Nietzsche's Gymnastics of the Will: Philosophical Approach to Fasting
I recently received an interesting question from a member of Sisyphus Society:
"Hey David, I would like to hear your opinion on something. For some time now, I’ve been living in this really big and luxurious apartment. I make a good living and have money to afford it, but I feel like I have more space and comfort than I should. I am thinking about ending my lease and moving to a smaller and less comfortable apartment so that I remove myself from so much comfort, at least for some period of time. What do you think about that?"
(I have been given permission to share this.)
I know, a good problem to have, right?
When I read this question, I immediately knew what I wanted to answer because, although I had never been in this situation, I already had people come to me with similar thoughts, and I also found myself thinking that I have more of something than I should or deserve to have.
But also, this question reminded me of an idea by Friedrich Nietzsche. An idea that is relevant to this question but also stretches further beyond it and can hopefully be useful for anyone reading this.
We will be talking about "gymnastics of the will," or how Nietzsche viewed abstaining from pleasure.
Since I already gave the answer to the person who sent me this question, I will first focus on Nietzsche’s gymnastics of the will as a whole, not specifically in the context of this question. Once I've hopefully done a decent job of explaining this idea, we will look back on the question and try to answer it in a way so that the answer can be useful for different situations as well.
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