The world is doomed?

Don't Look Up (2021)

Director: Adam McKay

That is the problem with the modern world, is it not? Nothing gets moving. Everything gets hijacked along the way by self-interests, personal agendas and public image. Trivialities are rewarded, and no one gives credence to knowledge and intelligence. Social media just gives an illusory comfort to the Joe Public that he is in control of everything. This becomes a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and fringe movements that are hellbent that there is a higher plot to annihilate our civilisation as we know it. It seems that movie stars and singers are prerequisites to get public services messages across.

Slowly, these things are unravelled in how the world deals with the Wuhan pandemic. It seems that for every innovation that the scientific community comes up with, there is an equally opposite move to convince the public on the contrary. Science, which had saved mankind from major catastrophes many times before, is no longer held in high esteem. It is comical that comedians are viewed as making more sense than elected leaders in the modern world. In the meantime, businessmen, carpetbaggers and money peddlers make the world go round.

This film is a cruel satire of everything around us. Even when the bull is on a rampage knocking everything in its path in the china shop, it appears that people are more concerned with capturing the perfect Kodak moment, not the imminent danger that the rabid bull poses to the bystanders. 

Nobody gives importance to substance anymore. Everyone is more interested in superficialities, skin-deep appearances and self-gratifying desires. Pokemon, TikTok and Instagram are testimony to these. This is what Nietzsche had predicted about the future, anyway.

Diabasky, an astronomy PhD student, discovers a catastrophic comet that may soon hit Earth to the brink of extinction. She and her Professor, Dr Mindy, brought their discovery to NASA, the White House and TV shows. Instead of getting their hands dirty, working against the clock to save Earth, everyone thinks it is just another doomsday prophesy. They are more interested in their appearance and that they are on anti-anxiolytics.  

From a society that was curious about its environment and wanted to turn the tides and make Nature work for it, it has become conceited. The inquisitive zest has dwindled. Individualism and self-gratification had taken over universal progress. 

Veiled messages?

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

Novella, Author: Yukio Mashima(1963)

Film version: 1976

Thanks to MEV for introducing this novella to me.

A little bit of background on the Nobel Prize-nominated writer opens a different perspective to the story altogether. Yukio Mashima had an illustrious life; born to a samurai family, living with an eccentric grandmother and later a disciplinarian father, failure to be drafted into the Imperial Army, his involvement in the performing arts and literary work, his fascination with the spirit of Japanese bravery and right-wing movement, a failed coup at overthrowing the Japanese Government and subsequent committing of seppuku in 1970.

In summary, this tale is about a 13-year-old boy, Noboru, whose father had died five years previously. He lives with his mother, Fusako, and a helper. Fusako has a novelty shop that deals with chic Western/modern haute culture. During Noboru's visit to a ship, a sailor, Ryuji, meets Fusako and gets close. Long story short, Ryuji and Fusako get romantically linked and has plans for marriage.

Noboru is a lonely child. His mother locks him inside his room, for he had once disappeared into the night to meet his friend. Noboru has a 'gang' at school - a group of five precocious and intelligent boys. They refer to each other as numbers, 1 to 5, Noboru being number 3. The pack leader, known as Chief, is a rich man's son who has a tight grip over the rest. A bit too intelligent for his age, Chief influences the rest with his Nietzchean look at life, about the purpose of it all and the nihilism that it brings. Chief once dissected a live cat to show the essence of life, the mighty raw power, and appreciate life's soul. 

A man needs to explore his full potential. There should not be any authoritative body to curtail his pursuit of greatness. In Chief's eyes, fathers, teachers and everyone do just that. They douse the spirit.

Noboru's keen pubescent mind yearns to analyse and make sense of things around him. In his locked room, he discovers a crack in the wall that opens to the adjoining room, his mother's. It is a kind of his pastime to peep into his sexually deprived young mother's bedroom. Noboru thinks his world is perfect; at least, that is what Chief tells him. Fathers are no good.

When Ryoji comes into Noboru's life, he is initially excited. Ryoji is the conduit to his fascination, the sea. Through Ryoji, he learns about the unknown and the dangers that the sea had to offer. Scaling the sea tests human power and resilience.

