“Live with your century, but do not be its creature. Work for your contemporaries, but create what they need, not what they praise.”

- Friedrich Schiller

When Christ said "be in the world, but not of the world" this sentiment is what He meant. Obviously one cannot help but be a part of one's circumstances, but one always has the option to commune with the Divine and live freely and virtuosly. This is precisely how one lives not in the moment but in the eternal. By not being a part of modernity but engaging with it with a pure spirit, one becomes the light in the darkness that illuminates the path ahead for others.

Mars, surrounded by the Arts and Sciences, conquers Ignorance
Antoon Claeissens, 1605

When man humbles himself, God cannot restrain His mercy; He must come down and pour His grace into the humble man, and He gives Himself most of all, and all at once, to the least of all. It is essential to God to give, for His essence is His goodness and His goodness is His love. Love is the root of all joy and sorrow. Slavish fear of God is to be put away.

The right fear is the fear of losing God. If the earth flee downward from heaven, it finds heaven beneath it; if it flee upward, it comes again to heaven. The earth cannot flee from heaven: whether it flee up or down, the heaven rains its influence upon it, and stamps its impress upon it, and makes it fruitful, whether it be willing or not. Thus doth God with men: whoever thinketh to escape Him, flies into His bosom, for every corner is open to Him.

~ Meister Eckhart, The Angel's greetings

'We gain nothing by submission except heavier burdens for willing shoulders. Once each tribe had one king, now two are clamped on us-the legate to wreak his fury on our lives, the procurator on our property. We subjects are damned in either case, whether our masters quarrel or agree. Their gangs of centurions or slaves, as the case may be, mingle violence and insult. Nothing is any longer safe from their greed and lust. In war it is the braver who takes the spoil; as things stand with us, it is mostly cowards and shirkers that rob our homes, kidnap our children and connoscript our men. Any cause is good enough for us to die for any but our country's. But what a mere handful our invaders are, if we reckon up our own numbers. The Germans, reckoning so, threw off the yoke, and they had only a river, not the Ocean, to shield them. We have country, wives and parents to fight for; the Romans have nothing but greed and self-indulgence. Back they will go, as the deified Julius went back, if only we can rival the valour of our fathers. We must not be scared by the loss of one battle or even two; success may foster the spirit of offence, but it is suffering that gives the power to endure. The gods themselves are at last showing mercy to us Britons in keeping the Roman general away, with his army exiled in another island. For ourselves we have already taken the most difficult step - we have begun to plot. And in an enterprise like this there is more danger in being caught plotting than in taking the plunge.'
When the Britons began to plot against Rome - Tacitus in Agricola

Clanism and tribalism may not be primordial expressions of Nationalism at all, but rather it is the case that the former is the negation of the latter, an inversion of a sort, as can for example be seen in this observation of the nationalist Sun Yat-sen about his own nation:

"The Chinese people have shown the greatest loyalty to family and clan with the result that in China there have been family-ism and clanism but no real nationalism."

Nationalism is a product of the death of tribalism. Primordial man fought for tribe and clan, his king, and his parents and wife and children. Modern man fights for neighbors and friends, and wishfully believes they constitute a tribe. There is something crucial missing from the most well-intentioned nationalism. It is the traditional family structure which is gone, and a collection of nuclear families cannot ever recapture the ancient bonds made by clans and tribes. For this there is no substitute. Once blood ran thick with magical ties to kith and kin, concentrated in ancient homelands. Now blood is only found in drops spread thin far and wide, and the common spirit that bound primordial man to his countrymen has been replaced with what are at best shared political and religious aspirations.

The Ubermensch (Overman)

The Ubermensch learns how to sublimate (overcome) their impulsive and animalistic desires, such as their tendency for comfort, security, and trivial enjoyment, instead of creating and aiming towards their own hopes and ambitions. The Ubermensch lives life passionately and takes an active role in affirming their authenticity. The Ubermensch creates their own meaning and does not live life passively by aimlessly following the doctrines of others, without introspective analysis. The Ubermensch is able to accept that the world is ultimately nihilistic and they can overcome constant suffering and struggle to find meaning and ultimate satisfaction.

The failure to sublimate our desires and affirm our authenticity is life-denying and leads to a lack of worth and meaning. (Nietzsche’s The Last Man)

Are there any alternatives to being an Ubermensch, while having true life satisfaction? How can we overcome barriers to becoming an Ubermensch in today’s society? How does mental health play a role in the concept of an Ubermensch?

The Doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence

Based on the cycle of death and rebirth (samsara) in Eastern Philosophy (i.e. Buddhism, Hinduism). Samsara is generally seen as suffering and that it is favourable to escape from this cycle. An escape from the cycle of samsara is called Nirvana or enlightenment.

In Nietzsche’s philosophy, he uses inspiration from Eastern Philosophy and introduces the concept of the eternal recurrence as a test: imagine that we had to relive this exact moment over and over again for eternity. If you are okay with living this exact moment over and over again, then you are affirming life and living without resent, remorse, or bitterness. However, if you aren’t, you need to re-evaluate how you are living your life.

This may seem like an extreme example, as it may be argued that we need to work hard at certain times to live more comfortably in the future. Nietzsche did not mean this example literally that every particular moment must be fun, exciting, or life affirming. As a more moderate example, consider this: think about all the things that you spend your time on in a given week or month. If you are neglecting certain fundamental aspects of your life, such as family or recreation, then would you be happy living this week or month over and over again for eternity? A consideration of life in this light helps us evaluate the quality of our lives and potentially alter whichever negative aspects are in our control.

