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video but for now let’s get on with how to find your inner genius from the philosophy
of Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher
who was definitely a genius. He started to learn Greek alphabet and to
play piano when he was only 3 years old, he was one of the brightest students and at age
of 23, he was the youngest Professor of Greek Linguistics. He was a very close friend of the famous composer
Richard Wagner and with other famous personalities and he later became one of the greatest philosophers
of all time. He wrote several books, including “Thus
Spoke Zarathustra”, “Beyond Good and Evil”, “The Birth of Tragedy”, “The Twilight
of the Idols” and his teachings continue to shock the world, even today. For Nietzsche, history itself is a process
of creating geniuses; each genius is somebody who creates the mental world in which his
successors will live. In other words, the history of the world follows
the work of the geniuses. Although Nietzsche’s life took a tragic
turn, he created a new mental world to inspire generations. His teachings inspire everyone who dreams
of becoming a genius, helping them to find that inner voice to guide them throughout
their life. According to Nietzsche, if you don’t cultivate
your inner genius, if you don’t own yourself, you have lived a life of “laziness.” Certain steps in life can only be walked by
you and only by discovering that inner genius can you walk that path, so to help you uncover
your own path, in this video we bring you 7 ways in which you can find your inner genius,
from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. 1. Be yourself
Nietzsche says “Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring,
all that is not you”. According to Nietzsche, life is hopeless and
meaningless without a true liberation from the chains of opinion and fear. If we remain captive in those chains, we would
be dreary, wandering aimlessly in life. As Nietzsche said, nobody can build the bridge
on which we must cross the river of life, but ourselves. Discovering more about ourselves helps us
in better understanding our strengths, our hidden talents, our inner genius, and the
source of our creativity. The best way to know all of these is to ask
yourself: “What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has
dominated and delighted it at the same time?” Analyse all of these and you will unveil the
direction you need to take to unleash the power of your inner genius. No matter who you are, what your profession
is, on which place on Earth you are, you should be able to know what you really love doing
in life, what makes you really happy. For example, you may find out that what you
truly loved was when you volunteered for a humanitarian cause, what uplifted your soul
was the happy ending from your favourite movie, what has dominated and delighted your soul
at the same time was when you were at work in a leading position, maximizing the resources
of your team. Based on these findings, that person would
be happiest if they take a direction in which they can be a leader of a community, a position
from which they can make a positive impact, helping the people in that community. Here would lie their genius. In the same way, any of us can answer the
questions regarding what we really love, what uplifts our soul, and use that to find our
own direction and unleash our inner genius. 2. Be a genius of the heart
Nietzsche says “Genius of the heart whose voice can climb into the underworld of any
psyche, upon whose touch everyone departs richer, richer in himself, cracked wide open,
more delicate, fragile, and broken, but full of hopes”. Nietzsche considered himself the last disciple
of Dionysus, the God of Wine, fertility and madness in Greek mythology. He saw Dionysus as a gateway to the depths
of human psychology, a way to understand the essence of human desires and emotions. In psychoanalysis, a Dionysian experience
can be considered as a way to release subconscious desires and bring them to the surface. For example, a subconscious desire can be
the desire to be romantically involved with someone you are not supposed to, like someone
who is already married. The more we become aware of what is inside
our subconscious, the more we can control it. The more we can control it, the more likely
we are to make good decisions, and therefore the more psychologically healthy we become. Being like the God Dionysus as Nietzsche described
him, is not for everybody: It is for those who dare to descend into the abyss of the
human psyche like Nietzsche claimed he did. But, a more superficial self-analysis can
still be useful for the majority of us. According to neuro-psychoanalysis, free association
might be a great tool through which we can perform self-analysis on our own psyche. By free association, we can dissect our most
intimate thoughts and feelings, we can go deep inside ourselves, and, by bringing subconscious
desires to the surface, we can release our Dionysian nature and become “geniuses of
the heart.” One method through which we can perform free
association is journaling. If we write in our journal every day, without
censoring ourselves, we can come to a deeper understanding of what bothers us every day
and we can even find solutions to our most personal problems. For example, if you are stuck and unable to
make a major life decision, say marrying your partner, choosing a better career or moving
