Like Water for Soul: Charting Nietzsche’s “Peace of Soul” using the analogy of rivers

    In 1888, Friedrich Nietzsche was a year away from becoming mentally ill due to syphilis, yet he wrote the bulk of his literary legacy that year, including Twilight of the Gods, from which the excerpt pertaining to the “peace of soul” concept is contained. It is an inquisitive look at a complex issue, one which confounds philosophers, zealots and laymen alike. Nietzsche explains that this sought after sense of being is “merely a misunderstanding-something else, which lacks only a more honest name.” An issue which when looked at closer, reveals the true colors of it’s nature, the follies and absurdities, it’s uselessness and  ugliness. Nietzsche expounds on ten examples of this misunderstanding, and these cover issues from feelings of laziness and weariness to fulfillment and dreadful certainty. Yet all of these are considered a false definition, a wrong answer. So what is the actual definition of “peace of soul?”  It seems that the idea of “peace of soul” falls by today’s standards to the idea of “peace of mind,” a comfortable, calming feeling brought about by pleasures of the body, the atmosphere and the environment one dwells in. This shift in title seems to come about through the slow habitation of logic and science to fill our heads rather than the ethereal, the godly, and the religious. This term covers the definitions referred to as “misunderstandings,” however it would appear that the real meaning is still unanswered. By navigating its’ ideas, a solid form may arise from the mists, giving a clear look at the mystery behind the hidden peace within us all. Nietzsche’s “peace of soul” is an undefined term, buried under mounds of misinterpretation, yet by using the analogy of rivers and their properties, a new definition can be exposed in order to see Nietzsches’  real intention.

O' man river,
Dat ol' man river,
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin'
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along. - (”Showboat” 1927)
    The power of the river has been sung about, written about and talked about for thousands of years, being the veins of the uncharted new world, allowing entry for the Vikings and Chinese sailors into the New World long before Columbus. These freshwater life-streams provided new fishing opportunities and the essential water needed to survive. Homes were built along them, eventually giving rise to many of our greatest cities: New York City, Boston, Virginia Beach, San Francisco, Seattle, and many more around the world, even including the first civilization at Mesopotamia. The mystique and grandeur of its life-giving properties are nestled in its’ alcoves, the creation of our culture embedded in its’ silt. It is simple to see the connection between a sense of peace and security in ones’ state of being with one of these gently rolling along.
    Rivers have many qualities and one of those is its’ use for transportation. Rivers have been sailed along since men figured to ride logs down them, getting free admission to the first flume ride in history. Through the use of this transportation, rivers can have a moving effect on the stirring movement within oneself, a intangible push towards continuing on all things in life, a private pep rally for the big game we all play. Although this might not seem like a peaceful setting, this feeling of continuation or moving forward, but it is within the certainty of its’ motion, its’ ceaselessness that brings comfort. It could be likened to the first experience with solar powered vehicles without gas, moving along endlessly with no

funds necessary to keep it intact. A constant output of clean, perfect energy, moving oneself closer to ones’ destination.
    Another quality which both seem to share are the hidden dangers they carry with them. Just as a false sense of peace can be obtained through ones’ vices, the calmness of the river can lull one out of safety and into harms’ way. Tragedy has befallen most of the main rivers of the world and countless other smaller ones. Drownings, attacks, disappearances as well as dastardly deeds have happened along their banks, giving them an air of mystery and danger. Animal attacks are especially high in these tight quarters due mainly to just that, territory. With less maneuverability and less area to cover, incidents of attack are always higher here rather than open water. “Or the senile weakness of our will, our cravings, our vices.” “Peace of soul” carries this air of danger, of becoming slovenly, of addiction to vices, of becoming blissfully ignorant. These dangers are just as tangible, forcing the path of righteousness and self-will to become a focus in order to traverse its’ course.
    Eddies and whirlpools are an insightful tidbit as well. For them to form, the currents must find hollows of stillness and stagnancy. The water almost seeks to slow and collect in calm pools. So it is with humans, enjoying the calm rather than the chaos. Life requires both, as the flow of fresh water oxygenates, and provides movement for animals, seed, and minerals, yet the stagnant pools create their own special pockets of life, teaming with bacteria, molds, and algae, the literal buffet along the highway. Humans tend toward stagnancy, as is seen over the expanse of our known existence. Scarcity of food, ice, bad weather and spiritual visions are the only thing that seems to move people around. Otherwise, with all the amenities intact, they will stay in one spot for their entire lifetime, if able. As like the river, “peace of soul,” or mind for that matter, lean towards the still rather than the flowing, yet the need for that movement, its’ existence, is essential to its’ survival.
   
