Nietzsche's formula to happiness; yes, no, straight line, goal.

Nietzsche is one of the more intriguing characters in the philosophical realm. Throughout his works he weaves his way in and out many ideas, criticizing Kant, Religion (very heavy criticism), the origin of morals, the concept of “good”, and many other abstract ideas. As I weaved my way through his web, I can only sit and ask what was his true happiness and is there anything for that matter that makes Nietzsche happy. What can make a man, a philosopher-who seems to claim everything is it’s own a deterioration of life-happy? Then all of a sudden, a breakthrough in the first section of The Anti-Christ (also in the Maxims and Arrows in The Twilight of The Idols), we have a formula to happiness, now there is no need to spend time looking for Nietzsche’s happiness or should we rather continue? “…a yes, a no, a straight line, a goal…” (Nietzsche 127) So before the formula is broken down and understood we must come to understand something worthy of note. If someone-Nietzsche in this case-is able to invest a large amount of time of their life putting pencil to paper and write their thoughts and ideas which cover a grand spectrum of topics. There is most obviously some sort of a “goal” which is most definitely related to happiness and the fulfillment of some sort of gratification. Through a sheer anthropological account we as people, as animals, work for a self-fulfilling purpose, Nietzsche himself, sadly enough doesn’t escape this. So whether The Anti-Christ or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, or even Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat for that matter, the writer writes with some sort of expectation in the end, in this case it is for some sort of satisfaction. Writing a book logically connects the act of writing with happiness or rather the expectation of a positive result. With the help of The Anti-Christ Nietzsche’s formula will be broken down and applied to his work to figure out what are the pieces of the formula and how they can be applied to this work.

First we begin with the “yes” of the formula, yes is a word which one uses to affirm (agree with) a statement. Nietzsche with the yes is affirming his very own position, meaning his ideas; the yes is also a universal yes, in the sense that it applies to all people; those who are willing to listen especially. “Formula of our happiness: a Yes, a No…” The “our” shows some kind of union between people, in this case the union is between Nietzsche and his listeners. The No; again we must make a basis of the word No itself, it is “used as a function word to express the negative of an alternative” (Merriam Webster Dictionary 489) Now that we have established the No, we must realize the correlation between No and The Anti-Christ. “One should not embellish or dress up Christianity: it has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man,…” (Nietzsche 129) then we have this “I make war on this theologian instinct: I have found traces of it everywhere. Whoever has theologian blood in his veins has a wrong and dishonest attitude…” (Nietzsche 132). Time and time again we have evidence of the refusal of Christianity, the “No” in his formula of happiness. Now we have the “straight line”, what do we associate with straight lines? Forward movement in a physical sense, in mathematical discourse it continues ad infinitum. This is the path which Nietzsche takes along with his willing listeners, they do not deviate off the line but rather follow every step, sort of in the way a straight line will never deviate and become perpendicular, the path itself mustn’t be deviated from because then Nietzsche loses his happiness and the formula is wrong. Now we have the “goal”, the goal can be a combination of things, it can be getting his greater message across, and it can also be the success and the posthumous glorification that Nietzsche receives. A tandem of words, events, ideas, has created the recipe to Nietzsche’s happiness, a happiness and formula which he knew very well of but he had said rather opaquely.