Nietzsche and drugs

I have just finished 2 Nietzsche's biographies (I have studied his entire ouvre as an auto-didact), and apparently Nietzsche did extensively drugs for 3 decades: opium and chloral hydrate, mostly.
Of course he used to take them for his ailments (opium for headaches, chloral hydrate for insomnia), yet he ended up abusing chronically all of them, and apparently he was extremely influenced by it. His entire imagination (as in "mental visualization") was coopted by drugs (he used to suffer from closed eyes hallucinations that troubled him deeply, the most famous account has him seeing flowers multiplicating extremely fast everytime he closed his eyes), and his poetic sense was, self-admittedtly, shaped by his opium use.

Now, so far I have always read Nietzsche as an essentially sober philosopher (I might have been tricked by him rejecting alcohol in Ecce Homo), but apparently this is not the case. I've started to think about it, and about my (very sparse, especially compared to his) drug experiences. The link between said experiences and his philosophy seems to be the mysterious, almost mystical, outlook on reality that is sometimes accompanied to these drugs, which resembles (to mention a unaltered experience) derealization: that feeling when one is able to loom at reality in a completely unadultered way, being this able to "almost" (keyword) grasp at something, as if the truth is just there and you're one step from understanding it.

I've started to think about his main concepts in this optic, which is completely removed from the usual human experience. Let's take for example the concept of übermensch.
The common understanding of this concept is still fairly traditional: the übermensch is usually seen still as a human with perfected istincts, but still essentially human. We already know what he does: he says yes, he says "I want" instead of "I have to", he looks from above, he creates and so on.
This figure has almost seemed recognizable to me, but suddenly I've got the impression that for übermensch Nietzsche meant instead something downright incomprehensible: a man whose thoughts simply can't be understood, who, on the other hand, has a full understanding of everything that stands beyond him. To try to imagine the übermensch thought process is like trying to understand the thought process of a fish: it's simply something else, no amount of contemplation will get you there. The cognitive jump is inhuman. The models that are usually used to define übermensches (Nietzsche used often Goethe as an example) are merely a metaphor, in the same way a man can be a metaphor for a überAffe (overmonkey).

My strongerst impression (of which I'm not sure, hence why I am putting it in this incomplete form here on Veeky Forums) is that drugs lead Nietzsche to think mostly in mysteries, in concepts that were meant to be grasped only barely.

What's your opinion on the matter, and what details and tendencies have you (yes, you user) noticed in his writings?

Drugs will make you Ubermensch? Nah, they will just turn you into a street hooker.

>Drugs will make you Ubermensch?
Nice reading comprehension.

>The link between said experiences and his philosophy seems to be

My first question is, given your formatting, why you chose to type this in a separate program and then copypaste your post without reflecting on your shitty grammar?

Second, whether or not the N did drugs does not diminish or exalt his philosophy. What do you have to say about his thoughts without reflecting on some stupid speculations about drug use?

Moreover, why are you reading N in 2017. There are far more interesting authors and works. Are you seeking peer approval of your fringe theory or actually trying to understand the contexts in which N's writings were produced and therefore the texts themselves?

Nietzsche wasn't an übermensch, he just came up with the concept.
There is no actual relation between Nietzsche's behaviour and his idea of übermensch (he clearly did not derive this notion out of his personal experience, nor has he modeled it after his life), but there is a relation between his experience and the formulation of said concept operated by N himself (as I said he had been a chronic user until his death, which means that drugs have always been a part, or to put it in clearer term, a framework of his thought).

This is why I'm not implying that drugs will make you an übermensch, in the same way I am not implying that migraines, or annoying sisters will do the same.

>Nietzsche did extensively drugs for 3 decades: opium and chloral hydrate
I think he was using stimulants as well. There's scant evidence, but somewhere in his notes or correspondences he mentions the acquisition of intoxicating substances from a Javanese merchant.
Java was the dutch colony producing cocaine at the time.
His writing style fits the profile of a habitual drug user, with its small, concentrated outbursts of epiphany, and abhorrence of systematization.

>Nietzsche used often Goethe as an example
Nietzsche was a big fan of Taine, the french man of letters, as well, kept up a dialogue with him in fact.
Perhaps his three-pronged approach to the contextual study of a work of art, based on the aspects of what he called race, milieu, and moment, may be current once again in the future.

>My first question is, given your formatting, why you chose to type this in a separate program and then copypaste your post without reflecting on your shitty grammar?

My grammar IS shitty: English is not my native language (I've studied it for 7 months so far). I'm sure at the moment I can't do better than this: sorry for the inconvenience.

>Second, whether or not the N did drugs does not diminish or exalt his philosophy.
I have not criticized him on these grounds, in fsct I have not criticized him at all.

>What do you have to say about his thoughts without reflecting on some stupid speculations about drug use?
Nietzsche has been high on opium and chloral hydrate for about 20 years, and all of his books were written under the influence of these substances. Why should I gloss over this fact?
Also notice that this is not the way I have studied Nietzsche, this is just a thought I have entertained for a couple of says: am I not allowed to consider not even once major biographical implications on his works (which is in fact a very Nietzscheian approach), not even after having studied them "properly". There's no need to be this aggressive.