    Baptism is a spiritual rebirth, an awakening of the deepest inner workings of the self, the soul for sure would be included, but also the affirmation of ones’ being, their confirmations rather than just the unknown. The cleansing of the body, the ridding of all sins of the past and arising reborn in the faith, first took place supposedly in the calm, still waters of the Jordan river. This symbol has withstood 2000 years of holy wars and reprinted text. The nature of water is this way, with childhood filled with soaked days and pruned fingers, while adulthood is mostly showers and occasional baths, the random jacuzzi or the YMCA for some strokes. The loss of an interest to dive to the bottom of a pool or roll out the slip-n-slide are among these characteristics, a lack of wallowing in all of its’ beauty, the familiar saying, “I don’t wanna get wet right now.” Somewhere along the line, it becomes an inconvenience.
    Giving up to to water’s natural power can be frightening, succumbing to its’ force without being in control a phobia to some. Most tend to enjoy it from the banks, watching them lazily drift along, yet this is a beautiful representation of “peace of soul.” In order to obtain it, one must follow it. Get in, without a boat or canoe, becoming one with it and drifting along. The lifestyle of the “at peace” person does not fit in with American society or its’ wishes, rather it slows a person down in many ways, allowing them to see more clearly. A worthy way to live, but this does not allow for the wife and kids, soccer practices and Tae-kwon-do, it requires a lifetime of dedication, time allotted in all ways imaginable. Searching for security in an insecure world forces us to face the here and now yet never being in the here and now, appreciating it for what it is at this moment in time. 
     The power of the water is part of us, an obvious fact that we are 75% of it, and this life blood is another misunderstanding of Nietzsches’, a cool glass of water on a hot day. In being so connected, the symbolism of its’ gestures, the sound of its’ motions, the dark bends and hollows it hides, all these mirror the ideas of peacefulness, and its’ idiosyncrasies. “Peace of soul” looks great from afar, a shining example

of life well lived. Yet the lifestyle it requires is painful, careful, and thorough, free of possession or attachment, containing ones’ love and bearing it for life. The river is the same, a beautiful view and a raise in market value, something one enjoys looking at, yet does not care to submerge in, drifting along, lazy like a leaf. Nietzsches’ closest example to real peace comes in the end of his statement, “Or the expression of maturity and mastery in the midst of doing, creating, working, and willing-calm breathing, attained “freedom of the will.”” The words sounds eerily like the chorus from “Ol’ man river,” a hidden tribute to Nietzsche calling out from the subtext.

Strokes (tribute to Cheever’s The Swimmer)

No Toes. Must Dive.

Submerged in quiet cool.

Purposeful pleasure.

Drowning Doubt, Washing away Sins.

All are equal in the Womb’s embrace.

The Calm Pool. 

Lapping against you. Lulling the senses. 

And they’re off!

Following Lucinda farther away. 

Cascading into overfilled eddies. 

Docking, Mooring, Anchors away.

The crowd’s anticipation

or maybe their apprehensiveness.

Thrown to the side like a towel or a drink

we swim on.

Hearing the Cheers, the Hurrahs, the Hoorays

yet also the Boos, the Hisses, the Catcalls.

Stroke on, Stroke on.

Aches and pains tear at the psyche.

The chill and the moon bring forth the fear.

Stroke on, Stroke on.

The Sadness above, The Silence below.

Stroke on, Stroke on.

The Finish Line. The Cacophony.

The actual sound which is leaves 

swimming across the garden table. 

  - CMB

The Ruinin' Ravers

        “The Englishman’s Journal”

Ravin mad... 

Such a nice term it is...

And me?  

Alone and frugal...Ha.  

Laugh off the day...dreary fuckin day..

   Bought some fat cans o lager..., ready for anything...   

My day? Nothing much really ‘ cept watchin’ some political bobbleheads choking on their own lies, runnin’ in circles like blind dogs, never really heard the true details of what that bill was about...

Parliament...

