Nietzsche's Blues

When thinking on the writing and life of Friedrich Nietzsche a strange thought occurred to me.  Perhaps Nietzsche saw too keenly into the nature of life and the mind and he could not handle the truth and went insane.  Perhaps the only way to keep your sanity is to maintain a pleasant illusion of reality that is ultimately false, but in the short term provides comfort and peace.  Our brains are too small and our lives are too short to grasp the full truth of reality.  We can only effectively deal with the here and now.  If this is true then the conclusion is a humorous paradox:  To maintain a sense of emotional balance, truth, and authenticity in our lives we must base our concept of reality on ideas that are essentially false.

This is a curious reflection on the whole of Western civilization and perhaps even science itself.

copyright (c) 2016

William Schaeffer