>Moreover, why are you reading N in 2017. There are far more interesting authors and works. Are you seeking peer approval of your fringe theory or actually trying to understand the contexts in which N's writings were produced and therefore the texts themselves?
Nietzsche is a required reading for many modern and contemporary philosophers that I want to read. I am also genuinely interested in his philosophy. Regardless, this is beyond the point.

There's a reason why Nietsche's mouthpiece Zarathustra is not the overman but goes before and announces the coming of the overman. He is to the overman as John the Baptist is to Jesus.

I think Nietzsche probably had a personality that presupposed him towards metaphor and imagination; the opposite of autisme really (literalness). High on openness.

Nietzsche isn't necessarily anti-psychoactive substances. He's anti-alcohol specifically because it's basically liquid Christianity. It's a degenerating influence on the spirit that doesn't offer any particular insight or benefit beyond the immediate feeling of undeserved satisfaction.

No. The Übermensch just isn't clear defined.
>There is no right way
That doesn't mean Nietzsche's thoughts were unclear and there is no evidence in his writings except maybe ecce homo that they were.

Interesting idea but imo meaningless insertion.

The fact that there is no way to identify with the concept of übermensch is a specific attribute of its definition, rather than incoherence: it wasn't meant to be criticism.

The Ubermensch has no characteristics beyond the 'I want', mmkay? That's literally all you should say about him, mmmmkay?

*identify oneself

Not true.

Is this passage true?
>The cognitive jump is inhuman. The models that are usually used to define übermensches (Nietzsche used often Goethe as an example) are merely a metaphor, in the same way a man can be a metaphor for a überAffe (overmonkey).
Was this user ( ) right?

Yes.

As Zarathustra says man is a tightrope between animal and Ubermensch.

>There are far more interesting authors and works.
No one from the 20th century has surpassed Nietzsche in this regard. We're only just now seeing some texts arise that might be more valuable, but other than that, everyone who took his work and tried to continue it in the 1900's always failed to reach the conclusive depths about life that he did. His philosophy has also been usurped by a number of bastardizing groups, like the postmodernists.

First of all, his life doesn't affect his ideas. I don't know why some people thinks that is somehow an "argument" agaisnt his philosophy.
Second, everyone who has used drugs know that they do show stuff you couldn't acces without them, they can give you another point of view on whatever. Intelligent people can benefit from them, weak ones only use them solely for scapism.
Drugs are also known for bringing creativity in some people, other ones just get brain fried.
I have experienced closed eye visual hallucinations and other stuff, related to drugs, when trying to sleep. But nothing during the day.
What you are defining as derealization, as far as I know, is not derealization, sounds a lot more like ego death. Ego death is usually associated with psychedelics, but I don't see why it couldn't be triggered by others drugs.
I don't see Nietzsche even close to a mystic, but he was a passionate man. No one can be ubermensch, but you can experience little moments in life that are like if you were in that fear-less and extatic way, when the world is yours.
In my opinion, Nietzsche was very likely bipolar.

Not him but
>First of all, his life doesn't affect his ideas
have you ever EVER read Nietzsche? On his own terms life ALWAYS affect ideas. What do you think GoM is about?

I'm saying using the aspects of an author's life to critic his ideas is not an argument
Read the next line after reacting

>like the postmodernists

OP here.
I'm not criticizing his ideas, I'm only thinking about Nietzsche's ideas while thinking about this factor, which is that he arrived to his main concepts while he was in states of cosciousness, which were particular to say the least.
I'm not being dismissive at all, nor am I being radical. I'm only entertaining this idea.

In the spirit of the Gay Science I'm asking you too to entertain this way in a jovial way, with a light heart. I'm not trying to write a manifesto or an essay here.

I wasnt saying you were doing that, it was just to clarify and express my repulsion towards the people who do that

He made a couple of typos, you fucking unbearable uptight cunt.

>Moreover, why are you reading N in 2017. There are far more interesting authors and works.
After Plato, Nietzsche is the only universally essential philosopher. Aristotle and Wittgenstein are essential for analytical philosophy, Kierkegaard and Camus for existentialism, Husserl and Heidegger for phenomenology, Aquinas and Augustine for theology and so on. But Nietzsche is as essential as each of those to their respective subcategories to philosophy in general. And he's a spectacular writer, the poetry of his work alone would be enough to justify it.
Moreover, why would you not read an author because ''there's better ones!''' jesus fucking christ you retard, how much I hate your ilk of petty, miserly censors who can't stand the sight of someone being genuine on the internet, you pitiful smug fuck.

Then you are expressing repulsion toward Nietzsche.
As edgy as it may sound, you are being a moralist: you are being scared if entertaining certain thoughts because you know that other idiots out there would mess it out ("duuuuude, think about it... woooah"), which is not the case.

It doesn't scare me, is just dumb
I create my own values, niqqa

Jung did a psycho-analytic reading of Zarathustra that analyzes each line individually. From skimming the massive tome and reading reviews of it he seems to have thinked Zarathustra was a result of a neurosis where Nietzsche was crushed by his own mental weight.

Just shut up

>mental weight.

the Neetzche memes just keep pouring in the current years.

Im not saying to do DMT or Acid but they really do allow for perceptions that feel like magic or god or parallel universes.