There is no more confused or impenetrable spectacle than that which arises when both parties are passionately in love with one another and both consequently abandon themselves and want to be the same as one another … The beautiful madness of this spectacle is too good for this world and too subtle for human eyes.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, Section 532

Being in love is a peak experience that most people long for - the experience of complete obsession and total intimacy, the sense of being overtaken by another person. It is the subject of poetry, music, cinema and art.

The ancient Greeks used different words for love like philia, eros and agape. Agape love was an idea that Christianity took up with gusto - the idea of love that is self-sacrificing, that gives up everything, is willing to suffer and even die, for someone else. This, of course, was thought to be exemplified in the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Nietzsche can seem to …

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Thus speaks all great love; it overcomes even forgiveness and compassion.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “On the Pitying”

Some of the best things that have happened to me in my life have also been the worst. For example, I think about when I was an ordained Anglican minister and became an atheist through reading people like Nietzsche. Chaos ensued, my life fell apart. I suffered, and the people around me suffered. Greatly. But I am glad to have gone through that and have had the opportunity to grow, and ultimately to end up where I am now.

This is not uncommon - I often hear people talking about the pivotal moments in their lives as moments of suffering and upheaval. But often, when we talk about moral or ethical responses to people, we talk about removing difficulty. Alleviating suffering. Avoiding hardship.

I often wonder if this is the best ethics. If we want to be our best, and for others …

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Some of the best things that have happened to me in my life have also been the worst. For example, I think about when I was an ordained Anglican minister and became an atheist through reading people like Nietzsche. Chaos ensued, my life fell apart. I suffered, and the people around me suffered. Greatly. But I am glad to have gone through that and have had the opportunity to grow, and ultimately to end up where I am now.

This is not uncommon - I often hear people talking about the pivotal moments in their lives as moments of suffering and upheaval. But often, when we talk about moral or ethical responses to people, we talk about removing difficulty. Alleviating suffering. Avoiding hardship.

I often wonder if this is the best ethics. If we want to be our best, and for others to be their best, isn’t some form of suffering not only inevitable b…

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Friendships are vitally important. What makes for a good friend? How is a friendship different to other types of relationships - romantic, parental, sibling?

Here are two common misconceptions about strong friendships:

(1) A friend is always there for you, no matter what
(2) Once a friend, always a friend

(1) I think one of the things that makes friendship so valuable, and so resilient, is that it is part of friendship to seriously disagree. Strong friendship relies on an intimate and at the same time dispassionate view of another person. You have to know what makes them tick. You have to know them individually, deeply, personally.

This means you will also know their darkness. The things that they get wrong, misjudge, underestimate, overvalue, overreact to, underplay. A true friend will understand how these errors in judgement play out. They will know just how to respond - and it won’t always be support, or …

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