“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. “
I had always interpreted this quote as one about certain individuals who aid psychiatrically troubled people. The ones that poured their hearts and souls into healing people and combatting the darkness within the affected’s hearts brought upon by traumatic events but in turn, became affected themselves.
But I have come to understand, that this quote applies to all of us. All who are courageous enough to look for these monsters, all who aim to decipher wrong from right. These monsters hinder the growth of love by manipulating our feelings of fear, sadness, anger, and betrayal; they come in form of humans, objects, and ideals. But it’s very difficult to live this life without directly contradicting oneself throughout its course. Perhaps one aims to be loving, loyal, courageous, and compassionate but within a lifetime, all of these traits will be, at one point or several, repudiated. And in these moments we may have been pushed far too much and for far too long that we sink into the very set of ideals we generally reject, we embody the monsters that we work so hard to oppose.
note: I’m not sure that this is actually what Nietzsche meant by this quote, I did not do any reading on that at all so this is just my own personal interpretation and analyzation of the quote so yah don’t murder me about that.
this is also part 1 bc i definitely have more to say about this
see ya soon