It make you stronger or weaker?!
What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If we think about this quotation in terms of true/false, we may say it is true and false at the same time. In terms of fuzzy logic it may be seen as having grades of truth and falsity.
The point isn’t if a quotation is true or false but how much it inspire and motivate us. This quotation motivate me a lot in tough times.
Though, this saying can be seen from two perspectives. On one hand, we may say that only in the battle field we become stronger. If we want to become stronger only by learning from others’ experiences there will be just a little improvement. Without going through tough situations, our character remain weak. On the other hand, if these tough events go beyond our human limits, they may make us weaker or even leave us with a horrible disability.
So, pay attention and don’t push too far your limits (if you can control the situation). If you find yourself in a situation you can’t control then you have to moderate your reactions in order not to hurt you. But don’t avoid the battle field, just there you’ll become stronger and stronger. The only condition is to master your reactions.
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November 29th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Understanding why humans act and react to numerous different stimuli, both endemic and environmental, is of such high importance that this knowledge may well be the cornerstone of whether or not our species will continue to exist and flourish at all for any more than a few hundred years.
The sadly amusing paradox of the matter is: We do have the knowledge to redirect all of human behavior toward a safer, more productive, less destructive pathway of evolution. However, at this juncture, we do not have the awareness, intelligence nor level of critical thinking skills to fully understand the importance of immediately putting this behavior modification methodology into play.
And although seemingly not connected but then again very much so - relating to a paraphrase explanation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s well known summation, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger”. The contributor just before me proposed a potential paradox.
“Though, this saying can be seen from two perspectives. On one hand, we may say that only in the battle field we become stronger. If we want to become stronger only by learning from others’ experiences there will be just a little improvement. Without going through tough situations, our character remain weak. On the other hand, if these tough events go beyond our human limits, they may make us weaker or even leave us with a horrible disability.”
The difficult but irrifutable truth of this matter is that “only in the battle field we become stronger”. There is no other way for this transition to take place in any significant way. In all of life, one learns very little of use, if anything, from learning of others experiences. One cannot know what any experience is like, not even close, unless they experience it themselves. And if you die trying, then you die trying.