It's not wrong—not entirely—to read Nietzsche as the ultimate "self-help guru," on an individual and group level. "Chicken soup for the soul writ large," as it were.

Nietzsche demands that you face the truth of the "death of God": the loss of credibility of religion, philosophy, and morality—institutions that have undergone such scrutiny that they can no longer stand. Don't deny it. The first step is admitting that we have a problem!

Nietzsche's solution, imagistically offered, is to view the collapse of Western civilization—and your own resultant emotional destress—as bringing us into a world of new horizons. An opportunity for creativity and artistry...or great terror and despair.

Those capable of leaping over this impasse are the Overmen. And according to Nietzsche's notes, this would involve consciously breeding superior beings, who would no longer take the name "human."

Yes, it's Nietzsche, so it's all rather shocking to middle-class ears. But again, it's not wrong, exactly, to see a bit of Marianne Williamson in such pronouncements. It is "self-help," "beautiful lies," the overcoming of doubt, indecision, and despair.

There is, however, a "flip side" to Nietzsche's teaching in his mature period (GS, BGE, TSZ). For Zarathustra comes down from the mountaintop to teach yet another terrible truth—more terrible, in fact, than the "death of God": The Eternal Recurrence of the Same.

According to Karl Löwith (if I remember correctly), Nietzsche sought to enroll at the University of Vienna to definitely prove this teaching mathematically.

The universe is "enteral" in the sense that it is outside the delineation of time. "Time" is in your head, not in the world. It is part of the subject; an *a priori* category through which perception is possible.

Ultimately, the findings of quantum physics—that electrons are and are not at the same time—shouldn't surprise us. Time, space, and cause-and-effect are *our* devices—*our* all-too-human limitations—and we should not expect the world to comply with them.

If the universe is "atemporal" and there are a finite amount of things in it, then everything—every sorry, pain, joy, triumph, and catastrophe—will recur endlessly. A loop in forward and reverse, where the beginning is the end, and death is life, and we are and are not.

Moreover, "time" as it was conceived through Christianity...

Before => Beginning => Sin and Fall => Redemption => End

...has lost credibility. There are no "utopias" or historical "ends" of the universe, either of the Christian or Hegelian-Marxist variety.

Nietzsche's injunction is that we not just accept eternal recurrence—but *will* that it be so. We must not only embrace the Overman, but, on some level, will everything that brought us to this impasse: The Last Man and our descent into nihilism included. Rinse and repeat.

Here again, we see a little bit of Marianne in Friedrich. The truth is terrible—and to deny it is to live inauthentically— thus, we must embrace the tragedy! Will the eternal return! Right-ho!

The Gypsies cry when the sun is shining, knowing it must soon rain. You, too, should know that joy can only be experienced by willing the pain, again and again.

Still, we are left with a paradox: How do we "will" the enteral recurrence? Isn't "free will" just as much a mental illusion as "time" and "cause-and-effect"? Isn't it in our heads, not in the world? How would *willing* eternal return be effective anyway?

This brings me back to the "inspirational" (or even "self-help") nature of Nietzsche's writings. On one level, he adopted this posture because...well...times are tough, life sucks, and we all need a little "chicken soup"—especially him!

But mostly, Nietzsche wrote in this way because this "tragic inspiration" was his means of glimpsing, however imperfectly, the world outside our heads, that is, the world, beyond our subjectivity, beyond "time," "space," and "cause-and-effect."

The world—and every entity in it—according to Nietzsche, is will to power. Every thing doesn't seek to "survive"; every thing is compelled to expand, dominate, grow—expend itself. Will to power is, in this way, the the opposite of mere survival.

When we use words like "greatness," "power," "valor," or "virtue" we are glimpsing, through the imperfections of language, the spirit of the world itself—the "logos" (in Heraclitus's sense of the term).

What Nietzsche found "problematic" in Plato and the Jews of the late Roman period—whose spirit reached its culmination in Christianity—is the rejection of this "logos" (will to power).

Platonism and Christianity seek to find a world outside the world, and with Christians, an "afterlife"—which is, in fact, *death*. This is, ultimately, nihilism: the conscious choice (yes, "free will" reenters here...) to devalue the world, and ultimately end it.

Plato was a high-born Greek, who was mislead by the wicked and resentful Socrates; he thus stands as an equivocal figure.

Christianity ("Plato for the people") is also equivocal in that its conception of rational forms lying behind the universe inspired the application of reason to the world—and ultimately the critical project that undermined Christianity itself.

The Platonic and Christian project ended the ancient world—and it smothered the wisdom and approach ("sense of life") that we can glimpse from what remains from the pre-Platonic philosophers.

The catastrophe of today (for Nietzsche and us) is the self-destruction of the Platonic-Christian project. Again, this project was itself nihilistic, in Nietzsche's view, in that it valued the "other world" or "afterlife" over life.

The collapse of this 2000-year project is bringing about a catastrophe we can barely fathom. Moving beyond the Christian-Platonic project is, to borrow a metaphor, much like "reentering the cave." It is dark and terrifying.

But again, Nietzsche's response is that we have no choice. We must, in fact, say "yes" to it—live through the catastrophe joyfully. The world is willing it anyway.