Page 10 - GALIET CRUX, NUX OR LUX: Nietzsche IV

destellando with H.í’m. under a well of sky
become confluent with the 40 desolate deserts
until we become estrellantes estrellos tessellated with líght5
Líght. There are two ways to see light: suffer or will nothingness to see it. To will ascetic ideals (without the mortification aspect) is to will the ‘other’ life and to call upon beauty: I wonder how beautiful Nietzsche’s life could have been if...). Instead, for Nietzsche to will ascetic ideals means to ‘will nothingness.’ Yet, if we look at a circle, we may ask whether nothing or everything is within or without it? Nietzsche writes on Schopenhauer’s asceticism that to ‘will nothingness’ is to extinguish the ego and the will altogether: like a Buddhist monk. (I was told once that one must not write about what one does not know or has not experienced). So, Nietzsche goes on saying that willing nothingness is still willing; and it is better than not to will at all. Indeed, to will “life against life” in the face of sickness and hardship, is life affirming: some call it nirvana.
For Nietzsche, ascetic ideals represent “holy forms of excess” in constant evolution in time and culture, subject to different meanings and interpretations. Like good and punishment. Nietzsche argues that asceticism for philosophers and priests maximizes the feeling of power because it aids them in their quest for knowledge. I haven’t met any ascetics or monks that feel powerful, they emanate power because they believe in who
5 Galiet & Galiet. Oneyoume. Vancouver: House of Eunoia Press, 2000.
• 10 •
let iiis then