Let’s position ourselves, by contrast, at the end of this immense process, in the place where the tree at last yields its fruit, where society and the morality of custom finally bring to light the end for which they were simply the means: then we find, as the ripest fruit on that tree, the sovereign individual, something which resembles only itself, which has broken loose again from the morality of custom, the autonomous individual beyond morality (for ‘autonomous’ and ‘moral’ are mutually exclusive terms), in short, the human being who possesses his own independent and enduring will, who is entitled to make promises—and in him a consciousness quivering in every muscle, proud of what has finally been achieved and has become a living embodiment in him, a real consciousness of power and freedom, a feeling of completion for human beings generally.
First, what does the word 'will' really mean? Is it independent of external factors? Is it influenced by them? Both? Neither? Is it possible that the human will isn't immutable, but frequently prone to change? If so, what are the causes and conditions that facilitate such changes? And what does this mean in regard to the individual?
Sometimes I tend to think that I'm little more than the product of my environment and the culmination of ideas and experiences that my senses have taken in during my lifetime. That's part of the reason I sometimes think that the 'individual' is nothing more than a useful fiction we utilize in order to communicate and make sense of the world in a relative sense, but one that ultimately falls apart on further analysis.
It may all just be a matter of perspective, but having been influenced by social, cultural and other omnipresent conditionings, can the 'individual' really be said to be individual in the first place? Or put another way: Does a closed-system, biological entity truly exist?
In a certain sense, we have what appears to be a certain amount of autonomy. Will, volition or the creative spark in humankind expresses itself in a myriad of ways, and it's difficult to deny the products of that expression. Nevertheless, can an individual ever be considered a closed-system when they continually interact with their surroundings and vice versa? I fail to see how. And what of will? Can we, with any degree of certainty, say that it's truly independent? Again, I fail to see how.
If, on the other hand, we are open-systems with, arguably, a number of biological and psychological filters, is there any way to truly pull out the 'individual' as being something separate? I tend to think not. Why? Because trying to do so neglects much of what makes the 'individual' an individual by rejecting the inherent interdependence of their existence. The same also applies to the will of said individual.
Then again, perhaps not. But this line of reasoning has helped me to see that what happens in the world around me does matter to me as an individual, that trying to be active and change things is useful, even important. I quite like how Dr. Anil Rajvanshi puts it, albeit in a different context, when he says that "... each one of us lead our own separate lives which 'dart' randomly depending on the forces acting upon us yet collectively we go forward in a band which is called human evolution" (Free Will, Evolution and Chaos Theory).
What does this all mean? I'm not sure if it means anything; but when I try to piece it all together, here's what I get:
Metaphysics aside, my philosophy has always been that it's up to each individual, as far as they're able, to live their own lives and make their own choices. Nevertheless, as a good friend of mine once said to me, it's not the gods who make the world the way it is; we make the world this way. And we can make it into whatever we desire.
Perhaps Nietzsche was right about the human being who "possesses his own independent and enduring will." Perhaps that's the metaphorical godhead of human evolution, to perfect the skill of consciously creating our reality to the point that we eventually transcend our limitations and experience the world in an entirely new way. Perhaps, then, the problem lies not in the world, but within us, with our desires, our will; self-mastery being the key as well as the goal. But here's were I think Nietzsche goes wrong, at least from a Buddhist point of view.
In my opinion, Nietzsche's type of ego-development leads to an unhealthy type of individual who 'transcends' the world in order to lord over it, a hero who's the antithesis of Buddhism's spiritual egalitarianism, e.g., In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he calls the 'lust to rule' a "gift-giving virtue"; proclaims that selfishness is blessed, wholesome and healthy; and suggests suffering can be drowned out by continuously creating and overcoming oneself.
I think this issue arises mainly from his unbalanced view of morality, i.e., his focus on the 'strong-willed individual'; and his rejection of what he calls 'slave morality,' which values actions according to their good or evil (i.e., skillful or unskillful) intentions, for 'master-morality,' which values actions according to their good or bad (i.e., pleasant or painful) consequences. This view is unbalanced in that it either overlooks, or completely denies, the efficacy of the intentions underlying our actions (not to mention its blatant disregard for others); whereas Buddhism recognizes both actions and their intentions as contributing to the experience of mental well-being and/or suffering, for ourselves as well as others.
I find that the Buddha's teachings and techniques for developing a healthy ego, on the other hand, ultimately take the opposite approach, switching self-grasping (fueling the fire) for letting-go (removing the fire's fuel), with Buddha's teachings on not-self being a "useful way of disentangling oneself from the attachments & clingings which lead to suffering" (The Not-self Strategy). As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it:
[The Buddha] would have you drop unhealthy and unskillful ways of self-identification in favor of ways that were more skillful and refined. Only on the highest levels of practice, where even the most skillful concepts of self get in the way of the ultimate happiness, did the Buddha advocate totally abandoning them. But even then he didn’t advocate abandoning the basic principle of ego functioning. You drop the best happiness that can come from a sense of self because an even greater happiness—nirvana, totally timeless, limitless, and unconditioned—appears when you do.
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