Re: Quoting Nietzsche is a perilous business

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sun Jan 06 2002 - 00:29:03 MST


From: "Jacques Du Pasquier" <jacques@dtext.com>, Sun, 6 Jan 2002:

>Amara Graps wrote (5.1.2002/15:47) :
>> "If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into
>> you." - -Nietzsche
>
>What do you think he meant ?

Spike and I had discussion of that quote some time back on this list.
I'm somewhat sure I know what Nietzsche meant, although I use that quote
differently than how Nietzsche uses it.

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Date Wed, 18 Apr 2001 21:42:56 +0200 (MET DST)
>From Amara Graps <graps@galileo.mpi-hd.mpg.de>
Subject Re: CHAT: What statement? abyss staring

(going back in time.. off the list, presently)

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net), Sat Apr 07 2001

>Followed to its logical extreme, one concludes if the universe is
>closed, we have been here before, having this exact
>discussion. Furthermore we have been here an *infinite* number of
>times before. Still further, we will be here again, having this exact
>discussion and an unimaginably large number of similar but slightly
>different versions thereof. Thinking about it causes one to zone
>out. Amara has so aptly described the feeling as staring into the
>abyss until it stares back.

I borrowed the expression from Nietzche, although our context was
likely different.

"He who fights monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a
monster. And if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also
gaze into thee" _Beyond Good and Evil_ Nietzsche

I didn't read _Beyond Good and Evil_, but he uses the abyss often in
his writings, and he has a fondness for this particular state of
mind. See _Thus Spake Zarathustra_

http://eserver.org/philosophy/nietzsche-zarathustra.txt

Nietzsche was also a little bit insane, but then ...

"I prefer to be only slightly insane. (Don't we all?)"
 --Characters Captain Sheridan and Garabaldi on Babylon 5
(see my special quotes http://www.amara.com/aboutme/favquotes.html)

My context for the abyss is close to the Zen practices and their use
of the deep abyss. The deep abyss is that psychological place where
there's no support, no nothing, a complete free-fall, and you realize
that no one is going to save you but yourself. It can be a terrifying
realization, and it might require sitting there for a while and not
run away from yourself, in other words: 'having a tea with yourself'
(my context of staring into the abyss). However, once one realizes
that they are all they have, then the abyss is a very rich place to
plant seeds of yourself to grow. Then what comes of that abyss is
someone/something genuine and an integrated whole.

Actually everyone has that psychological place of the deep abyss, but
I would guess that many people don't notice because their lives have
many kinds of supports and distractions.

Amara

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********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com
Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/
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"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin



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