Watching Ryoji and Fusako engaged in passionate love-making through the cracked wall, and when Ryoji decides to hang his seaman cap, Noboru develops a kind of oedipal envy. He and his gang schemes a devious plan to kill Ryoji and reap out his heart like they did to the cat!

Many analysts had looked, some would say overanalysed, into this novella. Extrapolating things that happened in the author's life, seppuku and all, they posit that Mishimo is exploring the boundary of life and death. He is perhaps telling that Man has to be free from the trappings of life to explore his true potential. Maybe Man is unsure what he wants in life, like Ryoji, who runs away from land to the sea, escaping the miseries surrounding his early life, thinking that his true calling is the seas. After scaling the oceans, Ryoji finds that the unknown glory at the waters does not satisfy and yearns to stay put on dry land to start a family.

Some look at this novella as an allegory of the loss of Japanese values in society. Going to the sea was a Japanese thing to do, compared to when Emperor Meiji encouraged locals to go forth and explore after Commander Matthew Perry landed in Kyoto with what the Japanese thought was the celestial dragon. Ryoji was displaying his 'Japaneseness' by venturing out to the sea. Hence, Ryoji returning to land to marry Fusako, a lady who delved deep into Western merchandise, represents the post WW2 generation that traded traditional lifestyle to modernity. Hence, it had to be ended, the murder of Ryoji. So too with Mashimo, when he failed with his coup de tat of overthrowing the Japanese government. The honourable thing to do when he failed is performing his samurai duties, seppuku!

The film version has a slightly different feel to it. Unlike the book, where the story was set in Yokohama, this is done in Devon, UK. The lack of depth in the movie version is compensated by the appearance of the heart-throb of the 70s, Kris Kristofferson, and the liberal display of flesh by the leading actor, Sarah Miles, who plays the role of the mother.

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Towards the Happy Moron and Human 2.0

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power: 5 Battlegrounds.

Author: Rajiv Malhotra

Look at God and His invention from a philosophical angle. God created all beings, including Man. From a simpleminded simpleton, he evolved to develop a brain complex enough to tap the secrets of the Universe. His intelligence found new frontiers and was able to create and modify new lifeforms. Pretty soon, Man thinks he is better than God. He sometimes thinks God/Universe does not exist. Man is the centre of the Universe, and everything revolves around him.

In self-discovery and expansion of human intellectual capacities, he discovered artificial intelligence (AI). From a tool to aid Man in his day-to-day mundane and repetitive jobs - help him around the house and then help in factories, AI slowly began, through Man's astute observation, that many of our actions and problem can be broken down into algorithms. 

Over time, these algorithms were created for AI to be creative and responsive independently. The point of no return must have been reached when the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. Many modern AI programmes are said to have come close to passing the Turing test, the instance when machine response is indistinguishable from a human's. 

Creative artistic compositions and even emotive responses have been broken down into algorithms. So, for example, AI can compose music pieces and paintings.

Will there come a time when consciousness be broken down into algorithms? What happens after that mirrors the many scenarios of innumerable dystopian sci-fi movies. AI does not need its inventors and can work independently and against its creators. Man will be redundant, an annoyance or irrelevant enough to be disposed of. 

That is the course of things. AI is here to stay. The author looks at five areas (which he refers to as battlegrounds) that may need intervention by the powers that be. The mentioned areas are economics, geopolitics, loss of agency or psychological control of the public, metaphysics of consciousness and human capital.

There is a palpable fear that the rapid replacement of jobs by AI. Even though historically, industrialisation did cut jobs, this time around, the loss of employment could be too fast and too widespread. The disparity between the haves and have-nots will be more prominent as the middle-class shrinks.

Geopolitical dealings will hit a more extensive frontier. If previously, the loss of human lives was the impediment for nations to go to war, with AI and fighter machines, the only thing that would prevent them is the ability to finance wars. Countries with more enormous AI-based military-industrial complexes will likely rule the world.

