270 Nietzsche
these terms: "I am a plant, born near the churchyard" He considered his
power of thought a tool to craft his past, a posteriori, "from which we
would prefer to be descended as opposed to the past from which we did
descend" (1,270; HL § 3). Nietzsche, who had stretched upward so
mightily to reach his "second nature," clearly had to exert himself
increasingly to prevent any return to his "first nature. " He had sought
refuge in self-discovery and self-invention and now felt open to attack
from all sides. He was always friendly, but vulnerable to any indications
of chumminess on the part of others. He was offended when people
saw him as one of them. Hatred festered in him toward everything that
had dragged him down: the milieu of Naumburg, his family, his sister,
his mother, ultimately his friends as well—and, of course, Wagner. AU
of them failed to understand him, but felt they had a right to his friend-
liness and compassion. No one treated him in a matter befitting his sta-
tion in life. During his Zarathustra period, he was exquisitely sensitive to
remarks he considered insulting. He wrote to Ida Overbeck on August
14, 1883: "I feel as though I am condemned to silence or tactful
hypocrisy in my dealings with everybody" (Β 6,424).
He sensed the "affect of distance" (Β 6,418) that separates "higher
man" from the others, but his own exterior failed to convey his special
inner qualities. People did not see him as he saw himself. He was "con-
vinced that no living person could do something in the way this
Zarathustra is" (B 6,386; late June 1883). Nietzsche could endure this
incognito if need be. People could ignore him, but they could not drag
him down; he considered the very notion unbearable. Every time he
completed some writing that struck him as inspired, he became acutely
aware of the oppressive atmosphere surrounding him. Shortly after fin-
ishing the first book of Zarathustra, he wrote to Peter Gast: "The past
year has given me so many indications that people (including my
'friends' and relatives) are ridiculing me, my actual life and activities" (B
6,360; April 17,1883).
In his view, all of these insults, affronts, and disdain stemmed from
the tedious wodd of mediocrity. Nietzsche, the critic of ressentiment,