One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But what does this mean– both philosophically and practically?

1. You got nothing to fear, because you won’t die.

The first point:

What doesn’t kill you…

In modern life, almost nothing will kill you, besides texting-and-driving, driving drunk, or over-dosing on drugs.

So it seems the first lesson:

Recognize the truth that in modern life, our chance of dying via ‘traumatic death’ is very very low.

Then begs the question–

What do we really fear?

2. Makes you stronger

Now– what does it mean to be ‘stronger’?

My thought is this:

Physiological strength in order to create artwork.

To create artwork takes great strength– mental AND physical strength. For myself, the ultimate end is to maximize your artistic, philosophical, and creative power. Thus, it seems the best thing to ‘optimize’ in your life is art-creation.

Thus as long as nothing is getting in your way of you making your art– don’t trip.

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Does the pain stimulate you?

A thought:

As long as the pain you feel doesn’t prevent you from creating your artwork– just disregard it.

Another thought:

What types of pains actually STIMULATES you to making more artwork?

For example, thinking of my scars in the past actually stimulates me to speak up and write essays on overcoming difficulty/stoicism.

How do our muscles grow stronger?

Something I’ve been curious about:

What are the physiological mechanisms which stimulates our muscles to grow stronger?

It seems the current theory is that when we lift very heavy weights, we get ‘micro tears/trauma’ in our muscles — which tells our body to start consuming more protein/nutrition in order to build our muscles stronger.

Thus it seems that the PAIN/micro-destroying process of our muscles is ESSENTIAL to making us stronger.

So if your objective is to become stronger, the goal isn’t to avoid or eliminate pain. Instead– it is to seek the GOOD PAIN in order to stimulate us to become stronger!

ERIC