As most of us are aware now, the internet and social media have turned us into automatons. Our personal information is public domain. We had willingly signed off our right to privacy. Like dogs in dog shows, we are easy pacified with serotonin-inducing likes and approvals in our comfortable echo chambers. Virtual reality and augmented reality devices, wearables and implants will put us in a constant state of psychedelic euphoria. Our social behaviour is analysed and gamified to influence us to dance to the tunes of the webmasters.

Augmented Reality glasses

It seems that everything can be coded. Scientists have algorithms for everything, including possibly our consciousness. The average human being would be a moron as all thinking processes can be outsourced to AIs, which would be essentially Human 2.0.

The world will be divided into two categories - the 1% of the elite God-like mega-rich larger-than-life entrepreneurs and the rest being the masses who have to be servants and consumers to the institutions of the 1%.  

With the future so dim, we probably would not need shades. Perhaps just VR, AR glasses or Google goggles.

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A future full of happy morons?

Idiocracy (2006)

This science-fiction film is no masterpiece, but it portrays a pretty close prediction to what Nietzsche predicted the future would be like. He envisaged a dystopian tomorrow where mediocrity is held in high esteem. Emphasis is on triviality and popularism. Evidence of this already gaining traction. Just look around us. People are frequently numbed by visual gratifications. Nobody thinks anymore. Intellectual discourse is just too energy-consuming; blind acceptance is becoming the norm. Astronomical science is centuries old, but many still swear the Earth is flat. Sowing wild oats without a care about the offspring that springs out of such an unholy union is defended as one's right to empowerment. 

Investing a wealth of time in something as ludicrous as catching 'Pokemon Go' is a legitimately approved pastime for a modern full-grown adult. Intellectual achievement is un-cool (and is becoming increasingly expensive for the average Joe). The people who least can afford to finance to provide for their children are the very people who have more than they can care for. Instead of using effective contraception to keep the aftermath of their carnal desires in check, they merely embrace their handiwork as a 'gift from God'.

Gluttony is hailed. Gulping tonnes of junk food is accepted as a lawful sport. Society is deep into consumerism without care about how the bill is going to be paid tomorrow. Living on credit is the modern way of living. Being prudent or thrifty is so yesterday. Speaking and writing well is vilified as queer. They lace their speech with profanity and hail it as a creative licence. The audience thinks it is a comedy when one spews obscenity in his conversation. Comedians get standing ovation when they curse or denigrate own's religious belief. 

The film imagines what the world would be like in 2505, and it does not look pretty. Earth is one big rubbish dump. Upkeep of high rise erections and structures is neglected as people are no longer interested in science. The world has lost its lustre in inventing and discovering. Corporations are bending over backwards to keep clients (i.e. everybody) happy, rewarding them with meaningless pleasures. People are lazy, indulging in purposeless cybergames consuming gallons of soda. It seems water is impure and is only helpful for sanitation. For all intents and purposes, it is Gatorade. The people of the future even water their crops with Gatorade with disastrous outcomes.

Everyone is required by the law to have a bar-code tattooed on their arm for identification, tracking and ease of business transactions. Society has become much dumber to indiscriminate breeding. Everyone is a happy moron craving for carnal pleasure and fantasy lacking in agency. Thinking is done by the powers that be.

The protagonist, an average Joe US Army Corporal, is transported five centuries into the future in a failed Army suspended animation experiment. The fellow subject in the experiment is a prostitute who was running away from her boyfriend pimp. Our subjects land in a lot of trouble with the law, but being the most intelligent person of the time, he is picked out by the POTUS office. Together, he tries to start crop planting, and he eventually takes over the post of President!

Not quite the wacky movie that it portrays, but it makes one think. Interestingly, after making the whole movie, the producers decided not to have the film release on a big scale to fear upsetting the multinational companies supporting Hollywood. Quite openly, the movie had condemned 2505 Starbucks and McDonald for stooping so low as to pander its crass customer desires.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Apollonian-Dionysian balance

Rush (2013)


Friederich Nietzsche identified enduring dichotomies within and amongst us that make our world tick. These two attitudes, both named after Greek Gods, have clashing features. Apollo, son of Zeus, stands for order, logic and reason while Dionysius, the God of Wine, represents chaos, madness and drunkenness. Nietzsche thinks we need both. It emerges from nature itself and can be applied in our day-to-day activities, from art, psychology, ethics to politics.

