Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the precursors
of existentialism, which emphasized the idea that the human being is a free and responsible
agent, capable of determining his own actions in life through acts of will. He was one of the greatest and most unusual
philosophers, and in line with the theory of existentialism, he preached about the importance
of being a free spirit. According to Nietzsche, a free spirit is someone
who is able to be in charge of his own actions, who is capable of formulating his own worldview,
free of prejudices and social norms, who is not dependent on his relationships with other
people, and who has the courage to be authentic and fight against the tyranny of popular beliefs. In some ways, we, the inhabitants of current
democracies, are an initial version of what Nietzsche called “free spirits”, or in
other words, we have great potential to be free spirits, most of our societies being
characterized by moral liberality.

However, we are still far from the original
definition of “free spirit” that Nietzsche envisioned. He wrote several books, like “Thus Spoke
Zarathustra”, “Beyond Good and Evil”, “The Birth of Tragedy”, and “The Twilight
of the Idols”. According to Nietzsche, only by becoming a
free spirit would you be able to enjoy this life to the fullest and become who you truly
are. So to help you become that true free spirit,
here are 8 lessons that you can learn from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: 1. Become a master over yourself.
Nietzsche says: “You had to become master over yourself, master of your own good qualities.” To become a free spirit requires a special
kind of willingness, a singular capacity for self-liberation; in other words, a lot of
willpower. Nietzsche dedicated a great deal of efforts
in the attempt to define the free spirit. His book “Human, All Too Human: A Book for
Free Spirits'' is in fact dedicated to the

romantic ideal of the free spirit. According to Nietzsche, one of the most important
obligations to fulfill for the free spirit is to be a master of oneself. As self-mastery primarily means self-knowledge,
it is important to learn about ourselves, about our likes and dislikes, about our limits
and potential. Only when we know these essential things about
ourselves, can we start to plan a future which can satisfy us. We can learn to control our actions - learn
to say yes only to the things which are beneficial for us in the long run, and are compatible
with our higher aims. Similarly, we should say no to anything that
can block our development towards those aims. Failure to achieve self-mastery can lead us
to stagnation or decay; pursuing meaningless temporary pleasures will make us wander aimlessly
through life. For example, if you are not working on becoming
a master of yourself, you can be tempted to accept a high paid job instead of an appropriate
job which can lead to a dream career that

can unleash your best talents and skills. Or, tempted by temporary pleasures, you can
cheat on your spouse, destroying your marriage and losing contact with your children if you
have any. If you are not a master of yourself, you might
become dependent on junk food, which could make you diabetic, potentially ruining your
goal for a long and healthy life. In order to be a free spirit, it is essential
to be a master over yourself, and in doing so, have the mental toolkit to make better
decisions in your life. 2. Think differently
According to Nietzsche: “We call ‘free spirit’ one who thinks in a different way
from what he is expected to do regarding his origin, his milieu, his condition, and his
position, or regarding the prevailing opinions of his time.” The free spirit has the strength to abandon
his habits, his social and moral inherited values. In Nietzsche’s view, it is crucial to learn
to think on our own, to filter the societal

morals and values through our own personal
system of values. This might require a specific strength of
character. It takes power to be able to resist the peer
pressure to do things in a certain way. It takes courage to refuse traditional opinions
and ways of living. A free spirit is more susceptible to self-development,
for inventing new things, new systems, or new ways of living. In the past, it was considered a fact that
people cannot fly. If everybody was a realist, nobody would have
invented the first airplanes. Hence, it is better to be open-minded, to dream
about what can be possible, to free your mind, and open it to new horizons. To learn to be more open-minded and to have
the courage to think differently, a good rule would be to ask “why” to everything you
think you are supposed to do. For example, consider you are the owner of
a small business of around 20 employees.

