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to find your inner genius from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who was definitely a genius.
He started to learn Greek alphabet and to play piano when he was only 3 years old, he
was one of the brightest students and at age of 23, he was the youngest Professor of Greek
Linguistics.
He was a very close friend of the famous composer Richard Wagner and with other famous personalities
and he later became one of the greatest philosophers of all time.
He wrote several books, including “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “Beyond Good and Evil”,
“The Birth of Tragedy”, “The Twilight of the Idols” and his teachings continue
to shock the world, even today.
For Nietzsche, history itself is a process of creating geniuses; each genius is somebody
who creates the mental world in which his successors will live.
In other words, the history of the world follows the work of the geniuses.
Although Nietzsche’s life took a tragic turn, he created a new mental world to inspire
generations.
His teachings inspire everyone who dreams of becoming a genius, helping them to find
that inner voice to guide them throughout their life.
According to Nietzsche, if you don’t cultivate your inner genius, if you don’t own yourself,
you have lived a life of “laziness.”
Certain steps in life can only be walked by you and only by discovering that inner genius
can you walk that path, so to help you uncover your own path, in this video we bring you
7 ways in which you can find your inner genius, from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
1.
Be yourself Nietzsche says “Be yourself!
All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you”.
According to Nietzsche, life is hopeless and meaningless without a true liberation from
the chains of opinion and fear.
If we remain captive in those chains, we would be dreary, wandering aimlessly in life.
As Nietzsche said, nobody can build the bridge on which we must cross the river of life,
but ourselves.
Discovering more about ourselves helps us in better understanding our strengths, our
hidden talents, our inner genius, and the source of our creativity.
The best way to know all of these is to ask yourself: “What have you truly loved thus
far?
What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?”
Analyse all of these and you will unveil the direction you need to take to unleash the
power of your inner genius.
No matter who you are, what your profession is, on which place on Earth you are, you should
be able to know what you really love doing in life, what makes you really happy.
For example, you may find out that what you truly loved was when you volunteered for a
humanitarian cause, what uplifted your soul was the happy ending from your favourite movie,
what has dominated and delighted your soul at the same time was when you were at work
in a leading position, maximizing the resources of your team.
Based on these findings, that person would be happiest if they take a direction in which
they can be a leader of a community, a position from which they can make a positive impact,
helping the people in that community.
Here would lie their genius.
In the same way, any of us can answer the questions regarding what we really love, what
uplifts our soul, and use that to find our own direction and unleash our inner genius.
2.
Be a genius of the heart Nietzsche says “Genius of the heart whose
voice can climb into the underworld of any psyche, upon whose touch everyone departs
richer, richer in himself, cracked wide open, more delicate, fragile, and broken, but full
of hopes”.
Nietzsche considered himself the last disciple of Dionysus, the God of Wine, fertility and
madness in Greek mythology.
He saw Dionysus as a gateway to the depths of human psychology, a way to understand the
essence of human desires and emotions.
In psychoanalysis, a Dionysian experience can be considered as a way to release subconscious
desires and bring them to the surface.
For example, a subconscious desire can be the desire to be romantically involved with
someone you are not supposed to, like someone who is already married.
The more we become aware of what is inside our subconscious, the more we can control
it.
The more we can control it, the more likely we are to make good decisions, and therefore
the more psychologically healthy we become.
Being like the God Dionysus as Nietzsche described him, is not for everybody: It is for those
who dare to descend into the abyss of the human psyche like Nietzsche claimed he did.
But, a more superficial self-analysis can still be useful for the majority of us.
According to neuro-psychoanalysis, free association might be a great tool through which we can
perform self-analysis on our own psyche.
By free association, we can dissect our most intimate thoughts and feelings, we can go
deep inside ourselves, and, by bringing subconscious desires to the surface, we can release our
Dionysian nature and become “geniuses of the heart.”
One method through which we can perform free association is journaling.
If we write in our journal every day, without censoring ourselves, we can come to a deeper
understanding of what bothers us every day and we can even find solutions to our most
personal problems.
For example, if you are stuck and unable to make a major life decision, say marrying your
partner, choosing a better career or moving to another place, it can help to write the
reasons you would or would not take each path.
