238 NietzscheNietzsche presented these ideas not as assenions but as deliberations
to be set off against other considerations. Although science proves to be
the "great bestower of pain," it can also bring into play its "counter-
force, its tremendous capacity to make new galaxies of joy light up!"
(3,384; Gtf § 12). What sort of joy that might be is not specified here, but
we have already come to know Nietzsche's phenomenological pleasure
in vigilance and attentiveness, and we have seen how much joy they
occasioned. We also recall that Nietzsche cried for joy at the Surlej boul-
der as he contemplated the idea of eternal recurrence. His was not just
the joy of discovery but an existential and pragmatic conviction that
even individual life, because it recurs, carries enormous weight.
Consequendy, the idea that expands way out into the distance—he
called it "cosmic"—culminates quite nearby, and thereby confers the
dignity of eternity on the most intimate and individual sense of life. In
this case, there is simply nothing ephemeral. No galaxy is expansive
enough to destroy the significance of the litde specks of dust we call
"individuals."
<CI cannot lose myself" could be construed as a statement conveying
pleasure, but to reveal its appalling potential, one need only reformulate
it ever so slighdy: "I will never be rid of myself!" In The Gay Science, how-
ever, Nietzsche did not wish to grant depression any power over him,
and fought it off with euphoria evoked by sheer force of will. This feel-
ing of euphoria did not simply lift him up; he needed to summon up the
courage to achieve it When the book was published in the summer of
1882, he wrote to Lou Salomé: "What torments of every kind, what soli-
tudes and surfeit of life! And against all of that, as it were against death
and life, I brewed this medicine of mine, these thoughts of mine with
their litde stripes of unclouded sky overhead" (Β 6,217; July 3,1882). In a
later preface to the second edition of The Gay Science, Nietzsche
remarked: "Gratitude keeps on pouring out" (3,345; Gì Preface § 1).
Where did this "gratitude" stem from? Did the will to truth actually
reveal a conciliatory image of reality that gave Nietzsche a feeling of
comfort? Had his sensations of fear, desertion, and senselessness sim-