According to Nietzsche, both the ego and the will comprise the tools of an individual body. Although they help the body to react to a particular situation, the influence they spread is significantly different. According to Nietzsche, the ego functions to think and evaluate certain situations, and gives the final evaluation to the will. Once the will receives that ego’s message, the will function as a hand of its spirit. The will is destined to gehorchen, a German word for listening, to the sense of things that the ego projects to it. The will then creates itself, and once it tries to create beyond itself, it reaches self-overcoming. Thus, interconnectivity between the terms prevails.
In The Portable Nietzsche indicates the three types of the will: the will to truth, will to power, and will to revenge. Nietzsche believes that the will to truth believes in absolutes, whether it is good or evil. The book says, “You want to make all being thinkable, for you doubt with the well-founded suspicion that it is already thinkable” (Nietzsche 225). In other words, Nietzsche believes that the will to truth also acts as an educator or a wise person, since it has the urge to tell people what is good or evil according to the will. The second will, the will to power, “speak of good and evil too, and of valuations” (225). It is wise, sensuous, without lust, and wants to get to the very nature of life. Nietzsche also calls this will “the unexhausted procreative will of life” (226). It is not only a creative will but also wants to overcome itself so that it can go beyond itself. The last will, will to revenge, is described as “the will’s gnashing of teeth and most secret melancholy. Powerless against what has been done” (251). Nietzsche also notes, “The spirit of revenge, my friends, has so far been the subject of man’s best reflection; and where there was suffering, one always wanted punishment too. For ‘punishment’ is what revenge calls itself; with a hypocritical lie, it creates a good conscience for itself” (252).
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The soul has a different given role than the body. It is also called the psyche; there are two types of souls: the soul of the Overman and the soul of the Lastman. Nietzsche describes the Overman as “the meaning of the earth” (Nietzsche 125). The Overman can create beyond itself through the body. In the Overman, both the ego and will wants to escape the body so that they can be free and immortal. The ego and will realize that men are mortal beings and cannot escape death. Driven by their fear of death, both the ego and will tries to escape the body so that they can become immortal. However, “the creative self-created respect and contempt; it created pleasure and pain. The creative body created the spirit as a hand for its will” (147). That is why, if the ego and will decides to leave the body, they will have nothing to think about. Seen in Zarathustra’s Prologue, the Lastman is said to be someone who is “no longer able to despise himself” (129). The Lastman is also seen as someone who asks a lot of questions, thus making it seem like he is not willing to learn for himself and prefers to obtain answers from other people.
In Zarathustra’s Prologue, Section 1 talks about receiving wisdom from the sun. Like the sun, who does not stop giving sunlight to everyone, the Overman needs to be like the sun, who should not be tired of giving to others. When Zarathustra says, “I must go under-go down” (Nietzsche 122), it is referring to the spirit that it must go back to the body for the ego to be able to think. By doing this, the outcome of the actions would be wise and not bring others down. An Overman wants to be a creator. In chapter 9, Zarathustra says, “he is the creator” (135). A man who has a will to power can create, and thus the Overman’s characteristic is mentioned in Zarathustra Prologue.
In “the Despisers of the Body,” the ‘I’ is referred to ego, the will, and the sense while the ‘self’ is referring to the body. Every thought that comes to our spirit of consciousness is accompanied by pain or pleasure. As the body is a being beyond itself, and Overman can create beyond itself while the Lastman cannot create. The Lastman experiences the pain because it is a prisoner to his anger towards time. In this section, the body created the will and the ego, which gives personification, putting essences back to sensuous life, of what the body is, and finally making the body want to create beyond itself.
On “Self-Overcoming,” it is understood that life is always overcoming itself, but it is a self-overcoming. The will to truth is a will that wants to see objectively, and it only belongs to the wisest. Nietzsche believes that the will’s relationship to the body is that it wishes to oppose the body. The will to power is shown when Zarathustra says, “whatever I create and however much I love it – soon I must oppose it and my love; thus my will-will it” (Nietzsche 227). The will can also serve the body by reevaluating the old self, and that is through listening to the subject’s senses first before evaluating. An Overman can take this the positive way when it stays using will to power. But with the Lastman, it will reevaluate its old self, but will seek revenge because it cannot turn back time.
The bridge in “On Redemption” could be understood as the journey between the past to the present. In this section, the will wants to tries to change and create, it can change the future but never the past. Nietzsche mentioned that the Lastman is too imprisoned by his anger of changing the past, and says, “every prisoner becomes a fool, and the imprisoned will redeems himself foolishly” (Nietzsche 251). The Lastman is unable to think and cross the bridge because he is stuck in the past and not being able to accept the fact that the past cannot be changed. Different from the Lastman, the Overman says, “but thus I will it; thus shall I will it” (253). This shows the transition of the Overman, crossing the bridge, understanding that the past cannot be undone, and focusing on what is ahead and changing the future instead of the past.
Lastly, “On the Vision and the Riddle,” the first part of the section talks about Zarathustra carrying a dwarf on his back. The dwarf on Zarathustra’s back could be the personification of the soul of the Lastman, seen through when the dwarf says, “all truth is crooked; time itself is a circle” (Nietzsche 270). It wants to make Zarathustra believe that time can be turned around, and things could be done all over again. By doing this, it is creating a burden for men because it wants to believe that man can turn back time. Once a man realizes that they cannot turn back time, it leads to will to revenge, thus making them a prisoner of time. The second part of this section is the shepherd and the snake. The shepherd represents the Lastman, while the snake represents the wisdom, dread, nausea, hatred, pity, and also the past. Through biting the snake’s head, the Overman is born, breaking the chains of the Lastman so that it would not be forever stuck in wanting to change the past. A man can only die because of it’s will; in other words, no once can take death way from man, even though someone takes your place to die, you will eventually have to die. If the snake kills the shepherd, it will make the will of the shepherd to become a revengeful will, since man cannot undo the past or present once it dies.
In conclusion, to understand Nietzsche’s point of view on life, knowing the ego and the will, as well as the Overman and Lastman, is very helpful to think about an individual’s own and personal life. An individual can realize that what they are thinking right now determines the actions that they are about to do in regards to the thoughts being processed inside the body. One could also realize that they are too stuck on revenge and the past, and maybe it is time to let go of the past and be like the Overman that thinks forward, creating possibilities for the present and the future.
