I haven't posted much lately. I've been circling an old question about ambition: when does the story you tell yourself about being exceptional stop helping you and start running your life?
I understand the appeal of Nietzsche.
The refusal to live passively. The suspicion of inherited values. The demand that a person take responsibility for becoming something rather than simply accepting what is handed to them.
Those ideas land differently when you've spent years starting things from scratch.
But there is a dangerous way to read Nietzsche if you're already ambitious.
You can mistake self-overcoming for self-worship.
The myth of the exceptional person
Founders love a heroic narrative.
Against the odds. No one believed. One person saw what everyone else missed.
Sometimes that's partly true.
Then the story starts doing a different job. It becomes a shield against feedback.
If you believe your entire identity rests on being unusually capable, ordinary mistakes become intolerable. You start defending the legend instead of correcting the behavior.
That's not power. That's captivity with good marketing.
Strength without theatre
For me, a more useful interpretation of power involves the ability to revise myself.
Can I admit that a strategy failed? Can I abandon a belief that once made me feel important? Can I confront something about my own motives that doesn't flatter me?
These are less cinematic acts than conquering a market. They can require more courage.
Self-overcoming isn't merely becoming louder, tougher or more successful.
It's outgrowing the patterns that keep making the same mess.
The philosopher isn't a permission slip
I don't want to use philosophy to justify whatever impulse happens to appeal to me.
That turns intellectual history into an expensive collection of motivational posters.
Nietzsche is most interesting when he makes me uncomfortable, not when he makes me feel destined for greatness.
The point is not to become my own myth.
The point is to become somebody who no longer needs one.