Charles Barkley, the favorite TNT commentator of many on the show, well, of course, we like Shaq and Kenny Smith too, says that success is not about having big cars or a big house, although when you go to your former school to speak, children often ask how big your car is. Sir Charles however said that one can be successful even if one doesn’t have a big car or a big house. You can be a good teacher and that is enough to be called a successful person.
Just be good in what you do. I agree with Mr. Barkley, but philosophically though, it’s a bit complicated.
In 1888, Nietzsche wrote in The Twilight of the Idols: “In life’s school of war, what does not kill me, makes me stronger.” Before we explain this aphorism, let us first examine what Nietzsche was reacting to. He was actually critical of the decadence of what was once a glorious Greek culture. He repudiates Socrates, most especially, who preferred the dialectical method, which was, for Nietzsche, only meant giving weaker arguments a higher level of prominence.
Nietzsche holds Socrates and Plato in contempt, for having doubted the senses. He disagrees with the distinction between the world of forms and the world of objects. For Nietzsche, the focus on order and rationality is absurd. The lack of passion of the learned, to him, is no more than a type of resignation. Such, in fact, was how he described the nihilism of modern society. People believe in death more than they believe in the meaning of life.
Now, what does Nietzsche mean by what he wrote. Firstly, our failures make us better persons. Failure is a good teacher, success is not. In fact, it is a question of motivation. A man has more reason to go on fighting the moment he realizes that life is hard. When things are easy, you must have been doing it the wrong way. When life is difficult or the road appears terrible, you are actually doing the right thing and going the right path.
At a young age, children who are exposed to hardships realize how important every little thing that one accomplishes. The trouble you find yourself in builds your character. But no, Nietzsche wasn’t really talking about virtue. Rather, he was talking about human instinct or that passion or will to live. What this means is that someone who has been into that war you call the school of life would not be afraid of anything.
We have been taught the value of sacrifice and the virtue of humility. Sir Charles is right about what it means to be a good person. Yet, being that may not be enough since poor workers who only want a simpler life are usually taken advantage of. Nietzsche thinks virtue only results into some form of slave morality. You know, there are people around who take advantage of others. The will to power is misinterpreted to mean being on top in order to subjugate others. Actually, your greatest enemy is your fear of living your life the way you should.
The world can continue hating a successful person for whatever reason, but that cannot diminish a man’s faith in himself. I think that when the people around you put no faith in you, that is the time when the drive to defeat the odds becomes stronger. You must understand that you do not need to prove anything to these people. Rather, if you believe in yourself, there is no obstacle that is too difficult to surpass.
People who begin at the top of their game feel great pressure. The reason is that they are expected to succeed. Meanwhile, someone who is at the bottom has nothing to worry about. Since he is expected to lose, he focuses more on his inner strengths than troubling himself with those who doubt him. This last point explains a lot why the ones who are downright dismissed as most unlikely to succeed have actually become leaders themselves while those who tried to put them down are licking the wounds of defeat caused by that false sense of pride.