 Thinkin’ of women and my lack therof, I have much trouble sleepin’, instead washing down peanuts with beer and curses, the stale smoke from me Nat sherman’s enwrapping me like mum’s hand knitted shawls. Keepin’ me brain warm. This is me late nite and then its blitzkrieged by morons...

Bollucks..

     Quiet... all... until the shriek of rubber on asphalt...

Then the screams...  

“ you f%&kin cunt!” 

“God ^*%$ %#$@%!”

 This is the exchange at this hour...Rather brawny.. Then I heard the engine rev on up to the highest RPM and then a sickening thud. I have heard this thud before. It pains the ears and rises bile to the throat. The kind of thud that actually involves velocity and the forcing of all air in ones being to be forced out into the night. 

“She’s gonna feel that tamarraw... heh heh...”

The backspin of tires, the pointless “ya’ll right there?”, the pointless “no...”

  During these quick and estranged moments I was force feeding the drinks, downing me cans and wipin me maw, preparing for my involvement. Now realize, she’s skidded in me yard!  Cops will think I know them, even maybe involved and that cannot happen to me, upstanding citizen like myself, not tonite. I began to listen to the languid babbling for signs of what I would be dealing with. I make out that its a birthday gone south.  All the boozing and pills have caught up with the two and when an attempted grope or the like went awry, the dame just dove out! 

I see the day-glo necklaces lying in the street, every second their color fades.  The electronic beat pulses from the auto.  The evening is losing its battle, dying with the creeping morn. I hear her now begging for help. Confused and disoriented, she has lost her phone and her inebriated partner is telling her to get back in the car which she is refusing.  Sobbing, screaming, kicking, lashing, the lover is now in a drug induced rage and tells her that she will never be with her again.  “F$%# You!” The driver revs the engine and peels out leaving the disoriented damsel crying in me lawn. This I cannot have. No stumbly disoriented ravers babbling and screaming at all hours of the night around my doorstep.  What will me neighbors think?   I stand in awe after a last swig of courage and realize I must intervene. And even though drug addled lesbians are a dangerous lot, I had to react.  I put on me robe, grabbed me 9mm and headed for the door.  Oh yes, can’t forget the flashlight after listening to her scream and go on and on about searching for that bloody phone. If it wasn’t for that I’m sure she would have been long gone by now. Anything to speed this up. As I’m about to reveal myself, a car tearing ass around the corner pulls in front of me house agin!  Bollucks... Hear we go with the bloody screamin’ agin... She slurs:

"I'm so out of it right now!  Where is it----Oh my god!!!---why did you do this to me?  Its my birthday!  ahhhh!!!” 

“Girl, get back in this car right now or I’m leaving you for good!  In!!”

“Nooo! My phoone!”

 Thats the main idea of the dialogue out me window in the wee hours of the morning.  Slurred and whiney as drug fueled emotions can only allow.  Crikey...I exit with some false bravado I found on the shelf and flash there dilated eyes like a cop... They silence and then the sobber  begins to sob...  hard... Some false confidence blooms, I got em now.  I can search this scene like the detective I am...  There must be a score around...  Something to make me nite better than cheap lager and Sherman’s. I seach the curb and grassy edge, looking for a baggy or a pill, whatever I can find and use to advance and then maybe even scare off the situation...  I find nothing along the road, yet they aren’t letting me get too close to the car. I still gots me hand on the gun...   So now they quiver... My quiet and sinister demeanor has gotten the best of the drug fueled lassies. I feel like Bronson...

"What chal lookin far?   

 "Phone....(sniff)"  

“Oh....Thats a tough find...”  

 "You got a light?"   

 "Yep...  Yes I do..." 

 "Can we use it"  

"I suppose..."  

 I keep my distance, ready for anything. I shine the light over that areas where the shadow is greatest and mosey down the street a bit.   Once we are away from me domecile, I feel the sense of me own nakedness in me jammies, even with the 9mm...   

I give up all at once after a side breeze exposes me for a moment. My winky caught a glimpse of them, I’m sure of it. 

"Alright, I’m done.  Im going back..." 

“Please help us!  (sobbing)”

“No thanks...that’s it...Please get out of here before the cops show...”

 On the way back, I see the black phone in me yard.  I toss it to the sobbing birthday girl and laugh...  

