Alternatively, opt out of the status game and try to construct and pursue your own definition of excellence, rather than simply defining it in terms of your position in the social hierarchy.
"Main deficiency of active people. Active men are usually lacking in higher activity-I mean individual activity. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, single and unique men. In this respect they are lazy.
It is the misfortune of active men that their activity is almost always a bit irrational. For example, one must not inquire of the money-gathering banker what the purpose for his restless activity is: it is irrational. Active people roll like a stone, conforming to the stupidity of mechanics.
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar."
Nietzsche famously didn't understand one thing: women / mating strategies. The banker's purpose isn't meaningless, it's a means to an end (even if not always consciously pursued that way) and generally works very well.
people say this all the time but poor people are having kids at a much higher rate than rich people so the theory doesn't pan- if your goal was to have kids you'd stay with your high school sweetheart. and now you'll say "but the banker is trying to attract a high quality mate" to which I'll say that's circular as "quality" here is a synonynm for status.
celibate or not I wouldn't discount Nietzsche; he was pretty insightful.
>people say this all the time but poor people are having kids at a much higher rate than rich people so the theory doesn't pan- if your goal was to have kids you'd stay with your high school
sweetheart.
The theory definitely pans.
You just tried to make it fail by putting the cart about 500 miles in front of the horse. Many accomplished people don't want kids at all and if they do, they usually don't want a lot of them.
If they wanted to have a bunch of kids they could.
They're not "losing" to people in third world countries by not having kids.
>I wouldn't discount Nietzsche
I wouldn't judge theories based on who made them. Judge them based on their own quality, logic and evidence.
Perhaps "mating" was the wrong word - the goal is not always to have a monogamous relationship with kids, but to attract higher perceived quality and quantity of sexual partners.
Moneygathering is highly rational for essentially anyone but especially for the banker whose entire social sphere is structured around his skills as a moneygatherer.
Active men are active because they know and enjoy activity. The thrill of the pursuit and all that.
> Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.
This, of course, can go either way depending on perspective. If you put all of yourself into your main activity, you're doing it for yourself, not for someone else. Whether you're being paid by someone else isn't relevant, IMO; what if you'd do it for free, or if you could do something else more profitably (so you're paying, in opportunity cost, to do it)?
Money is far from the only, or even main motivator for most people - even for poor people, they'll often stay geographically close to their friends and family rather than migrate to a better life; it's mostly the desperate at one end, or the cosmopolitans at the other (for whom the world is small, so the geographic switch is less material), who do move.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
"Main deficiency of active people. Active men are usually lacking in higher activity-I mean individual activity. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, single and unique men. In this respect they are lazy.
It is the misfortune of active men that their activity is almost always a bit irrational. For example, one must not inquire of the money-gathering banker what the purpose for his restless activity is: it is irrational. Active people roll like a stone, conforming to the stupidity of mechanics.
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar."
- Nietzsche