Slave Morality

           

            Friday was the first day of my fast. I always feel weak on the first couple days but I think that a lot of that is psychological. My fasting diet is now raw fruit and vegetables, though back in the 90s I used to fast on water for eleven days. I have to pee a lot because of the fruit.

            That morning I went to my Continental Philosophy tutorial. About half of the students that are supposed to be in the group didn’t show.

            Sean started by mentioning the series of books that, with his wife, he’d been reading Steven Erikson’s “Malazan Book of the Fallen”. He said that he’d gotten so used to reading science and philosophy that it’s neat to discover stories.

            Sean said that he’d been sick for the last several weeks and on top of that he’d had to meet with teachers at his son’s school because another child threw a brick at his kid’s head.

            Sean began the tutorial by explaining that Nietzsche is not saying that we should all become Vikings but that we should see that sympathy and pity are weak. The Vikings had no stress and no worries because they had the capacity to execute their will in an unimpeded way. They were happy and terrible people. When Christianity took over, good became evil and bad became good. Cleverness and repression became weapons of conquest.

            Just then, Sean heard a familiar tone coming from the laptop of the guy to his left. “That’s Facebook!” he told him without looking at him, “You’ve got to turn that off or we can’t be friends!”

            The Jews were masters of spiritual hatred, but the Christian priests that inherited this refined it into psychological hatred. Nietzsche shows you respect by attacking you while the priest hides his hatred and says, “I love you!”

            Christian morality has burrowed deep into our consciousness.

            Phenomenology describes what it is like to be a person but this is an endless task because the world and people are always changing.

            Greek philosophy was about awe and wonder, but Nietzsche rejected this, claiming that one can’t step outside of the contingency to grasp the eternal.

            Sean then stopped to rant a bit about people that put down Freud. He said, “Freud was a genius! Don’t dismiss him unless you’re smarter than he was!”

            Nietzsche wants to disturb you.

            The Jews were the first to will nothingness. The Jews in Egypt developed a slave morality and a moral psychology counter to the master morality of the Vikings or the Samurai. The Jews hated their Egyptian oppressors but the Christians loved their enemies.

Of the will to nothingness, in this book Nietzsche is against Nihilism, but in Thus Spake Zarathustra he is in favour of a type of active Nihilism because he wants to clear away the detritus.

The moral inversion brought about by Christianity cannot be overcome, except by the Superman. So be aware.

That morning, prior to leaving for tutorial I had looked for a file I’d downloaded a year or so before of a collection of songs by Boris Vian. I wanted to start learning to sing his “Le Déserteur”, but I couldn’t find the file on my computer. I realized then that when I borrowed Nick Cushing’s hard drive dock to recover my files that I must have forgotten that one. Since it would take too long to re-download the songs I decided that on the way home I’d stop at Modcom at College and Spadina to finally invest in my own hard drive dock. I went first to Canada Computers, but their cheapest one was $35.00 and I expected Modcom would be cheaper. The thing was though I couldn’t find the store. I remembered it being just a few doors west of Canada Computers but there were just a couple of closed down businesses in the spot where I thought it should be. I went to the next block to Hi Tech Direct, which is owned by the same company as Modcom, but the only hard drive dock they had was one for two hard drives and it was $65.00. The clerk advised me to go to Modcom at their new location, which is across the street from the old one. Considering the empty stores on that northern block, I guessed that they’d be tearing it down soon to build condos. When I got to Modcom, the guy behind the counter confirmed for me when I asked that they are indeed going to build condos across the street. They didn’t have any hard drive docks, but what they did have were casings for turning hard drives into external hard drives. I ended up paying $23.44.

When I got home and tried to use the hard drive casing, I couldn’t figure out how to open it up. Other than the connections, it’s all plastic, so I didn’t want to break it in my efforts to pry it open. There were no instructions, so I decided to call Modcom. There was no answer so I kept trying over and over until I gave up and tried to open the casing again. This time it worked. It immediately created a G-drive and my files were right there, so that was a good thing.

I went to teach my yoga class and had two students. Michelle came on time and Anna was late as usual. Michelle told me that she’s 77 years old. I’ve been trying to get her to learn to do the sun salutation warm-up exercise by herself but she says she does it better when I do it with her. She claims she’s a follower and even said that she’s stupid.

I was guiding them through a pose when Michelle asked if she should breathe. I said, “yes” but added that sometimes I teach this class at the bottom of a swimming pool, and in those cases she should not breathe.

Anna was telling me that she makes her own Tiger Balm with camphor and petroleum jelly. I never use any of that stuff because it doesn’t fix the problem.

I had always thought that mothballs were made with camphor, but Anna corrected me that they are made with naphthalene. I looked it up though and found that not only are we both wrong, but I’m also right. Mothballs used to be made with naphthalene, but now they are made with dichlorobenzene. However, camphor is also used as a healthier alternative for repelling moths.