“What a world it is that you can come screaming down the way ravin' and jumpin’ out of cars in me yard and lose sometin’ that you need,  and I, awake in my haus, enjoyin’ my precious down time, end up helpin’ you find what you need to get on with your own shite.  Luck would have it. Happy birthday.”  

I shook me head all the way back to me haus and sat back down.  I exhale as I let the 9mm fall to the table, slowly leaking its contents out the side.  I chuckle and  lean back after savoring a hit of the grey goose....  Fuckin ravers... I look at the clock, and smiling realize that now I don't even care. Realizing that I too have a place on this late night and I ponder that till morning, sweeping the sweat from me brow, a fat can of lager in hand. 

My viewpoint on the Power of Art

As I look back on the history of the world, typically I see an array of images. Sometimes these involve wars, plague, hunger and general pain. Other times, I see dancing, hope and a generally growing world community, filled with strength, integrity and exploration. But when I see this in my minds eye, I cannot help but realize that I am looking at the history of our planet through images of Art. Artists have captured these emotions and harnessed the power of these motives in their work for centuries creating a view-finder for the mind to colorfully explore this vast expanse of history. As I see it, Art is what forms us. It is a guiding light for others to follow, while being a beacon and a candle in the dark to the artists who create it. Since the Dawn of Time, Homo Sapiens have used their artistic ability to express ideas through crude pictures or body language and used these techniques to pass on the ability to work together, to bring down big game or build tools or huts or fire and essentially, survive. Cave drawings illustrated the right plants to eat and how to build a stronger domicile during rough winter months or sometimes the cycle of seasons or tribal rituals. As civilization grew and began to form into the style of the “modern” society, and cultures around the world began to form, we can see that this was entirely not possible without the usage of art to understand where they came from and were inevitably allowed to go. So as I see it, in all shapes and sizes, Art has radicalized our existence and allowed for our social and personal evolution. 

On another interesting point, I would like to mention Einstein’s E = mc2 theory, as it will come into play later as well. An important scientific work of Art, it allowed the scientific world to understand the massive power harnessed within all objects, and therefore as I see it, in people as well. 

As previously stated it was a teaching tool, but as we move past the Renaissance, we begin to see that artists began seeing numerous possibilities in their art forms as the world view was allowing for it. The doors of the mind must be first realized before they can be knocked upon and surely before they will open and grant us access to their treasures. “I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” (Robert Frost)  Frost’s famous words coming to us from a male schoolteacher going against the grain of a primarily female teaching society, these words have now become a living testament to the artist and the dreamer. I first heard this in a gifted class when I was seven and the movement it inspired in me then is still alive and well today. A notion that all must find their path in life, no matter how many thorns and brambles we encounter. Understanding this notion to explore the unknown, create expressions of new proportions, and push the mental stratus of mankind, is key to realizing the reasons for the next several styles of Art. 

As the world moved into the twentieth century, we see a blossoming of rampant new styles. Modernism as it would be known, showed itself in every form of expression, Literature, Art, Architecture, Music and Dance all coupled with the scientific world guiding its new logic or the absence thereof. Meanwhile, Freud and several other deep thinkers were plotting the other misty, dank and recessed worlds - the channels of the mind. We see art styles move one into the next from Impressionism from Monet, Expressionism from the dark depths of Edward Munch, Cubism from Picasso, Abstraction in the naturally coexisting or minimalistic buildings of Frank lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, and Surrealism from the strange likes of Salvador Dali and Renee Magritte. All of these forms seemed to play leap frog with the next, a playground mentality of seeing where the next will go. It is a stated fact from many of the great artists of the past that they were doing just that. Studying others work, and letting the mind expound on the reactions to new work and how to bring it about in new and self-rewarding ways. 

Once the maps of the mind were finally written and the scientists had quietly proven the non-existence of God, their was another tidal wave which breeched society, that of the the free thinkers. These brave individuals were finally wrapping their brains around the deeper issues of being, true existence, self actualization, free intelligence versus ignorance and finding meaning in a meaningless world. “If God didn’t exist, then all things are possible.” (Dostoevsky) The thought process of the existentialist was not released on the mainstream as its depth seemed not able to be reached by many. And in the long run, if we let everyone think that deeply about themselves, nothing will get done and no one would do the remedial tasks of a working society. But in this form of thought, we must create, for that is all there is. No longer are we making beautiful art to appease a god, but now creating art to explain our place and situation herein without. And so this need to create, this desire to leave something behind becomes all encompassing within an artists life, sometimes to the point of an early, premature death or a body of work so large it cannot be fathomed all at once. We also begin to see this shift in Art by the creation of real subtext in artists work. No longer would a piece of art only mean one thing. From now on, art would have to encompass several and sometimes massive issues, albeit quietly, in order to truly be considered art. This is brought on by a more complex and multi-dimensional society at work. So through the combination of the underlying truths now found in art with this new need to create and expound, we begin to now see a bigger shift towards the need for change. And as I have said, this change couldn’t be understood until we as a people had expressed the desire for it. 

