A Shiny, Resilient Hold

So I’ve been thinking a lot about Nietszche’s concept of the ubermensch lately (a process about as geeky as I’m sure you’re picturing it to be). This concept, introduced to us in a torrent of German, basically boils down to the idea that there is this ultimate image of self dangling just in front of us at all times; there is a person there that is our ever forming “who I will become”. The personality carrot.   I think we first develop this personality carrot when we engage those older than us and think “that’s who I want to be.” When we’re seven, the ten year olds a few years ahead of us in school are incredibly “grown up”; they are the image of good behaviour. Intelligent, experienced in relationships, and clearly having figured the world out, we look at them and see the person we want to be.  Now of course, as adults we find this idea comical. Those are kids, right? And we see them as such. Fifth graders don’t know everything there is to know about relationships (...

“Mind if we join you, old-timer?” “Join me, m’son. Join me.” “You work for the railroad, grandpa?” “I work for no man.” -O Brother Where Art Thou What is an oracle? Our histories, our cultures, our families, have centred around this mysterious figure for centuries. Somewhere in our collective thought, there exists a person we all seek. They are the voice of our own introspection; that “gut instinct,” the urge to move forward in our lives and seek resonance with someone and something other than ourselves. We cling to them as a guide. What I find interesting about the oracles in our lives is that 1) we consistently attribute them to outside forces (they are our friends, our ancestors, our books) and 2) we so fervently believe in our capacity for futures that we have created an archetype for individual inspiration.  The oracle as an outside force, I believe, says something about our need for other people in our lives to act as enrichers. Isolation is devastating, a...

I was a child raised by terrible thoughts. When I was about ten years old, they started leaking into my head like a slow poison, making everything I tried to do in my everyday life slightly more difficult. They worked so gradually that by the time they’d established themselves, it felt like they’d always been there. And worse, they were absurd enough that they made me feel wrong. They made me feel broken. I couldn’t share them due to their absurdity.  I would find out, twelve years later, that these terrorising and isolating thoughts were due to a mental issue, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As the doctor explained it, the thoughts that plagued me were the out of place thoughts that everyone has once in a while. The issue was that my brain couldn’t shut the gateway that created the thoughts, so they’d just recycle over and over. I’d walk by a light switch. My brain would fire out, “if you don’t turn off that light, you’ll get cancer.” Totally and completely absurd. And most p...