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First Ted Talk - How Philosophy Changed My Life

By Giulia SalePublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Hi, I am Giulia, and I was 17 years old when I had my first panic attack. At first, I did not even know what it was; I would only feel this big amount of anxiety coming through my chest and rising up until it would suffocate me. Every single time it happened, I was sure I was about to die anytime soon. This brought me to be socially anxious: I would never know when my panic attacks would jump out and humiliate me.

However, in March 2018, I began to read more. I began to read more philosophers, and this was when my life started to flip around.

In general, philosophy is the study of fundamental natural knowledge, reality and existence. In particular, there is one philosopher that really changed my perspective of life. Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a German philosopher that lived in the years from 1844 to 1900. His philosophy grew from a necessity to change the culture of that time through aphorism and irony. We can say that his works were very provocative for his era on which the modern European culture is fund.

In his books, Nietzsche talks about self-overcoming. He created this ideal human being that he calls Übermensch, 'superman.' Superman does not want to give up his envy. He understands that jealousy is what makes him aspire to have more in order to become who he wants to be.

Moreover, this superman is the man that is able to accept the eternal recurrence. Nietzsche describes the eternal recurrence by saying: 'imagine you are by yourself and this demon asks you if you would live this exact moment for the rest of your life.' Superman is the person who would answer yes at every single moment of his life. He is the one that would live the same exact life over and over and over. Why? Because he loves it. Superman says, 'God is dead, and we have killed him.' Yes, because this ideal man is the one that can embrace his existence and does not need hope. He becomes the God of his presence because he is the one in charge of his life, of what is best for him, of what he wants to become.

Coming back to my personal story, before turning 19, I started asking myself if I would be willing to live this life over and over again. My answer was no. From that moment, I kept living and doing stuff that I actually like. I cut out bad friendships and kept the good ones. I also moved away from my home country to switch page completely. After a while, I kept thinking about the idea of eternal recurrence, and I started reliving my life, embracing every single moment. I realised that I needed to learn how to love the most undesirable situations, as well. As Nietzsche says, 'By embracing suffering, we become captains of our being.'

I remember when I had panic attacks, I revive the pain of seeing everybody around me leaving because they do not understand. I refresh the terrible memories that ruined my teenage years. Sometimes I cry. But I enjoy those deep emotions that made me who I am today. And today, I am a person that I love. I am a person that surrounds herself with beautiful things and beautiful people. I am the person that fought through that pain by herself, and that is going to do great things in the future. I am one of the people that killed God.

The goal of this TED Talk is to empower every one of you to embrace who you were, who you are, and who you will become. I hope that next time you ask yourself: 'Would you repeat every memory over and over for the eternity?', you would say yes. On the other hand, make sure that you do not only answer in words but the course of life. Promise yourself to live every moment as if it would be sempiternal.

This is how philosophy changed my life. Thank you for listening.

literature
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About the Creator

Giulia Sale

I write nonsense. I write to organise my million thoughts, but I still cannot put them in order.

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