Because of our new found technology and the realization of the human universe, we also see dictators attempting to control more than is feasible in a modern world and we see two wars which ravage our planet, decimate our world population and threaten to throw us all back to the Stone Age. Artists caught in these struggles showed incredible fortitude and bravery for not following the mainstream or ever getting caught up in the hype. When I heard a Holocaust survivor speak when I was eleven, I was incredibly moved when he told us that “myself and several survivors no longer eat bread, as that was our only survival in the camps. I haven’t eaten a bite of bread since my release 50 years ago.” This quiet sacrifice to all those who never had enough. Also seeing Picasso’s Guernica seems to conjure up images in my mind’s eye of the ridiculousness of such an event. Picasso’s characters therein play interesting parts in that image, acting out the drama with awkward expressions and a cry for a release from reality. 

We also see artists begin to react to the crushing forces of the modern world by forgetting any and all original methods of art and reacting entirely on emotion. Here we receive Jackson Polluck’s paint swathed canvases and can feel the emotion pulsing into us when standing next to these modern day monoliths. Their range of emotions only prove the necessity for such work and the power within that it truly allows to shine.

So, with the loss of inhibition coupled with the need to create came the explosion that is modern media. It is at this point we begin to see our social outpourings as a veritable sea of consciousness, consuming us under its deluge and giving us our only rest from the storm when we are sleeping and then even there our image databank is crammed with the thoughts and ideas of others. “The Information Age is essentially image oriented.” (Fiero) and this is largely due to Television and Cinema. Take the award-winning series on TV  “Breaking Bad," where a chemistry teacher secretly becomes a PCP chemist in order to pay for his bills and family after he is told he has terminal cancer. The nickname he takes on is Heisenberg. I was amazed to see such subtext go into a new TV Drama. Named for Werner Heisenberg, creator of the Principle of Uncertainty, it is a perfect foreshadow to the style of writing used in the script. There is no way of telling what could happen next as there are too many variables and when one thinks deeply on a possible outcome, they make sure to throw in a detour and lead the characters far from the normal. Sometimes using a quick death, happening where you don’t expect it at all (think back seat in “Pulp Fiction”) or a plane crash or explosive tortoise (really, watch the show...) you never have a chance of predicting it. Like life, like art now too. 

The aftermath of this increasingly amazing world is an overwhelming sense of desensitization. This of course had led a large percent of our society to lethargy and apathy. So sad when considering all they are given being alive right now, all the knowledge so many others have begged for or just barely broke the surface on before their deaths, right there at their fingertips. This is where I see E=mc2 making the most sense. This incredible formula has yes, created the atom bomb but that is because that is what it was applied too. Imagine applying this formula for good intentions. A small amount of matter can release a large amount of energy. So there we are, small amounts of matter containing energy and waiting to go off like explosives, destroying the face of all that is around us, ripping the flesh of conformism off the shoulders of the people next door, and covering the land in a shock wave of brutal truth. As stated in the film “Waking life” , we can sit and face ourselves off with either fear or laziness, or we can break the cycle and show a different way. Attempt your own “Theory of Everything” much as Deepak Chopra did, or spend time attempting to free your own self from the confines of your being, anyway will do. But we must as Nike says “Just Do It.” (Nike) For our own sake, because if not, we give up on all there is, life as we know it. 

So yes, Art changes us, it taught us, melded us and showed us that it is all we are, and so in knowing this we can see that it will be Art that also either saves us, showing us the new and right way to exist in this modern world we have created, or our downfall, leading us far astray, fragmenting into too many newly created ways, until the "road less traveled by" becomes impassible, clogged with brambles, concealing which path was the right one to take in the first place.

     - CMB