Become Who You Are: Nietzsche's Insights into Self-Identity and the Human Condition

What is it within us that makes us…us? What makes me different from you, and you different from me?

How do we find that inner being? How do we become who we are meant to be?

In this episode, we will shed some light on what it means to “become who you are”. We’ll do that by looking at the work and influence of Friedrich Nietzsche. A German philologist born in 1844 who turned philosopher. Nietzsche viewed himself as the first psychologist among the many great philosophers.

“Who among the philosophers before me was in any way a psychologist? Before me there simply was no psychology” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

If you haven’t heard of Nietzsche, don’t judge him too sharply on his ego. Nietzsche’s insights all equally influenced the three fathers of 20th-century psychology. Of course, I’m talking about, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler.

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Nietzsche's Revolutionary Approach to Psychology

Countless philosophers spanning decades, have all attempted to understand the human mind. To understand its tendencies, biases, potentials, nature, and origin. But when Nietzsche walked onto the field, he claimed that all those before him were blinded, or rather held themselves back due to fear. A fear of exploring the depths within themselves and what they might find.

However, Nietzsche’s psychological investigations were different than those before him. He truly wanted to find answers… no matter how terrifying they were. He wanted to understand life itself. He wanted to understand how the human mind handled life.

In one of his published essays “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life”, he quoted Goethe saying, “I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activities.”

And so Nietzsche knew he had to go where no one had gone before. To uncover what no one had discovered about the psyche before.

So Nietzsche started exploring the multidimensional layers and complexities of the mind. While doing this, he took great influence from Heraclitus, the Presocratic Greek philosopher.

Nietzsche loved that Heraclitus believed that if you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul. They both agreed that the psyche, even when explored deeply, could not be explored fully. It seemed there was no true measure of the psyche’s depths.

But Nietzsche liked a challenge. He decided he would explore both sides. The belief that the mind could be explored fully. And the opposing side that this was impossible. In his work, he started to ask; “How can the human being know itself?”

Proclaiming that the mind is a dark and veiled thing.

He wondered if he could ever get to the point of saying, okay, that is what you really are, there is no longer an outer shell. And yet, he went on.

The Labyrinth of the Mind: Nietzsche's Exploration of the Psyche

Nietzsche undertook something that not everyone may undertake. He descended into the depths, and dug deep into the very foundations of the psyche.

So why had others before Nietzsche feared to explore one’s own psyche? The fear of going mad!

Many before him and even those that came after him, stopped here. But Nietzsche took on the challenge himself. However, it didn’t come without a self-awareness of what could happen.

As Nietzsche explored the psyche further he described it interestingly. In his book, Beyond Good and Evil, he described it in detail. He painted a picture that was like he had entered a labyrinth. One that held multiple layers of danger. Dangers that not even life brings with it. A labyrinth where you can easily be lost. Or even be torn to pieces by some cave minotaur.

As scary as the picture seemed, he continued. People called it a foolish task, but Nietzsche knew it was necessary.

So what did he find when he walked deeper into the labyrinth? He started to uncover what makes us… us.

He explained that at the bottom of us, really “deep down,” there is, of course, something unteachable. Something he described as some granite of spiritual fatum. Of predetermined decisions and answers to predetermined selected questions. He started to get to the root of who we are. Finding that within us lies an unchangeable “this is me” attribute.

Unveiling the Inner Self: The Intersection of Ancestry, History, and Instinct

Nietzsche started to ask the question that no one before him asked when it came to the psyche. He asked, are we born with a predetermined disposition that ONLY we have? That singular person.

Of course, humans were not created out of thin air. We all come from something. But we did not decide for ourselves how we would be created. We did not stand out of our own bodies, acting as directors deciding every detail we wanted to have.

We were created and born with that disposition already determined and inside of us.

According to Nietzsche, each of us, has a deep and abiding nature that places definitive set limits. Limits on who and what we not only are but also what we can become.

But being born with our particular and set ‘self’, is more than a pre-determined definitive. Our ancestry and history play a role in who we are as well.

Our history and cultures before us, collide with how we were raised. This collision creates an even bigger chaos inside of us. Therefore, if we really want to understand what makes us…us, we need to explore all of that chaos inside of us that has formed ‘us.’

