Start: 20080504 [18:7|125] 0913 UTC
End: 20080504 [18:7|125] 0949 UTC
Location: Traversa Giulio Cesare, 80125, Napoli, Campania, Italia
Timezone: UTC+2

Watching my cousins grow up, enter adolescence– choosing to try to be in, to be popular, to impress others, all these struggles to fit in. In the end one of the critical marks of a person: whether one chooses to be a nonconformist or a conformist. Also whether one chooses to pretend to be a nonconformist– the “counter-culture” kids and so on– all those who are apart from the large herd to form their own little herd. Nonconformist individuals are rare. This is one of the major distinctions between I and most others. Also major difficulty in forming relationships, friendship. MST, KJB, all pretend nonconformists– maybe not even that. Always distance between other people and I. I’ve always carved my own path, always set myself aside, never had any interest in being like others or fitting in– in fact, disgusted by those who do this. Going at one’s own speed, trailblazing, forming one’s one trajectory, having personal objectives, creating rather than borrowing or adopting values, doctrines, everything “My Way”– this has distinguished me from others, but also separated me from them.

You run ahead? Are you doing it as a shepherd? Or as an exception? A third case would be as a fugitive. First question of conscience.

Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented? In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor. Second question of conscience.

Are you one who looks on? Or one who lends a hand? Or one who looks away and walks off? Third question of conscience.

Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead? Or walk by yourself? One must know what one wants and that one wants. Fourth question of conscience.
(Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 37-40)

The typical forms of self-formation. Or: the eight principal questions.
1. Whether one wants to be more multifarious or simpler?
2. Whether one wants to become happier or more indifferent to happiness and unhappiness?
3. Whether one wants to become more contented with oneself or more exacting and inexorable?
4. Whether one wants to become softer, more yielding, more human, or more “inhuman”?
5. Whether one wants to become more prudent or more ruthless?
6. Whether one wants to reach a goal or to avoid all goals (as, e.g., the philosopher does who smells a boundary, a nook, a prison, a stupidity in every goal)?
7. Whether one wants to become more respected or more feared? Or more despised?
8. Whether one wants to become tyrant or seducer or shepherd or herd animal?
(Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 909)