Evaluating their pros and cons, as well as your emotions towards them can help you make
a more informed decision that’s best for you in the long run.
The more you know about your subconscious self, the more you know what makes you happy,
what activities make you more creative.
Our inner genius has everything to do with our creativity, as in our creativity lies
our potential for growth and for leaving our legacy on the world.
3.
Protect your genius from the herd Nietzsche says “What we’ve called universal
values, what we’ve called truth, has always only ever been the personal expressions of
those who promoted them”.
Because we live in a society, we are blinded by certain standards and rules, we obey certain
moral codes which control our behaviour.
Although these invisible rules give us security, they also limit our individuality and creativity.
As Nietzsche argues, we are controlled by a herd morality, which was created by the
ruling class in order to control the poor.
These societal values, what is good and what is bad are not given by a supernatural being
like God, but rather, they are concepts invented by the ruling classes.
Although many of these values have a positive influence over society overall, it is important
to be more aware of them and investigate the way in which they control us, in order to
educate ourselves, to become who we truly are and to find our inner genius; the source
of our individuality and creativity.
Millions of us are trapped in traditional religions and prejudices and, in our attempt
to free ourselves, we can encounter tough opposition from people who kill their own
creativity and dreams in order to conform to society and who feel insecure seeing other
people pursuing their creative dreams.
For example, if you are a young woman living in a country which encourages women to be
only housewives, then you would likely face a lot of backlash and opposition when pursuing
a career in science.
According to Nietzschean philosophy, you should protect your inner individuality as a scientist
and your creative spirit as a whole by continuing to practice science in spite of the opposition.
Although you may never get the recognition and respect you deserve, your inner creativity,
your genius, is the most important life force you have to fulfil you in the long run.
Even if you are not allowed to go to school, you can borrow science books, keep up to date
with developments in the news, and of course follow some of the many amazing science communicators
right here on YouTube.
To protect your inner genius, you must stop blindly following society’s rules as they
are not based on universal truths or values, they are all relative.
4.
Genius is no accident Nietzsche says “Do not talk about giftedness,
inborn talents!
One can assume great men of all kinds who were very little gifted..”.
We live in a society which considers a genius as being a rare phenomenon, which takes luck
like being born in a special culture or in a special family, with a certain status, or
being born ‘gifted’ at, say, music, art, maths, and so on.
We often feel that they achieved the status of genius by accident, a miracle, or luck.
We never look at what it is behind their success.
This mentality of seeing a genius might prevent us from actually becoming one.
There is a huge difference between what society considers being a genius and what being a
genius really is.
Following society's way of looking at geniuses as rare phenomena, as accidents which happen
only in certain professions or circumstances might compromise your endeavour to develop
your own inner genius.
Therefore, it is important to disregard what is popular and focus on what ignites your
own flame.
If the thing that really excites you is making anime art using ancient printing techniques
or dumpster diving for old technology to restore or upcycle, then great!
Get out there and do it and ignore the haters telling you to stop because it’s not ‘normal’.
Not to mention ignoring your inner voice telling you to feel embarrassed or shameful because
your interests don’t conform to current trends.
Conforming almost never matters, and ultimately is less likely to lead to your personal happiness
than pursuing the things you know bring you joy.
5.
Don’t resent geniuses if you want to become one
Nietzsche says “Our vanity, our self-love, promotes the cult of the genius: for only
if we think of him as being very remote from us, as a miraculum, does he not aggrieve us...”.
We use the words “gifted”, “genius”, “one of a kind” because we want to protect
ourselves - we do it to shield our own egos.
We might consider it too hard to be like them, that it seems too much like hard work, so
we say it’s impossible.
Often, when we decide someone is a genius, we automatically put a barrier on our own
future endeavors.
We think we might never get there, that we are incapable of doing that, so we called
them “geniuses.”
We think those people had an unfair start, that they were born with that particular talent,
they were born in that certain country, in that certain family and so on.
We wish we were more like them or at least wish we had those same advantages at the start.
In this way, we do not take responsibility for our life and instead blame external factors
for our failures.
Instead of seeing genius as an out of reach target, we need to start evaluating their
journey to see how they achieved the status of genius, to count the number of hours of
work they put in, to evaluate the decisions they made in life and so on.
