“I don’t know what I should dedicate my life to.”
A thought that every human being has at some point. Or, at least, every human being who stops at least once to think what their life is all about.
Why Nietzsche and Joe Rogan?
Because they are not Mozart, Picasso, or Kobe Bryant.
Mozart started composing at the age of 5, Picasso started painting at 7, and Bryant started playing basketball at 3.
All of them found their path at the earliest stage of their lives and never needed to change it.
But I’m writing for those who weren’t so blessed. And I believe we have the most to learn from those who have struggled to find their path and had to change it several times throughout their lives.
I selected Nietzsche and Rogan as examples because one of them went down in history, and the other will go down in history, for something that wasn’t their originally chosen path; it wasn’t their first or biggest passion. On the other hand, their stories are different enough that both examples have a unique lesson in them.
Let’s start with Nietzsche.
Whether you like him or not, it is a historical fact that Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most influential thinkers of all time. Almost every single notable thinker that came after Nietzsche was influenced by him to some extent. But his influence goes beyond philosophy. He proclaimed himself "the first psychologist," and we could say rightfully so, considering that all the greatest psychologists, no matter how much they agreed or disagreed with Nietzsche, were influenced by him and were often building on his ideas. Further, numerous notable writers and artists of the modern age have been influenced by this bombastic, controversial thinker.
So what if I told you that Nietzsche never intended to be a philosopher? That his dream was not to be a great thinker?
To anyone who has read Nietzsche, his love of music is obvious. However, it is a fairly lesser-known fact that, for the most of his life, Nietzsche’s dream was to be a composer. Even his concept of a "higher human" is almost always expressed through the example of an artist. And music was the ultimate art for him.
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