Apollonian way of doing things can be visualised how a scientist functions with his obsession with precision, discipline and punctuality. The Dionysian effect can be seen in music and art form, which may appear chaotic and not following the rules but nevertheless is music as it is, pleasant to the ears and emotive.

Nietzche saw the fusion of frenzied energy of the Dionysian to be applied constructively inside an Apollonian framework as ideal.

This biopic depiction of the professional rivalry between two F1 racing legends, Niki Lauda and James Hunt brings us to a time when F1 racing meant booze, girls and drug. Even though the movie depicts them as mortal enemies, in real life, they were close friends and had kept in touch for a long time.

James Hunt is the impulsive hard-drinking, the hard-partying late-night bad boy of F1. Lauda, on the other hand, is a fastidious, calculative and disciplined racer who prepares his every move meticulously and goes to bed early.

A memorable quote in the film goes like this. 'Drivers are revered not because of what they do, driving around in circles but because of their brush with death. The closer they are with death, the more people find them fascinating.' I suppose the same applies to other professions that deal with or hold people's life at the clutch of their hands. This would include people in the medical fraternity or in the mafia business.

This opposing features in the drivers form a compelling narrative for a cliffhanging adrenaline-fueled, rubber-burning suspense at the F1 track set in the early to mid-70s. The excellent direction by Ron Howard makes the experience more enjoyable.

Life would be boring if everyone conforms to a universal set of rules and practises fair play all the way. The Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy remains a useful way to view art, psychology, society and every other aspect of life.

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Nietzschean philosophy in Tamil movie

Continuing in our series of exploration of smacks of philosophy in Tamil film, we will look into a MGR starred 1971 film, Rickshawkaran. It must have been a year to honour the little men of the cheaper mass public transportation sector, the trishaw men! Later that year, another film, Babu, was released with Sivaji Ganesan as a dedicated cart pulling trishaw man makes a graduate out of his adopted daughter.

I did not realise that quite early in childhood I had been infused, rather subliminally with Nietzschean philosophy. Of course, the Indian screenwriters need not look up to Nietzsche for inspiration as the Vedic scriptures already have in abundance a treasure chest so filled with philosophy that would last many generations. 

In this song, MGR a MA graduate, yes Masters of Arts, who just finds being a rickshaw rider more rewarding than other bourgeois professions, tries to pacify a child from the monstrosities around her. Her father had  been murdered and MGR is trying to find justice for her.

In his eyes, he sees the masters as the evil ones trying to do non-virtuous things which the masters think it is their birthright. The slaves, being in a helpless situation, try to pacify themselves that the real judgment would be meted in the end at probably when the real Judgement Day comes. The priestly clan, in the form of MGR comes to the rescue of the slaves. In doing so, the priest also finds own solace.

Life is not fair, the slaves perceived it, as they see the masters frolic in merriment of their achievements. The slaves with their own set of morals try look at these in disdain, seek comfort that their pains and suffering will somehow elevate them metaphysically. The masters feel it is right to enjoy after all the risks and tiring mental calisthenics that they had to endure. The world is now and they are living the life and improving it.

Both parties try to justify their action, ennoble themselves and make sense on their time on earth; one physically and the other metaphysically. The priests too go in with their own agenda, for self-purity!

My amateurish attempt at translation of the song.

Let the people laugh, their haughty laughs.
Your golden smile is a glorious delight.

When the day comes, when world gives the Final Judgement,

Then we will know who'll laugh and who'll cry. 

Humans laugh till they ache in the belly.

Those who laugh at others' aches are animals.
In guise of human clothing, animals live in the country.

Justice and honesty are written in stone.

Is deviating, bending and curling called law?

And to deflect, you need a lawyer with a law degree.
Children of Lady Justice, Will a mother ever blind her children?

Will truth stay mum? to make us bow in shame. 

When the fence that was to guard starts eating the plant,

we're supposed to stay quiet?
I'll have my hand in it,

I'll ask when time comes,

I'll show the cat is a tiger,

as time goes on,

I'll show 'em!

We always strive higher!

