An Autobiographical Deconstruction of Nietzsche

Here is mt stab at getting to the heart of the life and thought of Friedrich Nietzsche God is dead and I have killed him. I am now dead and I have killed myself. This is the chronicle of my great existence. I am Dionysus against the crucified. First, let me begin with the murder of myself. I was born on October 15, 1844 in Rocken in the Prussian province of Saxony (Germany). My father was a Lutheran minister and both of my grandfathers were Lutheran clergymen. I am already dead as to my father and yet remain alive while becoming old as to my mother. My father died while I was at the age of four. I was told that he used to keep me by his side, as he would prepare his sermons or play the piano. After he died I was left as the only male in a household consisting of my sister, mother, grandmother, and two aunts. In 1865 I departed to the University of Leipzig and it was there where I encounter the work of Arthur Schopenhauer. His The World as Will and Representation, awakened me to the reality of suffering and conflict. His pessimism proved to be my optimism. In his work I discovered that suffering and pain were essential to life and in many ways were the foundation of life. To live purely as a rational Apollonian is to self-destruct. One need also be a Dionysian to lavish in suffering, pain, frivolity and the orgiastic. At the age of 24, before I even received my doctorate, I was appointed to a professorship of philology at Basel. I remained at Basel from 1869 to 1879 when constant sickness forced me out of teaching. Suffering seduced me and actually strengthened me. That which does not kill me only makes me stronger. I endured suffering physically and also professionally as my book The Birth of Tragedy was seen by many in philology to be a failure in the field. It is true that my Zarathustra is the greatest of my works, indeed the greatest of all works. I have continually been misunderstood, but do not perceive a time where humanity will come to their senses. It remains for them to see that I am no man, but that I am dynamite. My sister, Elisabeth, has also been an enigma to my mind. My relationship with her has been up and down yet it seems to have remained in the dregs. I have come to realize that in her character is everything, which I wish not to become. Her marriage to Bernhard Foerster, the anti-Semite, has reviled my soul. Her madness is sickness and I no longer which to see her and I have sought to avoid her husband for many years now. The anti-Semitic hubris of Germans is ironic in that Germany has in corrupted culture, learning, and truth. Germans are incapable of any notion of greatness and this is most evident in the arrogance of my brother-in-law. Anti-Semitism has even captured the heart of Richard Wagner. I could not have survived my youth without his music, but now find him as standing against everything, which is German. Wagner was once the hashish I needed to rid myself of being condemned as German. He was an antitoxin of everything German. How then is it possible that he has become a Christian? Is this to explain his hatred for the Jews? While he has been the great benefactor of my life and I have often greatly enjoyed his company I must remain contra Wagner. To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion of what one is. In not knowing myself I come to best see myself as I am. It was on this day, January 3rd 1889 when I was walking through town and came upon a coach driver whipping his horse. Rage infected my heart at this act of brutality and I rushed to protect the animal. I wrapped my arms around the animal’s neck and was no more. I remain human, all too human. Secondly, let me speak to you of the death of God. I am predisposed to atheism. I do not understand such concepts as sin and guilt. Christian morality is the climactic foolishness of the ages. I am not child like enough to have a conscience, which is pricked by such imaginative doctrines. I have no experience of sin, no perception of guilt. What are these teachings but the herd morality of a religion with a God who is no longer. I am too inquisitive, too questionable, and too exuberant to accept the gross answer, which Christianity provides. God is a gross answer, one that I cannot live with. I will seek to annihilate Christian morality. I am the first immoralist. I am the annihilator par excellence. I reject the lies of Christian truth, the lies of Christian morality. Benevolence is not virtue it is weakness. Humility is arrogance. I do not want to be holy. In fact every “holy” man of whom I encounter I must wash my hands. Holiness reviles me. The God of Christianity is weak. He must be overcome. Where is this God? Is he asleep? Is he unable to hear? Has he forgotten? Is he able? No, he is dead and I have killed him. The bloodstained knife remains in my hands. The acrid smell of his decomposing body is a constant and putrid stench breathed in my nostrils. Where can I escape from his death, where can I run from his ruined presence? God is dead and the only way to escape him is to become him. I shall become God. I shall become the Ubermensch. I will strive with my all to fill the place of God. I shall not be the last man that Zarathustra spoke of. The last man sacrifices the future. I however shall become the future. I will not lie around but instead I will seek to conquer. I know my fate and I know that one day I shall attain, one day I shall become greatly known. This will come about because I am so wise. I have realized that God is dead and that the ultimate goal of my life is to fill his place. I do not want to become God but to become better then him; I want to become more than human. I am war like by nature. I will achieve the status of Ubermensch by waging war on morality, reality, and the truth, which is really all a lie. In essence I will wage war on Christianity. It is here, in Christianity, where all error stems from and flows forth. I do not want to become a victim of Christianity, but to expose the lies, which have been promulgated throughout the ages as the truth. Attacking is one of my instincts and therefore I myself am an opponent of Christianity. I am the Antichrist. Christianity is an oppressive religion, which seeks to exploit its adherents by positing superstition, which only strives on stupidity and weakness. Christians indeed have destroyed Christ. The New Testament has made Christ into a week queer who taught some quasi-feminist morality. The will to power is to be far more exalted. It is in overcoming the follies of religion where one will find the true meaning of this deranged life. It is not to be found in Christ or in the endless meanderings of the New Testament. Christianity is empty, a vacuous religion which seeks to suppress the truth in the name of righteousness. Humanity must relearn the truth and I will be her teacher. Throughout the ages man has only known meager imaginings of the heart, which leads astray. For the one who seeks after pleasure, laziness and immorality let him find it in religion. However for the one who seeks after the truth let him strive against reality, against Christianity, and against our cultural conception of truth. I am the truth and you can become the truth for there is no such thing as truth. Let us return to where we began. God is dead and so am I. I revel in the death of God and glory in the death of self. For God is dead and I have killed him. I am dead and have killed myself. The bloody knife drips wet with a mixed blood for now I have become more than human and more than God. I am the wise. I am the clever. I am a destiny. I am the murderer of God. I am the murderer of myself. I am Apollonian. I am Dionysus. I am all too human. I am the Ubermensch, the superman.