Review and Quotes From ‘Hiking with Nietzsche’ by John Kaag.

Review

It wasn’t quite what I was expecting, overall, I really enjoyed John Kaag’s ‘Hiking With Nietzsche’. It is a refreshing ‘memoir-ish’ exploration of Friedrich Nietzsche, by professor of philosophy, John Kaag.

This is not an in-depth study of Nietzsche; it casually explores some familiar concepts from his writings, I don’t believe it is intended to be philosophically rigorous. This was actually ideal for me as it was the first book I read on Nietzsche and presented his work in a relatable way.

I’ve read that some people consider Kaag’s introspection “shamefully indulgent” on his journey of self-discovery, however I found it honest and candid. Kaag first visited the Alps in search of Nietzsche when he was 19-years old in the midst of his existential crisis. He returns to trace his tracks as a middle-aged man with wife and daughter in tow.

Result: We are following a man who’s following a man. We get Nietzsche’s life (and, to an extent, philosophy) explained, along with Kaag’s life and thoughts, which provides philosophic relief and clarity.

I also found the constant juxtaposition of his views with his wife’s — a Kantian philosopher — surprisingly funny, and it provided a great contrast in ideas. I also found Kaag’s story darkly humorous, maybe due to a combination of Nietzsche’s overly dramatic tone contrasted with Kaag’s ‘mundane’ but very relatable everyday applications of his philosophies.

My favourite part is the timeline he has provided at the back of the book which really helped me wrap my head around Nietzsche’s place in history. Kaag also provides an excellent bibliography and suggested reading list at the end which has been really useful for me.

I will definitely be picking up his other books, especially ‘American Philosophy: A Love Story’ which I have heard fantastic reviews about.

Quotes

“Set for yourself goals, high and Noble goals, and perish in the pursuit of them! I know of no better life purpose than to perish in pursuing the great and the impossible: Animae Magnae Prodigus.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebook, 1873

p3

“let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has drawn your soul aloft?” — Nietzsche

p6

“he who has attained only some degree of freedom of mind cannot feel other than a wander on the Earth- they’re not as a Traveler to a final destination: for this destination does not exist.” — Friedrich Nietzsche Human, All Too Human, 1878

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In the beginning, according to Nietzsche, “man was surrounded by fearful void-he did not know how to justify, to account for, to offend him self: he suffered from the problem of his meaning.”

p31

“a man’s maturity-consists in having found again the seriousness of one had as a child, at play.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

p37

“I used to be happy,” one of my students said to me halfway through the term, “then I started reading Nietzsche.”

p39

This Nihilist with his Christian dogmatic entrails considered pleasure an objection. What could destroy us more quickly than working, thinking, and feeling without any in a necessity, without any deeply personal choice, without pleasure-as an automated call of “duty”? This is the very recipe for decadence, even for idiocy. Kant became an idiot.

p45

When one spends time reading — and falls in love with — a particular philosopher, he gradually begins to confuse the world of objective fact with an imagined one of the ideals and beliefs.

p46

The question in each and every thing, “do you want this again and innumerable times again?” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science,1882

p63

Are we, in the words of William Butler Yeats, “content to live it all again?” Being content in this sense is not being distracted from, or lulled to sleep by, or resigning on self to a fate that cannot be avoided. It is to live to your hearts content with the knowledge that you will do this, and everything, again, for ever.

p74

“I and me are always too deeply in conversation” — Nietzsche

p84

Over the years I’ve slowly learned how to use, or at least appreciate, insomnia. For a parent, it provides a blessed calm in an otherwise scattered existence.

p85

Humanity, according to Zarathustra, is but a bridge or a rope that connects beasts to this superhuman ideal.

p86

To love in spite of appearances can be one of the signs of true affection.

p86

God has been dying for a long time. Our faith in the divine has been eroded by a steady onslaught of focus: the advances in science, the age of reason, the birth of modern capital, the distraction of consumerism, the defication of the state.

p100

God didn’t stand a chance. His death is no cause for celebration; at best it has created a vacuum that needs to be filled.

p100

One’s attraction to manifest certainty is not the outcome of reasonable argumentation but rather the outgrowth of primal fear

p110

That, my love, is the stupidest book,” Carol said, pointing to my copy of BeyondGood and Evil.

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Was he a misogynist in Beyond Good and Evil and else-where? Probably. Sometimes. Nietzsche reflected the chauvinism of his age, and he objected to the idea of fighting for the rights of women as a concept, but usually his comments about women reveal confusion, even fear, rather than genuine hatred.

p116

Nietzsche said he was interested in the relationship between food and thought, and he believed that thinking was inextricably tied to eating.

p130

“To choose instinctively what is harmful to oneself… is virtually the formula for decadence.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols,1888

p140

“Becoming what you are”: it has been described as “the most haunting of Nietzsche’s haunting aphorisms.” It expresses an abiding paradox at the core of human selfhood: either you are who you are already, or you become someone other than who you are.

p220

“To become what one is, one must not have the faintest idea of what one is.” — Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

p221

“Repetition. It is an excellent thing to express a thing consecutively in two ways, and that’s provide it with the right and the left foot. Truth can stand indeed on one leg, but with two she will walk and complete her journey.” -Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and His Shadow, 1880

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