to another place, it can help to write the reasons you would or would not take each path. Evaluating their pros and cons, as well as
your emotions towards them can help you make a more informed decision that’s best for
you in the long run. The more you know about your subconscious
self, the more you know what makes you happy, what activities make you more creative. Our inner genius has everything to do with
our creativity, as in our creativity lies our potential for growth and for leaving our
legacy on the world. 3. Protect your genius from the herd
Nietzsche says “What we’ve called universal values, what we’ve called truth, has always
only ever been the personal expressions of those who promoted them”. Because we live in a society, we are blinded
by certain standards and rules, we obey certain moral codes which control our behaviour. Although these invisible rules give us security,
they also limit our individuality and creativity. As Nietzsche argues, we are controlled by
a herd morality, which was created by the ruling class in order to control the poor. These societal values, what is good and what
is bad are not given by a supernatural being like God, but rather, they are concepts invented
by the ruling classes. Although many of these values have a positive
influence over society overall, it is important to be more aware of them and investigate the
way in which they control us, in order to educate ourselves, to become who we truly
are and to find our inner genius; the source of our individuality and creativity. Millions of us are trapped in traditional
religions and prejudices and, in our attempt to free ourselves, we can encounter tough
opposition from people who kill their own creativity and dreams in order to conform
to society and who feel insecure seeing other people pursuing their creative dreams. For example, if you are a young woman living
in a country which encourages women to be only housewives, then you would likely face
a lot of backlash and opposition when pursuing a career in science. According to Nietzschean philosophy, you should
protect your inner individuality as a scientist and your creative spirit as a whole by continuing
to practice science in spite of the opposition. Although you may never get the recognition
and respect you deserve, your inner creativity, your genius, is the most important life force
you have to fulfil you in the long run. Even if you are not allowed to go to school,
you can borrow science books, keep up to date with developments in the news, and of course
follow some of the many amazing science communicators right here on YouTube. To protect your inner genius, you must stop
blindly following society’s rules as they are not based on universal truths or values,
they are all relative. 4. Genius is no accident
Nietzsche says “Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can assume great men of all kinds who
were very little gifted..”. We live in a society which considers a genius
as being a rare phenomenon, which takes luck like being born in a special culture or in
a special family, with a certain status, or being born ‘gifted’ at, say, music, art,
maths, and so on. We often feel that they achieved the status
of genius by accident, a miracle, or luck. We never look at what it is behind their success. This mentality of seeing a genius might prevent
us from actually becoming one. There is a huge difference between what society
considers being a genius and what being a genius really is. Following society's way of looking at geniuses
as rare phenomena, as accidents which happen only in certain professions or circumstances
might compromise your endeavour to develop your own inner genius. Therefore, it is important to disregard what
is popular and focus on what ignites your own flame. If the thing that really excites you is making
anime art using ancient printing techniques or dumpster diving for old technology to restore
or upcycle, then great! Get out there and do it and ignore the haters
telling you to stop because it’s not ‘normal’. Not to mention ignoring your inner voice telling
you to feel embarrassed or shameful because your interests don’t conform to current
trends. Conforming almost never matters, and ultimately
is less likely to lead to your personal happiness than pursuing the things you know bring you
joy. 5. Don’t resent geniuses if you want to become
one Nietzsche says “Our vanity, our self-love,
promotes the cult of the genius: for only if we think of him as being very remote from
us, as a miraculum, does he not aggrieve us...”. We use the words “gifted”, “genius”,
“one of a kind” because we want to protect ourselves - we do it to shield our own egos. We might consider it too hard to be like them,
that it seems too much like hard work, so we say it’s impossible. Often, when we decide someone is a genius,
we automatically put a barrier on our own future endeavors. We think we might never get there, that we
are incapable of doing that, so we called them “geniuses.” We think those people had an unfair start,
that they were born with that particular talent, they were born in that certain country, in
that certain family and so on. We wish we were more like them or at least
wish we had those same advantages at the start. In this way, we do not take responsibility
for our life and instead blame external factors for our failures. Instead of seeing genius as an out of reach
target, we need to start evaluating their journey to see how they achieved the status
