The place where Nietzsche fell down, where he took us backward, is not comprehending the idea that we grow stronger through both cessations of struggle AND struggle. Conquering or winning makes us weak. My best lessons in life came through “losing” or screwing something up. “I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ― Edna St. Vincent.
I understand the alluring idea that we need to feed ourselves so as to have the strength to help others. But really, do we feed ourselves, or is physical/spiritual food a miracle and we the grateful recipients, rather than something we are entitled to and can take for granted? God GRANT me the serenity makes it a gift, and not something we deliver to ourselves. Who prays the Serenity Prayer if they already have serenity? We can say yes, though.
The textbook of AA reads...and we quit fighting everything and everybody..." Sobriety and Spirituality ain't a contest. Fighting people, places & things is birthed from resentment, and resentment grows from fear. Resentment is the Number One Offender. It's a lose/lose situation. Things we resist make their defense stronger and things we kill both make us...weaker. True enough, that which does not kill us not only makes us stronger. But things we kill get stronger, too, as do we when we die.
Nietzsche was both a product and producer of his era, as are we all to perhaps lesser extents. Everything has a ripple effect. Nietzsche was following the light as we all are, even though he didn't believe in such a light. When we mislabel the light messages we read on our journey and exclude someone from our ministry of love, which is the true purpose of life, then bodies get stacked in makeshift graves. Christ taught, “Forgive your enemies”.
Hugs and smiles are free and that which is free is transformative. The truth will set you free, but it might tick you off first.
When the bad part of ourselves quits feeding the part of ourselves that wants to be good (the bad justifies the good), the war is over. But it is hard to see or realize that the good part calls itself good by “knowing” something is bad. Like, “Why do I keep relapsing!” The relapse feeds itself, for the presence of bad proves the good exists. If I am not offended in the first place, there’s nothing to forgive. The addiction to guilt and shame has been around since BEFORE God said, “Who told you that you were naked ?”
There is some bad in the best of us and some good in the worst of it. Look for the good in the bad, love it, and watch the bad dissipate into the illusion it has always been. Others loved us back to health. Pass it on.