Ubermensching Nietzsche: An Encounter with the Void

By Keith Adams

Perhaps the most dramatic moment in all classical music is the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the half-hour tone poem by Richard Strauss, more familiarly known as the opening theme from "2001: A Space Odyssey." It also is a perfect piece of music to describe what I term my encounter with the Void, which happened the week after I came back one of the most stressful events of my life. I didn't know this at the time, but I was transitioning from an adulthood of chronic depression through to complete recovery. Lying along the way I would also find spirituality, but also, unfortunately, probably due to both the stress and the use of lexapro, getting jailed by the LAPD and spending three days in a psychiatric ward and getting a diagnosis of being bipolar (now under complete control through drug treatment).

Much has been gained in the process. First off, I realized I’m a lot stronger than I thought I was. I lost all of the issues of self-hatred I'd carried all my life, and developed an empathy for humanity I'd never recognized. It's also given me a completely new focus on my life, and I'm still trying to figure out what that should be. Writing a novel, to begin with, keeping a blog ... and maybe opening a gay club in West Hollywood.

Anyway, back to the music. It occurred to me that the opening of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (which is based, unsurprisingly, on a piece of philosophy about Superman by Nietzsche) is an approach to understanding an encounter with the Void. It’s this perfect piece of whole music – blasting at you as you approach the Singularity. But once you’re through the wormhole, you dither and float around in the wake of the Void, much like the music that follows the opening fanfare, which sounds as if it’s completely lost its footing. Not at all what you’d expect.

That got me thinking. Maybe I should read the source for the music, Nietzsche’s philosophical novel of the same name, one of the most famously misunderstood books in history. For instance, hundreds of thousands of volumes accompanied German soldiers in World War II, because of its calls to be a moral warrior, and fight the good fight.

My skimming of the book (and I admit this is just a skim – I more or less read the introduction of the copy I bought today at the UCLA Bookstore) is that Nietzsche’s philosophy is woefully incomplete. But before I go into that, let me speak again of the reason I first noticed the comparison of what I went through with the music. I wrote the following piece when I was in the psychiatric ward after being jailed.

An Encounter with the Void

On Friday, Aug 11, 2006, I touched the Void. I felt the very blood of time pulsing against my fevered forehead. The path that preceded the Void was precipitous. I scared people, and almost toyed with them as I realized how powerful I could be. I scorched past fame, riches and celebrity barely long enough to recognize them. Intellectuality, that cunning desire, held me in its grasp a lot longer, for its roots were much more entrenched. Indeed, it alone ultimately carried me unharmed through the Void. But in the path to the Void, I said and did things both which I now regret, and which played a role in the journey. I entertained chilling thoughts and felt I could understand God.

There was only one true path to the Void fated for me, and that was via Love. When Love socked it to me that Friday afternoon, I spun off inconceivably rapidly, fell headlong towards the Singularity, and was caught suspended inches from Chaos, swinging by the narrow thread of my intellect. Half an hour I became thoroughly acquainted with the Singularity, until moment by moment I began to realize I could save Love only by saving myself first. I clawed painfully, haltingly up the thread, yet feeling the pull of the Void, and slipping back a few inches now and again.

When Ben arrived to rescue me, I finally knew the Void had lost its pull on me for good, and indeed have no longer that fear.

My intellect too survived and flourished. And got me through the rest of that awful day, as I discovered for the first time in my life the nature of Spirituality, the meaning of meditation and of mysticism. The next day I discovered the overarching concept of Karma, and, of course, the rest is ancient history.

You can never be the same once you’ve survived the Void, and to many you may appear irretrievably altered. And you may yet still bounce around in the wake of the Void for days, weeks or months before you again find true peace.

If I was to graph the first few minutes of Strauss’ “Zarathustra” it would go like this:

Which is identical to the path I went through on the Friday when I had my encounter with the Void.

But back to Nietzsche. His central thesis would seem to be that we all have to go through a near-death experience if we’re to change into an Uberman, and hence have a positive effect on the world. Now this in and of itself is hardly profound. Look at 9/11 and the effect that it had on New York in terms of the way people treated each other. For a while. Then it dissipated. We had a moral coward in charge, and, unfortunately for all of us (including himself), he was nowhere near at any time a near-death experience.