Direct self-observation is all well and fine. But self-observation is still very superficial. Nietzsche found that to know ourselves we need history, for our past flows on within us in a hundred ways.

Nietzsche uncovered that many people lack what he called a ‘historical sense’. Meaning some people have no conscious connection to their past. By not digging up one’s roots and ‘where they came from’, those people will always fail to have a full picture of who they are.

Even in Nietzsche’s time, he felt that people had lost faith in their ancient history. That instead people searched for novelty after novelty. Once Nietzsche had uncovered this layer of one’s self-history, he peeled back another layer. Again it was a layer that wasn’t a new notion, but it had sparsely been touched.

In our psyche exist prehistorical drives and impulses. Our bodies still possess some abilities we needed when we were back in the caveman era. And so our psyche still contains certain impulses as well. Although civilized now… for the most part, we as humans remain, beneath the surface, animalistic.

And so Nietzsche explored these impulses in correlation to our psyche. He discovered that ancient humanity and animality, and the entire primal age, still lived within him. They were what led him to create, to love, to hate, and to reason.

The Beast Within: Embracing Our Primal Instincts

Under our civilized appearance, lays our uncivilized soul. This hidden soul contains both “the beast within” and “the divine animal.”

The beast within is potentially dangerous with destructive inclinations. Ones that can overtake and possess the human body. When unbridled, this can lead to aggression, violence, or sexual lust.

Most would recommend repressing this dangerous beast within. Like religions have done for thousands of years. However, Nietzsche actually recommended we explore and even become familiar with these potentially destructive emotions.

Think about it this way… a raging river can be harnessed for its energy. So why can’t a raging soul be harnessed for its energy?

Why not take that power and turn it into something good?

In our psyche is also the divine animal. This is our ancient instincts, this is our unconscious and infallible drive. Our ancestors before us had this drive to survive in uncertain environments. And to fight off danger at a moment's notice.

These two ancient instincts are rarely seen in our modern culture. We are taught from a very young age to suppress them.

But is relying solely on our consciousness helping or hurting us?

Even back in Nietzsche’s time he wrote in his notes that those who have lost or destroyed their instincts can no longer use that devine animal to their advantage.

With animal instincts, historical attributes, and a pre-determined disposition, it’s no wonder our psyche is in complete chaos.

Nietzsche challenged his readers to take these conflicting sub-personalities simultaneously living in our minds and to harmonize them. To not work against the competing forces within, but to have them work together.

In modern times we can look at this as a ‘master’ hard drive. Where we store each thought, emotion, drive, and instinct in a folder. We store them, we do not delete them.

This organizing idea of one’s psyche can’t simply be thought about. It has to be constantly acted upon and reopened throughout your entire life.

You want to evolve with it, not hinder its growth and activity.

Nietzsche summarized this concept saying “…it is a myth to believe that we will find our authentic selves after we have left behind or forgotten different parts of us. To make ourselves, to shape a form from various elements – that is the task.”

That is the task of a sculptor. Of a productive human being.

The Legacy of Nietzsche: Lessons for Self-Discovery

With all of Nietzsche’s psychological insights and piercing observations, it is no wonder the greats looked to him for influence.

However, despite all of his discoveries, critics ask the question ‘Can we trust Nietzsche’s findings?’

You see, Nietzsche died at the young age of 44. Not from an accident or injury… but rather from mental illness.

Which leads to another question, did Nietzsche’s prediction come true? That by descending into the depths of one’s psyche you run the risk of going mad. If we go with this theory, does this make all of Nietzche’s findings dubious? Or, on the other hand, does it instead make his findings a warning to us?

Nietzsche’s unpublished notes, seem to foreshadow his own fate. He wrote asking “How can someone who can’t save himself save others.”

He continued with the analogy asking, “Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?” In Nietzsche’s autobiography he asked; What does your conscience say? You shall become the person you are.

Nietzsche had done what no one before him had done. He went into the depths of his own mind. He explored every possible path no matter how dark. He might have done it at the cost of his own life, but he did it. He found us the answers to who we are.

Adding to his work, I’ll leave you with a question I always ask myself “What makes me do the things I do?”

Till the next episode, be well, and always question your thoughts and verify them. More often than not they tend to lie to you. I’m Dimitris, and I share tools and insights on how to design a well-lived life.