of genius, to count the number of hours of work they put in, to evaluate the decisions
they made in life and so on. Take Nietzsche, for example; You can call
him a genius, but if he hadn’t studied so much Greek linguistics and Greek philosophy,
he wouldn’t have been appointed to Basel university, he wouldn’t have become part
of Richard Wagner’s inner-circle of famous artists and writers. All his great achievements were accomplished
not because of some innate natural ability, but through effort and determination in spite
of his fragile physical structure and his psychological vulnerabilities. Therefore, if you feel a particular intense
interest towards a field, you need to put in all the effort you can to pursue that career. For example, imagine you work in a company
and you have always envied a colleague who is an admired manager in your branch. You find yourself despising him and assuming
his success is pure luck because of his innate talent to talk to people - a talent you believe
you don’t share. So don’t try and play that game - Instead
of fixating on how they are ‘better’ than you, you should focus on what you do better
than them; Invest more time and energy into your work itself, into time management and
self-discipline and you could become successful in your own individual way. Everyone’s genius is unique so trying to
measure your genius with another is an unfulfilling waste of time. 6. Learn to be diligent
Nietzsche says “All had that diligent seriousness of a craftsman, learning first to form the
parts perfectly before daring to make a great whole. They took time for it, because they got more
pleasure from making something little or less important, than from the effect of the dazzling
whole”. There are definitely people who appear naturally
gifted and are better at a given activity than most other people. For example, even as a child Nietzsche showed
a great talent for music and demonstrated great intellectual capabilities. However, these raw ‘talents’ were not
enough in isolation: Talent is just the gateway to success, it is not success in and all itself. Nietzsche took the necessary steps to perfect
them, until he became an excellent musician and composer, and a great scholar at the University
of Basel. It is easy to say he was a genius, but if
he hadn’t perfected his talents, hadn’t focused his energies on music, literature
and philosophy, we would have never heard about him. This kind of person appears to us as a genius
because we never saw them grow up or what they have been exposed to. When we use the word ‘genius’ or ‘gifted’
to describe an extraordinarily talented individual, there is an underlying implication that devalues
any of the deliberate practice and effort that went into crafting the skill that the
individual is now an expert in. We do not take into account that a ‘gifted’
musician spent most of their life playing, listening to, and composing music, we just
call them a genius in order to avoid daring to do the hard work they’ve already done. Those people are not superhuman; all that
separates them from us is their diligence to achieve greatness. Mastery can take many years to achieve, but
‘genius’ can be obtained by many of us. We all have different passions, what we usually
call a hobby, but we rarely cultivate it to the fullest due to our low level of self-confidence. We all have the qualities necessary to become
a genius, but not all of us have the right attitude. Before you declare for example that you are
a terrible writer, you should practice writing a lot; Short stories, novels, articles, screenplays,
Harry Potter fanfiction… anything your heart desires, all the while perfecting your style,
comparing it with experts in your field and learning from the critique you receive. There is no shortcut, greatness requires your
time and energy. 7. Be grateful and “clean”
In our final quote from Nietzsche for this video, he says: “A man who possesses genius
is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness”. In spite of his daring and sometimes acerbic
philosophy, Nietzsche was a gentle and sophisticated human being. Moreover, he was a very talented poet, piano
player and composer, possessing great artistic skill. Nietzsche valued his friendships to extremes
and he never compromised himself for money. He can be considered a good example of a grateful
person because of his track record of being a great friend, and a clean person because
of his pride to never compromise himself for money. Gratitude and cleanliness can act as major
boosters for your success in life. The more grateful and clean you are, the more
people will gather around you and will be transformed by your mastery, and therefore
the bigger impact you can have in the world. For example, imagine you are a skilful programmer,
one of the best in your field. Instead of becoming arrogant due to your success,
Nietzsche advises you to maintain a sense of gratitude, to continue giving your best
in your work and being gentle with your co-workers and collaborators. Also, keep yourself clean and do not try to
force your way towards further wealth or recognition if it compromises your integrity or is against
your better judgement. It may not feel good in the short term, like
a wilfully missed opportunity, but by doing so, in time you will be proven right, attracting
more admiration from the people around you which will automatically propel you towards
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