If you follow the traditional way of doing business, you would ask your employees to come and work in the office for 8 hours per day. But you might ask yourself, “why? Is that really beneficial for my business?” Pondering on these questions might lead you to create new agreements with your employees, allowing them to work both in their office and remotely, not necessarily 8 hours per day, but depending on their workload. By questioning everything you do, you can open your mind to new possibilities, creating more freedom of action in your life and even in the lives of others. This way you can be free from the conventional ways of working or of living. Learn to live with contradictions. Nietzsche teaches us, “As a free spirit you had to find out the inevitable error in every Yes and in every No, error as inseparable from life, life itself as conditioned by the perspective and its inaccuracy…”

According to Nietzsche, truth is relative, an absolute truth doesn’t really exist. He went so as far to say that the will to systematize reality is a sign of dishonesty. To be a free spirit is to have the capacity to see beyond what is considered right or wrong, beyond what is generally accepted as a truth. Nietzsche was one of the philosophers who was the closest to being free spirits because he didn’t follow a system, he even contradicted himself in his writing, probably convinced that the true readers can read beyond the words. Therefore, in order to learn to be a free spirit, we need to allow ourselves to accept the contradictions around us, accept that something can be “black” and “white” at the same time, the fact that our nature might be in itself contradictory. For example, some might support the death penalty, but advocate against abortion. Others might be an evolutionist and a religious person at the same time.

Others might advocate for freedom of speech, but can be against hateful speech. Following a moral system bluntly might force you to adopt one extreme against another, depriving you from a part of your convictions. One of the best ways to practice being a free spirit is to avoid having strong convictions, to learn to live with your contradictions, and try to judge every situation according to its context, rather than following a rigid system of values. For example, it might be extremely important to advocate about freedom of speech in an authoritarian society. But, at the same time, in a developed democracy, it might be appropriate to fight against hateful speech which threatens to transform that democracy back into fascism.

To quote Nietzsche: “The free spirit is a monster of courage and curiosity…a born adventurer and discoverer.” Nietzsche defined the free spirits as being experimenters; they are free spirits who will fight against dogmatism and embrace the hardships of independence of mind and spirit.

These are individuals strong enough to seek
the truth. Nietzsche advocated a method of attaining knowledge called “experimentalism”. While the vast majority of people are “bound
spirits”, prisoners of beliefs that have been inculcated into them by their parents,
governments, and religions, the free spirit is one who has liberated himself from these
chains. The free spirits are true explorers; they
can act in life without needing to be absolutely sure about a thing before taking action on
it. One example of a free spirit offered by Nietzsche
is Christopher Columbus, the great symbol of the quest for the unknown. Christopher Columbus had the courage to explore
the oceans with the goal to reach India, even if he was not absolutely certain how long
the trip would take. The experiment characterizes the way of living
like a free spirit, being open to adventure and new discoveries. To be an experimenter or a free spirit, we
should try to be more adventurous.

For example, if you have lived in the same
country since the day you were born, you might prepare your own experiment: to leave your
country for a period of one year. You might take a sabbatical year in which you can work
as a volunteer in a third world country, or you can travel the world. Whatever you have done in your life for a
very long period of time, you should question it, create your own experiments to test if
your way of living is the right one for you; go back to it in the case that it is the right
one, or leave it forever in the case it isn’t. You can never truly know what is good for
you unless you test the opposite of what you are currently doing in life. A free spirit is never afraid to take their
chances. Fight against tyranny. In the words of Nietzsche: “Wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher
has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum.

to a man into which no tyranny can force its
way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart: and that annoys the tyrants.” In seeking truths, the free spirit – the
“genuine and solitary philosopher” – becomes an enemy of all those who attempt to promote
ignorance for the sake of gaining power over others. A free spirit would never accept others to
tell him what to think. He would protect his own thoughts carefully,
no matter what happens outside himself. For example, in Nietzsche’s time, at the
end of the nineteenth century, it was unfashionable to be an atheist. However, he was a force of resistance against
the dogmatism of Christianity. Many times in his writing, what he calls free
spirits were those like him, who were willing to talk about atheistic and revolutionary
ideas. Another example of a philosopher fighting
against tyranny was Socrates. The free spirit becomes an enemy of all those
who attempt to promote ignorance for the sake

of gaining power over others, and, in doing
so, he might even risk his life, just as Socrates did. Nowadays we can, for the most part, change
things without risking our lives, and we can learn from the examples of past free spirits
who acted as heroes of humanity. For example, if we care deeply about protecting
the rights of animals, we can join big campaigns, promote our view on social media, organize
events, and protest in front of governmental buildings. Sooner or later, somebody powerful may listen,
and a change could be made. It is important to think that it is within
our power to change the things we don’t agree with. We need to fight against the tyranny of unfair
legislation and duplicitous governments. 6. Be authentic.
Nietzsche asks: “What does your conscience say? — ‘You should become the person you are’.” Once we understand that we are limitless,
that we should not have prejudices about ourselves,

