The courage to go beyond (what is allowed)

THE NATURE OF 'THE TRAGIC'

When I began researching my thesis, I believed in psychological weakness. By the end of it, I didn’t. I thought, “Every animal, including those that are human, fight for their survival with everything they have.” To succeed or fail is only defined by circumstantial weakness, I concluded, rarely inherent weakness. This is related to a particularly Nietzschean insight, where creativity is viewed as tending towards the tragic, as it is directly related to a tendency to go beyond circumscribed limits -- and thus to lead to uncontrolled outcomes.  Another way to say this is that failure at the point of extreme courage is all the more likely than failure whilst playing it safe, but this is not, at all, the same as “weakness”.

Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spake thus:

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman–a rope over an abyss.

A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an OVER-GOING and a DOWN-GOING.

I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.

I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.

I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth of the Superman may hereafter arrive.

I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus seeketh he his own down-going.

I love him who laboureth and inventeth, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeketh he his own down-going.

I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.

I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.

I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.

I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one’s destiny to cling to.