that you may be more compatible with, and even if they hadn’t left you,
the relationship would probably break down eventually anyway.
There is no meaning in grieving for a long time when someone close to you dies.
It is a fact that we all will die someday, nobody lives forever.
We need to keep a sense of serenity in life by being aware that nothing lasts forever.
Knowing that even life has an expiration date would make us enjoy it much more.
8.
Do not get attached to people and things In our final quote from Nietzsche for this
video, he says: “He who has attained the freedom of reason cannot attach his heart
too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes
pleasure in change and transitoriness.”
To be free does not mean only freedom to go wherever you want, freedom to speak your mind,
freedom to get any job you want, freedom from tyranny.
Freedom also means psychological freedom, to not be dependent on someone, such as your
spouse, your parents or others, as well as to not be dependent on material things, like
money.
To be free, you should have a deep awareness that everything in life is temporary, including
your relationships with other people.
A great test for a free spirit, according to Nietzsche, is if you are able to withstand
a lack of human companionship, Although Nietzsche was not always able to withstand a life without
the material support of his mother and sister, he was able to live alone in the Alpine mountains,
wandering from place to place, living cheaply and freely.
For Nietzsche, the attachment itself is not really the problem, but to remain stuck in
a particular one is.
We are social animals and it is virtually impossible to live entirely by oneself, nowadays.
We create bonds with our relatives, our colleagues at work, our lovers, our friends.
To become free spirits, we should try to keep away from toxic people who have the tendency
to chain us to themselves, who try to put limits on the way we express ourselves or
our actions.
If you find yourself in such a relationship, it is better to leave it and find a new one
which leaves you room to express yourself fully and gives you the freedom to explore
the world and to explore your true potential.
True love cannot exist without true freedom, the best relationship being the one in which
you have all the freedom to be yourself and that you are free to leave anytime, but you
return to over and over again because of the great love you find in its nest.
If you enjoyed this video, please do make sure to check out our full philosophies for
life playlist and for more videos to help you find success and happiness using ancient
philosophical wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe.
Thanks so much for watching.