it is important to know that we also need
to be authentic, meaning we need to be honest regarding our emotions, our likes and dislikes,
our real opinions about certain things. Thus, the free spirit focuses on the reality
of their own tendencies and emotions. The changes in your mood and emotions are
extremely important. They might be annoying sometimes, but they
are an expression of your freedom. The more you listen to them, the more free
you allow yourself to be. Nietzsche believed this is the way to stop
avoiding life. It is important to have goals in life, but
there is no meaning to reach these goals if your happiness is not assured along the way. According to him, our real ideals or our goals
are an end product of our animal dimension, therefore we cannot ignore our tendencies
and emotions when we pursue a goal. In other words, we should always connect our thinking
with our feelings. Only in this way will that

special self-confidence in life emerge. In real life, we can try this teaching by
listening more to our “gut feeling” when making decisions, by being more honest with
ourselves. To be free requires you to be authentic, to
be a complete person, one that thinks with his head but feels with his heart at the same
time. For example, if you have just graduated from
a college of engineering and suddenly you realized that what you love is art, you have
to be authentic and inform your parents about your plans. Of course, you might instead make a “rational
decision” to find a job in engineering because you have invested so much time in learning
the subject, but to be a free spirit you need to have the courage to make “unreasonable
decisions” if your gut feeling tells you that art is the best career for you. Be joyful
Nietzsche writes: “And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced
at least once.

And we should call every truth false which
was not accompanied by at least one laugh.” Nietzsche often used the word “dance”
to indicate a free way of being. In other words, every day in which we are
not free is a day lost. To be free means to know how to laugh, to
dance, to enjoy life. For Nietzsche, laughter represents a special
form of knowledge, giving us a fresh perspective over life, to understand to not take things
too “seriously” because everything is temporary and in continuous evolution. A bad mood is nothing more than a state of
“irremediable seriousness”, in which we give too much importance to things which come
and go. For example, there is no meaning in getting
depressed that you lost your job because there are so many jobs in the world and most probably
you wouldn’t have stayed in that job for more than a few years anyway. There is no meaning in getting upset that
your partner left you because there are billions

of people out there that you may be more compatible
with, and even if they hadn’t left you, the relationship would probably break down
eventually anyway. There is no meaning in grieving for a long
time when someone close to you dies. It is a fact that we all will die someday,
nobody lives forever. We need to keep a sense of serenity in life
by being aware that nothing lasts forever. Knowing that even life has an expiration date
would make us enjoy it much more. 8. Do not get attached to people and things.
In our final quote from Nietzsche for this video, he says: “He who has attained the
freedom of reason cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must
have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness.” To be free does not mean only freedom to go
wherever you want, freedom to speak your mind, freedom to get any job you want, freedom from
tyranny.

Freedom also means psychological freedom,
to not be dependent on someone, such as your spouse, your parents, or others, as well as
to not be dependent on material things, like money. To be free, you should have a deep awareness
that everything in life is temporary, including your relationships with other people. A great test for a free spirit, according
to Nietzsche, is if you are able to withstand a lack of human companionship. Although Nietzsche
was not always able to withstand a life without the material support of his mother and sister,
he was able to live alone in the Alpine mountains, wandering from place to place, living cheaply
and freely. For Nietzsche, the attachment itself is not
really the problem, but to remain stuck in a particular one is. We are social animals, and it is virtually
impossible to live entirely by oneself nowadays. We create bonds with our relatives, our colleagues
at work, our lovers, our friends. To become free spirits, we should try to keep
away from toxic people who have the tendency

to chain us to themselves, who try to put
limits on the way we express ourselves or our actions. If you find yourself in such a relationship,
it is better to leave it and find a new one which leaves you room to express yourself
fully and gives you the freedom to explore the world and to explore your true potential. True love cannot exist without true freedom,
the best relationship being the one in which you have all the freedom to be yourself and
that you are free to leave anytime, but you return to over and over again because of the
great love you find in its nest. If you enjoyed this video, please do make
sure to check out our full philosophies for life playlist and for more videos to help
you find success and happiness using ancient philosophical wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much for watching.

How To Become A Free Spirit - Friedrich Nietzsche (Existentialism)

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I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create. - William Blake