Now I mean no disrespect for one moment to people who made real sacrifices on 9/11 or afterwards, people who fought and died in our wars (meaningless or not) and people who’ve lost their loved ones in such catastrophes. These latter people, as well as people who were maimed in war are fundamentally changed.

But what does it take to change the world? Do we all have to go through simultaneous near-death experiences? Unfortunately, I don’t even think that would be enough. Look at New York now. There’s just as much bad karma there as ever. Or look at Los Angeles, for God’s sake.

I could speak of my own near death experience. There’s no doubt it’s had a deeply profound effect on my life and on those around me. But I’m still carefully choosing a sexy shirt in the morning so that I can look just fabulous enough to get enough attention that day to start my club venture going. I’m very far from being one of Nietzsche’s moral warriors.

For the ultimate confirmation that this is not the answer look at how the early centuries of Christianity perverted Christ’s teachings. You really needn’t say anything else to be convinced. Christ’s near death experience (death and resurrection – he probably didn’t die on the cross) had a huge effect no doubt, and a cumulative one. But it’s now probably had a negative net effect on the World, rather than a positive one.

And look at the people running round doing things in Christ’s name, like Cheney. It’s important to be accurate here so that they can’t accuse you of being reactionary. Cheney is obviously a cowardly piece of crap. Colin Powel and Condi Rice are just too grateful for their place at the table to be disloyal, and they’re therefore foolish. Rumsfeld is a special case. He’s a genius for one thing, and neither cowardly nor an asshole. But he’s a stubborn man, too stubborn to admit he’s fundamentally damaged our military and this country, which he probably loves.

Certainly we’ve seen this before in a politician. Not necessarily his own near death, but the huge loss of a son. It’s not enough, though was nearly enough for Al Gore.

I don’t know what the answer is. It has to be something that simultaneously changes us all along the Zarathustra lines. It need not be a near-death experience. Look at Bill Gates for example (who has realized he has the power to change the world). But it seems that near-death is the most likely thing to do it, though it doesn't happenin all cases. I doubt, for instance, even a near death experience would give courage to Dick Cheney.

But for it to have a critical mass, we probably all need to have a near death experience together. It seems to me that Steven Spielberg and Star Trek got it right. In both “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, and “Star Trek: First Contact”, the first contact with a benevolent alien civilization was enough. It was, in neither case, a near death experience which is why I’d go further, and say it does not need to be a benevolent encounter. So long as we can overcome our collective encounter with the Void, we’ll be okay going forward.

Keith Adams

broken whole

http://www.brokenwhole.com

Links: Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathurstra

Comments

[joe perez]

congrats, keith, for overcoming some difficult and shattering experiences and rising up into a new life. keep shooting for the stars!

[ck]

Keith, I don't know that Nietzsche is arguing that we all need to have a 'near-death' experience to become an Ubermensch (or even that everyone can/should strive become an overman).

The overman (also translated superman) is one who creates his own values and transcends the world's false concepts of god and morality. One of the more shocking pieces of Nietzsche's thought is that pity is a destructive and unhelpful impulse--suffering refines character.

The experience that is closest to what you describe is the realization of the Eternal Recurrence of the world--that everything happens just as it has, over and over for all time. It reduces any weight of our lives into nothingness, but the overman's response is to embrace life, not to despair. Karma would be anathema to Nietzsche's overman who, paradoxically, creates his own values (even though the world seems predestined).

Anyway, for some good resources on Nietzsche, you can start with www.epistemelinks.com.

I think your main points can still stand without requiring your interpretation of Nietzsche, but if you're interested in doing more reading, the link above is a good place to start. He is a challenge to our normal ways of thinking, that's for sure!

[tomeg]

Congratulations! You have had quite a voyage. I'm touched by your writing, your diary. Some correspondences with your encounter, such as handcuffed and hauled to SF General - the first time, and later a more extended stay in UCLA-NPI, 2001, and recently a third, fortunately not clinical, but critical mass as you describe it). Bipolar disorder, though a rough ride, may also be a royal chariot when you persist to your heart-wish. Keep it polished and shiny, it is yours for keeps, and not for an ashtray if you follow. All blessings, take good care of yourself.