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Experiencing Yourself
How to re-orient to life’s events
German philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, in his book “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” offered the following gem of wisdom that has stuck with me for decades. Nietzsche wrote”
“In the end one experiences only oneself.”
In one succinct sentence, he captured all of life and boiled it down to its very essence. I will admit, the first time I read this I fought back. I wondered how Nietzsche could be right. Is all of life just something that happens inside my head, and a series of electric synapses in the brain? That seemed so scientific, so unemotional. What about love, poetry, and all the things that make life worth living? What about disappointment, sadness, and fear? Are those simply other synapses in the brain, similar to those that produce other feelings?
In my earlier years, I simply pushed back against Nietzsche. I was not going to reduce my life to something so bland, so unemotional, and so scientific. Life has to be more than that!
