Page 32 - Liberating Liberals V2

The Mental Prison Break
Wrote Nietzsche:
No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year — ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge — and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery...Life as a means to knowledge — with this principle in one’s heart one can live not only boldly but even gaily, and laugh gaily, too.18
Friedrich gets carried away here perhaps, but removing duty, sin, the rigged life game whose rules are already set before you’re born ... removing these barriers must allow some greater leeway of behavior and maybe potential for passion and happiness. Or the experimental life may be little different from a traditional one. It probably depends on the choices you make in your vast freedom. As Joni Mitchell noted: “It never has been easy, whether you do or do not reside. Whether you travel the breadth of extremities or stick to some straighter line.”19
Regardless, liberal freethinkers experiment daily, often to defend our planet’s people and ecology. At times we need to rest from this Herculean task by what Nietzsche described as looking down upon ourselves with “artistic distance” and laughing at ourselves, the human condition, and our political
and relationship quandaries.20 If life is viewed as an experiment then it’s fine to take time out from it for a while and sample the humor of our dilemmas.
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