Food for the Soul,mind, heart***

"The philosopher had a practical view as well as metaphorical interest in horticulture. On resigning from Basle University in 1879, Nietzsche had set his heart on becoming a professional gardener. 'You know that my preference is for a simpl...e, natural way of life.' he informed his surprised mother, 'and I am becoming increasingly eager for it. There is no other cure for my health. I need real work, which takes time and induces tiredness without mental strain.' He remembered an old tower in Naumburg near his mother's house, which he planned to rent while looking after the adjoining garden. The gardening life began with enthusiasm in September 1879 - but there were soon problems. Nietzsche's poor eyesight prevented him from seeing what he was trimming, he had difficulty bending his back, there were too many leaves (it was autumn) and after three weeks, he felt he had no alternative but to give up.

 Yet traces of his horticultural enthusiasm survived in his philosophy, for in certain passages, he proposed that we should look at our difficulties like gardeners. At their roots, plants can be odd and unpleasant, but a person with knowledge and faith in their potential will lead them to bear beautiful flowers and fruit - just as, in life, at root level, there may be difficult emotions and situations which can nevertheless result, through careful cultivation, in the greatest achievements and joys.

 'One can dispose of one's drives like a gardener and, though few know it, cultivate the shoots of anger, pity, curiosity, vanity as productively and profitably as a beautiful fruit tree on a trellis.'
But most of us fail to recognize the debt we owe to these shoots of difficulty. We are liable to think that anxiety and envy have nothing legitimate to teach us and so remove them like emotional weeds. We believe, as Nietzsche put it, that 'the higher is not allowed to grow out of the lower, is not allowed to have grown at all... everything first-rate must be causa sui [the cause of itself].'
Yet 'good and honoured things' were, Nietzsche stressed, 'artfully related, knotted and crocheted to... wicked, apparently antithetical things'.

 'Love and hate, gratitude and revenge, good nature and anger... belong together', which does not mean that they have to be expressed together, but that a positive may be the result of a negative successfully gardened. Therefore:

 'The emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness and lust for domination [are] life-conditioning emotions... which must fundamentally and essentially be present in the total economy of life.'
To cut out every negative root would simultaneously mean choking off positive elements that might arise from it further up the stem of the plant.
We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them."

ALAIN DE BOTTON, in «The Consolation of Philosophy».

Via Sara França (Fb)