Name: Nietzsche - Don’t Let Your Darkness Consume You
Uploaded: 2022-02-25T02:51:17.000Z
Duration: 10 min 46 s
Description: 【看影片學英語】數萬部 YouTube 影片，搭配英漢字典即點即查，輕鬆掌握單字發音與用法，長久累積看電影不必再看字幕。

In /On the Genealogy of Morals/, Nietzsche compares the feeling of resentment to a toxin

轉承詞

or an illness, because he believes that resentment is anti-life and anti-growth.

反身代名詞

This is a sentiment I agree with, and it's an idea I wanna explore for myself.

Why do we become resentful, what happens when we become resentful, and how do we prevent

These are some of the questions I wanna grapple with and explore in this essay.

So let's start at the beginning: where does resentment come from?

Finn, a 28 year old man, is resentful towards women as a whole, but he wasn't always this

For years, Finn has approached women that he perceived as beautiful and asked them out

One might have thought he was unattractive, one might have been already taken, one might

have simply not been interested, one might have thought he was creepy, so and so forth.

But Finn took the rejection very personally.

Think about it: do we take all rejections personally?

If I ask a stranger for a ride, do I get mad if they say no?

If I go up to someone and say, “give me some money,” do I become resentful if they

If I try to flap my arms and fly, do I become resent at the world for not giving me wings?

I only become resentful if I feel you're blocking me from what I'm entitled too.

Finn believes women are objects that he's entitled too, and their lack of surrender,

their lack of submission, the expression of their own autonomy and freedom is a threat

So rejected entitlement leads to frustration, and accumulated frustration leads to resentment.

And so the belief behind resentment, if I'm going to put it simply, is this: /“you shouldn't

Resentment builds when I believe you're preventing me from receiving what I'm entitled

The resentful eye is always looking for someone to blame.

So what happens when we become resentful?

Like Nietzsche said, resentment is anti-life and anti-growth, and unfortunately, we've

seen stories like Finn play out in real life many times.

The resentful want to annihilate that which they resent.

They want to destroy the thing they think is blocking them from getting what they believe

One person has to lose so the other can win.

But more often, resentment is a lose-lose game.

The feeling of resentment doesn't feel good, so if I carry it with me, I'm already losing.

And if I act on my resentments, it's a loss for the people who I act it out on.

So how do we prevent ourselves from becoming resentful?

In order to defuse all resentment in the mind, this idea has to be true: /there's a place

in this world, and a way to that place, for everyone which can't be denied by anyone

except for themselves./ In other words, it's not possible for anyone to truly get in your

That's the idea that would have to be true for resentment to never build up in the mind.

If we return to the example of Finn, this may mean that he believes, no matter how many

times he's rejected, that there is a right person out there for him.

And there's a way to find and connect with that person, but he just hasn't found the

And now you may be wondering: is it true?

Is there a place in this world, and a way to that place, for everyone which can't

be denied by anyone except for themselves?

Can I construct a scientific experiment to prove that it's true?

Imagine Finn lives out his whole life, and on the very last day, he says, “It was true.

There was a woman for me out there, and it took awhile, but I did find my way to her.

So in this scenario, Finn has proved the belief true.

Finn lives out his whole life, and on the very last day, he says, “It's false.

There was never a woman for me in this world.

I never found her, and I'm not the one to blame.

Women are to blame—and the Men they choose to be with!

In this scenario, has Finn proved the belief false?

What if the right girl did exist but he just never found her?

Earlier I said this belief had to be true to clear the mind of resentment: /there's

a place in this world, and a way to that place, for everyone which can't be denied by anyone

except for themselves./ And this is a belief that you can prove true for your own life,

And I think that means, ultimately, that resentment is a choice.

And this a point I really wanna hammer home.

When you read the manifestos of people like Finn, people who do really atrocious things

to the world, you can see they're resentful.

And they often say something that amounts to, “things could've been different, if

you, the world, didn't make me resentful.”

You have to decide whether the world has a place for you, a place which no one can deny

you but yourself, and then you have to dedicate your whole life to that search.

And at the end of your life, you can say that you never found that place, but you can never

Because it's impossible to prove that it doesn't exist.

Or you can reject the idea that there's a place for you in this world, and you can

become resentful towards the people you think stand in your way, but then you have to be