Bread and Roses (2000)
Director: Ken Loach

Staying true to what Nietzsche was saying about masters, slaves and master morality, the economic migrants put their lives at stake to get to be like their masters. They (the migrants) yearn to be like the masters; speaking their language, dressing like them and abandoning their age-old traditions. Whatever the masters did was good and their own self-depreciating. They achieve what they want, but they are still not happy. They have a kind of self-realisation. They realise that their back-breaking endeavours are only to make the masters' life comfortable at the expense of their (slave's) health and life. They rebel, demanding appropriate recognition and remunerations. That is when the boat starts to rock.

The masters do not like all these melodramas. After all, there are many other newcomers ever-ready to fit into the workers' shoes. The master's continuity of comfort and high-brow lifestyle is of supreme importance. Hence starts the mutiny.

This Ken Loach's flick on the social struggle of the little people brings to light the difficulties endured by the immigrant population. They persevere through struggles of illicitly entering the country, leaving their lives at the hands of ruthless smugglers, human traffickers, middlemen, corrupt border men, local agents and the system that is keen to shoo and step them over when the situation warrants.

The people they left behind in their countries look at them as a beacon of hope. Quickly, even before the immigrant gets their footing in their new place of sojourn, the requests for money keep on rolling. Feeling responsible or not to disappoint the people back home, they comply. They engage in many activities, what come may, legal or otherwise, morally right or not, all for the little comfort for themselves and their loved ones back home.

The migrants are in the spring of their youth. There is also a need for them of to fulfil their own obligations, to desire to satisfy their carnal needs and continuity of their progeny.

'Bread and Roses' is a leftist movie that tends to look at the workers' plight, especially the immigrant type. They are the one that the modern city is totally dependable on for its functionality but remain invisible to its inhabitants. They are the discards of society as was described by Goebbel's propaganda films, the vermin of the city. In this offering, immigrants of different ethnicities come together to rebel against their unscrupulous employers for unfair wages and their inhumane treatment in handling of their day to day needs. The janitors of a company stage a protest named 'Justice for Janitors' and their catchphrase is 'We want bread but we want roses too!'. This phrase is a verse from a 1911 poem which was used in a workers' strike by immigrant women back in 1912.

Sure, the employers took them out from the pit of hopelessness in the basket-case countries which the immigrants failed to develop. They gave them dignity, improvement of living standards to them and their loved ones. They gave them a new lease of life to their otherwise web of hopelessness. They would be rotting in hell if not by the so-called 'unscrupulous' employers. Now that they are big and strong and know the dealings of the world, they bite the hands that feed them, so say the employers.

But that is, after all, what human character is all about. It is human nature to always feel discontented. We always strive to attain another notch higher; scale a higher mountain, sail further to a deeper ocean and reach a more challenging frontier. That must be the innate survival skill that we must have acquired from generations before us which helped us to weather all challenges that lay ahead in life.


"Bread and Roses" is a political slogan as well as the name of an associated poem and song. It originated from a speech given by Rose Schneiderman; a line in that speech ("The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." inspired the title of the poem Bread and Roses by James Oppenheim. The poem was first published in The American Magazine in December 1911, with the attribution line "'Bread for all, and Roses, too'—a slogan of the women in the West."The poem has been translated into other languages and has been set to music by at least three composers. Wikipedia.

Achieving the Unachievable?

When Nietzsche Wept (2009)

In real life, Frederick Nietzsche and Josef Breuer technically would have never met, even though their paths may have crossed in Vienna. For the uninitiated, Nietzsche is a famous 19th-century German philosopher and Dr Breuer is a neurologist who was Sigmund Freud's mentor who together treated the first patient of psychotherapy, Anna O. (Bertha Pappenheim). Rather fictitiously, the story, which is taken off a novel by Irvin D. Yalom, created an imaginary meeting of four famous Viennese individuals - Nietzsche, Breuer, Freud and Lou Salome, Nietzsche's love of his life.

Salome approaches Breuer to request for him to treat Nietzsche who was at risk of committing suicide after she rejected his hand in marriage. She wanted Dr Breuer to treat him for a migraine but at the same time try some of his 'talk therapy' on him to cure him of despair.