The Revaluation of All Values

Nietzsche questions our understanding of the moral system of contemporary Europe at his time, and much of the rest of the world today. He questions the existence of an “objective morality” that dictates how exactly we must conduct ourselves in a society. He states that the genesis of morals did not come spontaneously out of nowhere, but they are a product of human psychology.

He introduces the idea that our society’s moral system is based on Christian morality. He asserts that Christian morality comes from a slave morality and ressentiment (French word for resentment with a slightly different meaning).
What is the difference between master morality and slave morality?

Individuals with master morality are spontaneous, robust, and confident like the Homeric heroes Odyssus and Achilles. The master morality class spontaneously acts and creates their own values, even though they are not particularly intelligent or reflective. The master morality class also affirms life. (This conception can be later related to the concept of an Ubermensch).

Slave morality occurs as a result of weak psychologies. A person with slave morality cannot keep up with the master morality class because they can only react to other values. They begin to resent the master morality class because of their inability to create their own values. Out of resentment, they begin to scheme to overcome the values of the master class by inverting the master class’s value system—”the transvaluation of all values.

The Death of the Nation is inextricably linked to the Death of God. This is why the nationalist question is and must remain entirely modern.

Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”

Seneca

"I undertook to conquer myself rather than fortune, and to alter my desires rather than change the order of the world, and to accustom myself to believe that nothing is entirely in our power except our own thoughts.

Here, I think is the secret of those ancient philosophers who were able to free themselves from the tyranny of fortune, or, despite suffering and poverty, to rival the gods in happiness."

Epictetus

But the tyrant will chain — what? the leg. He will take away — what? the neck. What then will he not chain and not take away? the will. This is why the ancients taught the maxim, “Know thyself”.

Discourses, 1.18

"Those whom you love and those whom you despise will both be made equal in the same ashes. This is the meaning of that command, “Know thyself”, which is written on the shrine of the Pythian oracle."

Moral Letters, 11

In this short 10 minute video, I will make clear how a generation of failed artists can only produce a generation of lost souls stuck in a spiritual purgatory. As long as a pile of bricks on the floor is considered art, and as long as our movies are more often than not cash grabbing reboots, then it will remain such that art will fail to guide us to higher ideals as it once did perhaps because it was we who have failed art.

What we need is, now more than ever, art that speaks to the transcendent and the eternal, as it had done for countless centuries. It is time to once again create the very art that can in fact, not only get us through life but guide us all the way, if not beyond.

Proudly presented by Ex Non Grata:

https://youtu.be/WI5NbynJ-BA

This video raises some powerful questions.

Was the Renaissance really a great resurgence of art, or did its classicism merely remove ancient art from its context and thus strip it of its true value? What do we really get from filling our eyes with the innumerable simulacra of traditional paintings, sculptures, and architecture that pervade these online spaces? Does this not in reality separate art from Life, turning it into vain entertainment and a mere commodity; would we not honor art far more by instead seeking and creating new art that really expresses ourselves and lives among us, where it will actually serve its highest purpose?

I am the child of the Earth and starry Heaven, but my origin is of Heaven alone.

- Orphic Gold Tablet

One "lives" the myth, in the sense that one is seized by the sacred, exalting power of the events recollected or re-enacted. "Living" a myth implies a genuinely "religious" experience, since it differs from the ordinary experience of everyday life.

The "religiousness" of this experience is due to the fact that one re-enacts fabulous, exalting, significant events, one again witnesses the creative deeds of the Supernaturals;

one ceases to exist in the everyday world and enters a transfigured, auroral world impregnated with the Supernaturals presence. What is involved is not a commemoration of mythical events but a reiteration of them.

~ Mircea Eliade

“I felt at home in Egypt. I could happily have been a priest. In truth I am a warrior-priest, who marches where the Deity directs, in the service of Necessity and Fate. Nor is such a notion vain or self-infatuated. Consider: Persia’s time has passed. In the Invisible World, Darius’s empire has already fallen. Who am I, except the agent of that end, which already exists in the Other Realm and at whose birth I assist in this one?” —The Virtues of War, A Novel of Alexander the Great, by Steven Pressfield

"A thoughtful sage, even while living within a material body, should understand himself to be pure spirit soul. Similarly, one should see that the spirit soul enters within all forms of life, both moving and nonmoving, and that the individual souls are thus all-pervading. The sage should further observe that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as the Supersoul, is simultaneously present within all things.

Both the individual soul and the Supersoul can be understood by comparing them to the nature of the sky: although the sky extends everywhere and everything rests within the sky, the sky does not mix with anything, nor can it be divided by anything."

- Srimad Bhagavatam, 11.7.42

Schwerpunkt goes off on a fantastic rant on traditional man, spiritual forces, and of course history, this time focusing on the Franks. He states that all history is fundamentally incomprehensible to the modern perspective, which holds no concept of the sacred. It is necessary to understand basic historical phenomena in order to even understand modern history. He also makes the case that from the traditional viewpoint, the ancient pagan society and the Roman-Germanic Christian society were not very different at all. At the very least both cultures were much greater men than those of today; each were victim to and dealt out brutal violence, but also lived in incredibly harsh conditions that modern man could not comprehend and would never survive.

https://youtu.be/VUz0EpgMcEQ

"the temple of the wise, lit by the sun and moon, stands on seven stages, surmounted by the phoenix. The temple is hidden in the mountain - a hint that the philosophers’ stone (supreme object of alchemy) lies buried in the earth and must be extracted and cleansed. The zodiac in the background symbolizes the duration of the opus, while the four elements indicate wholeness. In the foreground are a blindfolded man and the investigator who follows his natural instinct.”

Jung, Psychology and Alchemy