LIKE KIERKEGAARD’S, FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE’S fundamental question concerns individual existence. Unlike Kierkegaard’s, it is a test of strength rather than of faith. Nietzsche (1844–1900) wants to know whether it is possible to say an unreserved ‘yes!’ to life, though he doubts that anyone is strong enough for this in his own day (A , ‘Preface’). In place of otherworldliness, other worlds where we have it all (even eternal life), Nietzsche wants to affirm this world and this life that we suffer in. This means ceasing to pretend that there is another world. Indeed, for Nietzsche, such otherworldliness is the very nihilism that has eaten away at the soul of European culture. The more truth has been linked with the elsewhere of eternity, the more mortal life has been cursed by its identification with falsehood. Even wise Socrates (who started this whole business of asking after what does not change) was tired of life and grateful for the balm of approaching of death – why else would his final act be to ask for a sacrifice to the Greek god of medicine? (TI , ‘Socrates’, 1) And as for Plato, his desire for death was surely even stronger, as Seneca (2007: 79) suggested in his Consolation to Marcia:

Why is it so difficult to affirm mortal, earthly existence? Nietzsche is unsure how to answer this question; unsure whether it is difficult for all people to affirm change, or whether it is a particularly European disease. No doubt it is a temptation of all mortals to cling to what does not change: