“No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
How can one live a meaningful, exciting, and fulfilling life of wonder and discovery, if all effort is spent seeking a master or unknown afterlife, while living every moment of this life in fear? How can one experience freedom and growth, if that life is decided through submission to some illegitimate ‘claimed’ authority, whether religious or governmental? How can one function in a world possessed by obligatory morality mandated by some dominant entity? All discipline is based on force, and force is based on violence or threat of violence. Living life strictly for the benefit of other’s wishes, needs, or demands, abandoning your individual self, can only lead to a nihilistic existence where everything of value is considered useless, where life, love, knowledge, and art are surrendered to emptiness and depression. There is a better way in my view, and that way is to love, respect, accept, and improve self. When one’s primary purpose in life is self-improvement, a will to claim power over self, and seeking knowledge, life becomes vital, more virtuous, complete, and satisfying, causing others to benefit as well from that inner power and strength displayed.
Many will scoff at this pronouncement, and will consider it selfish, but if honesty is respected, it will become clear that to own one’s self, to test inner strength, to build confidence in free and independent thought and action, to love without limit, and to achieve internal peace without restriction, can only lead to true happiness, and enhance one’s ability to be a light for others. For those who have chosen to live not for themselves, but for some ‘authority,’ whether an individual or entity that claims ownership of their mind, body, and soul, they will forever be lost. I am not a preacher or soothsayer, and never could be, not for any religion or government, and certainly not for any ideology, or promoter of any collective horde. I fully understand that each of us is unique, and an individual, whether practiced or avoided, as most aspire to do in order to be accepted by the crowd. I wish not to tell others how or what to think, as each has to come to conclusions on his own, if truth is ever to be experienced. Force and aggression, whether physical, mental, or psychological, is an immoral and worthless effort, because each and every one of us must make our own decisions if freedom and sanity are ever to exist in our lives.
