On The Use And Abuse Of History Book

I have forgotten how I love Nietzsche. What a wickedly dry spell it has been without his verve.

In this small book, he argues that the excessively historical man is bound to be a neurotic, miserable creature—incapable of happiness and, subsequently, of action.

But I feel he never truly persuades us that happiness is a good in and of itself. And I do not believe that a crushed spirit renders one incapable of art. To the contrary, I would contend that it is the compulsive maniacs among us who make the best artists. Who better to supply proof of this hypothesis than Nietzsche himself, the raving, perpetually ill, solitary loner of a man that he was? His admission to a mental asylum, his psychosis, the congeries of physical symptoms that afflicted him throughout his life, who indeed better to attest to those ever fragile borders of psychosis, genius and art? And, too, his pronouncement that no philosopher has been more a musician than he!

So yes, reading Nietzsche is a pleasure, but like all music, I am afraid, that at times he is sublime as much as he is incomprehensible.