However, things become complicated. Breuer, even though appearing very composed, contented, prosperous and well rooted in family life and society, has serious deep-seated psychological issues. It ended up as Nietzsche psychoanalysing and treating Breuer of his predicaments in life. Breuer lost his mother, Bertha at a very young age and never got over his loss. He started developing feelings for his patient, Anna O, whose first name was also Bertha. In a somewhat twisted way, Nietzsche interprets Breuer's dreams to impress upon him their meanings. I say twisted because Freud is the one who popularised interpretation of dreams. Freud, in this movie, is a young apprentice to Breuer. Breuer also has what appears like a mid-life crisis and existential issues. Engaged in a repeated events in life and married, he yearns to be free from the clutches and quagmire of predictable, mundane life. Nietzsche uses his philosophical theories to knock some sense into him. Many of Nietzsche's ideas like Zarathustra are also mentioned here.

Breuer, in turn, helps him to overcome his resentment with his old friend, the musician, Robert Wagner.

The most interesting part of the movie is the dialogue. The exchange of beautiful quotes and sayings between a near-insane Nietzsche who is worried about humanity and the psychologically confused Breuer is legendary.

The other compelling thing about the story how the two men clamour over things that they do not have and not appreciate what they already have. Breuer feels trapped in an unhappy marriage whilst Nietzsche is dying to be tied down to marriage and not savour his freedom. Is it not the irony of life? We always yearn for what we do not have!

“It is easier, far easier, to obey another than to command oneself.”

“Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.”

"Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair."

“Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.”

"Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.” 

― Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/162267-when-nietzsche-wept-a-novel-of-obsession

The elusive meaning of life...

BBC Four: Genius of the Modern World (Part 2: Friedrich Nietzsche)

They say life is the single most precious commodity that one can receive in his lifetime. We are expected to embrace it with gratitude and hold it close, well, to our hearts. Ours is not to ask its purpose and its meaning, they say. Philosophers are a strange kettle of fish. They think when people indulge head-on together with their herd.

Historian Bethany Hughes continues her journey into exploring geniuses of the modern world. This time, it is Friedrich Nietzsche, a Prussian philosopher who dared to question the authority of the Christian church. Times were changing. Development in the sciences in the 19th century opened man's eyes and questioned the existence of God. Nietzsche was primarily thinking of man's behaviour in a godless world. He was thinking of where Man would get guidance if he were to disregard the scriptures.

Life started so blissfully for this son of a Lutheran preacher. His memory of life was the picture of perfect with visions of angels singing in the sky waiting with classical music tunes playing in the background. All that came to an abrupt end when he saw his father suffering from a chronic stomach ailment that eventually led to his death. That was his first uncertainty about organised religion. He wondered why a servant of God as his father should suffer so much. Why did his God not spare him of his miseries?

Even though Frederich wanted to continue the family tradition by enrolling in Bonn University to study theology, fate had other plans. His association with a radical group that critically condemned the scriptures of Bible as mere folklore further shook his belief. Christianity seems to guide its believers to live for unknown after-life rather than for now. He lost his faith.

Looking at the events around him in the 19th century, where science seems to be replacing religion as Man's answers to the questions of life and as a guide to morality, Nietzsche wondered if society was leading itself to self-destruction. His famous quote was 'God is dead and remains dead for we have killed Him'. We were liberated or free to make our choices but why we able to fill up the vacuum? It is a big responsibility that we have to wrestle.

He embarked on a journey of discovery. He became a professor of Philosophy at the age of 24 and published his first book, 'Birth of Tragedy'.

He could not accept life as all pain as suggested by Schopenhauer. He was fascinated with the Greek art and tragedy in finding affirmation of life. Like the Greek tragedies, life is a balance between Apollo, the God of reason and rational, and Dionysus, the God of chaos and appeals to emotional instincts. He thought art made life worth its while. Even though society expects orderliness, logic is not the only way to the truth. [Do I sense a hint of Hinduism here? Shiva, albeit his decadent ways towards life through intoxication, spirits, wondering, lack of personal hygiene hanging around corpses and cemeteries did find secrets of inner energy and the core of the purpose of life through the discovery of the 'Third Eye'].