Take Nietzsche, for example; You can call him a genius, but if he hadn’t studied so
much Greek linguistics and Greek philosophy, he wouldn’t have been appointed to Basel
university, he wouldn’t have become part of Richard Wagner’s inner-circle of famous
artists and writers.
All his great achievements were accomplished not because of some innate natural ability,
but through effort and determination in spite of his fragile physical structure and his
psychological vulnerabilities.
Therefore, if you feel a particular intense interest towards a field, you need to put
in all the effort you can to pursue that career.
For example, imagine you work in a company and you have always envied a colleague who
is an admired manager in your branch.
You find yourself despising him and assuming his success is pure luck because of his innate
talent to talk to people - a talent you believe you don’t share.
So don’t try and play that game - Instead of fixating on how they are ‘better’ than
you, you should focus on what you do better than them; Invest more time and energy into
your work itself, into time management and self-discipline and you could become successful
in your own individual way.
Everyone’s genius is unique so trying to measure your genius with another is an unfulfilling
waste of time.
6.
Learn to be diligent Nietzsche says “All had that diligent seriousness
of a craftsman, learning first to form the parts perfectly before daring to make a great
whole.
They took time for it, because they got more pleasure from making something little or less
important, than from the effect of the dazzling whole”.
There are definitely people who appear naturally gifted and are better at a given activity
than most other people.
For example, even as a child Nietzsche showed a great talent for music and demonstrated
great intellectual capabilities.
However, these raw ‘talents’ were not enough in isolation: Talent is just the gateway
to success, it is not success in and all itself.
Nietzsche took the necessary steps to perfect them, until he became an excellent musician
and composer, and a great scholar at the University of Basel.
It is easy to say he was a genius, but if he hadn’t perfected his talents, hadn’t
focused his energies on music, literature and philosophy, we would have never heard
about him.
This kind of person appears to us as a genius because we never saw them grow up or what
they have been exposed to.
When we use the word ‘genius’ or ‘gifted’ to describe an extraordinarily talented individual,
there is an underlying implication that devalues any of the deliberate practice and effort
that went into crafting the skill that the individual is now an expert in.
We do not take into account that a ‘gifted’ musician spent most of their life playing,
listening to, and composing music, we just call them a genius in order to avoid daring
to do the hard work they’ve already done.
Those people are not superhuman; all that separates them from us is their diligence
to achieve greatness.
Mastery can take many years to achieve, but ‘genius’ can be obtained by many of us.
We all have different passions, what we usually call a hobby, but we rarely cultivate it to
the fullest due to our low level of self-confidence.
We all have the qualities necessary to become a genius, but not all of us have the right
attitude.
Before you declare for example that you are a terrible writer, you should practice writing
a lot; Short stories, novels, articles, screenplays, Harry Potter fanfiction… anything your heart
desires, all the while perfecting your style, comparing it with experts in your field and
learning from the critique you receive.
There is no shortcut, greatness requires your time and energy.
7.
Be grateful and “clean” In our final quote from Nietzsche for this
video, he says: “A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at
least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness”.
In spite of his daring and sometimes acerbic philosophy, Nietzsche was a gentle and sophisticated
human being.
Moreover, he was a very talented poet, piano player and composer, possessing great artistic
skill.
Nietzsche valued his friendships to extremes and he never compromised himself for money.
He can be considered a good example of a grateful person because of his track record of being
a great friend, and a clean person because of his pride to never compromise himself for
money.
Gratitude and cleanliness can act as major boosters for your success in life.
The more grateful and clean you are, the more people will gather around you and will be
transformed by your mastery, and therefore the bigger impact you can have in the world.
For example, imagine you are a skilful programmer, one of the best in your field.
Instead of becoming arrogant due to your success, Nietzsche advises you to maintain a sense
of gratitude, to continue giving your best in your work and being gentle with your co-workers
and collaborators.
Also, keep yourself clean and do not try to force your way towards further wealth or recognition
if it compromises your integrity or is against your better judgement.
It may not feel good in the short term, like a wilfully missed opportunity, but by doing
so, in time you will be proven right, attracting more admiration from the people around you
which will automatically propel you towards more success.
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