Great Books

the future is real, but the past is all made up.

Nietzsche on "the power of forgetting" – which is the same as the power to be "unhistorical" toward the past.

(excerpt is from "On the Advantages of Disadvantages of History for Life" – the early little essay that I consider to be perhaps the most important indicator of what Nietzsche is up to)

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Yeah this line is unreal wisdom. Just quoted it to founders, it's really important to absorb this.

> Forgetting belongs to all action, just as both light and darkness belong in the life of all organic things 

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Maybe he forgot 🤣

But seriously, he had an interesting attitude toward self-contradiction. Makes me want to read GS again

In the above, he does ends up re-incorporating history. But I think he wants to first smash the over-historicism of his contemporary German Academy’s approach to philosophy (heavily Hegelian)

It’s really interesting bc in the Gay Science he also advocates for man to think of himself as the continuation and accumulation of all things historical as well as the perpetuator of all things future 

I guess we contain multitudes 🤷‍♂️

Great question. 

I think it becomes important to accept that some people will believe a different story of you than you know about yourself and it’s an extra courage and willpower we must have to trust ourself. (While also listening to others and being honest)

Really interesting take on the power of forgetting
How do you think this fits into today’s world where everything we do is always being recorded and brought back up?

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I could absolutely see this as related to natural tendencies of brain and body wiring.  I do wonder whether / how it can be trained.

My one thought is that if you realize the deep truth that all remembering is necessarily a kind of "story" that we tell (not in the sense that it's fake, or merely an opinion, but in the sense that in every remembered perception, we *had* to leave out some details, accentuate others, apply patterns, etc) then you can really embrace that you have some power over the past. Not in a magical way, but in the sense that *you* not only have the ability but the necessity of making the frame for it. And the frame can really impact  the effect.

Would love to have this ability. I don't. I know people who don't and people who don't. I think it's 99% how you are wired. You can improve a little, but for most either you live are able to 'forget' and live in the present or you live always aware of past and future. Appreciate the quote and thought.