He found this in his brief association with composer Richard Wagner. The friendship, however, met a short end when he realised that artists created only for self-glorification, not to improve life.

In Sil Maria, Nietzsche's spiritual retreat, he continued his search. Life is an eternal recurrence of the same. It is a cycle of good and bad. Just as one has to accept tragedy as the tide may turn for the better just as joy can be short lived. What does not kill you makes you stronger! Embrace life, not recoil away to suffer. [If that does not smell of Hindu spirit, what else would?]

The rejection by the love of his life, Lou Salome, in 1882 in Lucerne, further added to his melancholic life. Living true to his prophecy, he resisted the desire to end his life. In the depth of his misery, he continued writing ferociously. His magnum opus must be 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'. Still harping on his dictum that God is dead, he narrates a parody of the Bible of a character named Zarathustra, who comes from the mountains to tell the news to the world that God is dead, but nobody wants to listen. He also introduced the concept of Ubermensch (Overman, Superman). This perfect man is one who needs no external yardstick to tell him what is right or wrong for humanity. He sets the goals even though there is no blueprint for life. He is cocksure what is best for everyone, and he does it without fear of favour even though his actions may not be popular.

Nietzsche was quite sure that his work would be misused by people. Hence, he was reluctant to publish some of them, especially his last book, 'Will of Power'. Unfortunately, his sister who was the guardian of his work after his death, altered it and used it for her benefit in her work with the ideology of Hitler and the Nazi party. It was made into a propaganda movie by the Nazi party (Triumph of the Will). In this movie, Hitler descends from an aeroplane just like how Zarathustra came from the mountains with the news of God's demise, but here Hitler has the blueprint to make Germany great again!

Through his other works, 'Beyond Good and Evil' and 'Genealogy of Morality', he tried to understand the purpose of life. He thought perhaps suffering is not all doom and gloom but a way to unlock happiness. Overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal is part the experience of joy. Pain is an enabling condition for happiness.

His views on Christianity angered many. The secular society, even though rejected Christianity, still held its values. He boldly said that the religion was a threat to humanity. It glorifies the after-life and spurs self-hatred to one's inner desires. On the other hand, it gives slaves worth that nobody cares. On a larger scale of society, it strives for mediocrity. It glorifies the weak and is obsessed with contentment. He defined this contentment as herd happiness, only worthy of animals. He called it slave morality

Slave morality values things like kindness, humility and sympathy, while master morality values pride, strength, and nobility. Master morality weighs actions on a scale of good or bad (classical virtues and vices) unlike slave morality which weighs actions on a scale of good or evil(Christian virtues and vices).

Even though high achievers are needed to catapult the society forward, they are viewed as selfish. The masters have their own sense of morality. Unlike their counterpart who tend the clip the 'over-achievements', the masters glorify ambition and despise compassion.

After 1888, his health took a turn for the worse after years of feeling unwell. Some quarters say that he was diagnosed to clinically insane due to neurosyphilis. His delusion of grandeur and megalomaniac tendencies increased. He started signing his letter as 'Anti-Christ'. It used to be Dionysus. His last decade of inactivity was spent with his sister, Elisabeth.
The Nazis misused Frederich Nietzsche's works for their agendas. He was never anti-Semitic and did not really lobby for eugenics or selection of the fittest. Unlike Darwin who thought the continuation of species was the single most important duty of existence, he thought trying to be exceptional was of paramount importance, not producing offspring. In his unpublished work of 'Will of Power', which he thought humankind was not ready to accept, he argued that our survival is based on power. Everyone wants to exert over the other to survive!

Even though Nietzsche never expected the society to last long as an irreligious entity, some of his predictions have indeed come true. Modern men have filled the void left by religion by many trivial and narcissistic behaviours. The general public does not aspire to reach greater heights, are happy to be following the herd, gain happiness from trivialities of life, shy from greatness and celebrate the mundane. They profess the religion of comfortness and shun the higher values of mankind. He called them the last men (before Armageddon?)

These last men see the great lives but have no desire to pursue them, they merely stare.
"He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster.
And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.". After all these years, we are still groping in the dark trying to live simply or simply trying to live! It is still a challenge.