When you stare into the abyss from afar, the abyss also stares at you - Nietzsche

Those who fight monsters should be careful not to become monsters. When you stare into the abyss from afar, the abyss is also staring into you. —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

(A complete Chinese original sentence is attached, from William Nietzsche's book "Beyond Good and Evil")

I've seen a lot of comics in the category of adventure and fantasy these days, all of which are classic themes of the brave and the devil .

There are two kinds of love, one is the hero♂ and the devil♀, and the other is the hero♀ and the devil♂. (Tell you in a low voice, there are actually brave ♀ and demon ♀, as well as hero ♂ and demon ♂)

But today I won't talk about the topic of love, mainly to talk about what "abyss" is and how to interpret this sentence said by Nietzsche.

Let me share a Japanese manga "The Original Hero and the Original Demon King" . I think this work interprets this famous saying very well.

(The following is the content of the first part of the comic, please be careful with spoilers!)

To put it simply, the story is that a hero who defeated the demon king and the demon king who possessed the hero after being defeated, the travel story of these two people is a bit like the story after the end of the story , just like the fairy tale "Princess and Prince". Live a happy life from now on," an untold story that happened after a Happy Ending.

In this world, the ending that is considered as Happy Ending is the fact that "the brave defeated the demon king". People rejoiced and celebrated because of the fact that after defeating the demon king, the hero lost his job, but no one cared. After all, the biggest threat ( Demon King) has been eliminated.

To put it bluntly, he has a mentality of "use it and throw it away", thinking that if the Demon King disappears, the existence of the hero is no longer needed .

So, it happened as a matter of course, the brave man who walked into the village was no longer regarded as the great hero who saved the world in people's hearts, but was regarded as a dangerous existence, and was afraid of his power, urging him to leave quickly .

The point is coming

During the journey, the Demon King told the hero "I was once a hero too".

It turned out that the brave man was feared by the world after defeating the Demon King because of his superhuman strength, and he couldn't die because of the protection of his immortal body. In this way, day by day, he became more and more desperate and began to curse the world. , and finally became the new Demon King.

Look back at what Nietzsche wrote -

Those who fight monsters should be careful not to become monsters.

When you stare into the abyss from afar, the abyss is also staring into you.

If you only read the latter paragraph, you may not understand the meaning, but the former sentence is relatively easy to understand.

The first paragraph can be read as "a piece of advice" or "a warning", and the second paragraph can be read as "a reason to explain it" - why be careful not to become a monster? Because when you stare into the abyss, the abyss is staring into you.

After all, the action of "seeing" is mutual. Although there is also unilateral staring, when you stare at a person for a long time, it becomes staring , and most people will feel the eyes from others. If you can't look at it, you will turn your head, and the conditions for looking at each other have been met. There is one thing that is very straightforward - "How do you know that I am looking at you if you don't look at me".

Strength is a double-edged sword

The sentence "Those who fight monsters should be careful not to become monsters" can also provide some explanation.

In terms of power, when you have power beyond the world, even if you are performing righteous actions, you still have to be careful, because powerful power can defeat the enemy, but at the same time, it will also hurt your companions and stab yourself.

And when people admire heroes, they are also afraid of their power, because the person who fights monsters must have enough power to match them. Who knows if he will become the next monster? To put it harshly, only monsters can defeat monsters, because people do not regard powerful people as their own kind.

How long can you struggle in difficult circumstances

To explain it in terms of the environment, it can be understood by the sentence "close to the vermillion, those close to the ink are black". Although it is possible to "get out of the mud without staining", realistically speaking, the probability of being assimilated by the environment is still relatively high. of.

If the environment is not friendly to us, and we can't change it, and "can't" hurt those who have hurt us, because when you fight back, at some level, your identity changes from victim to perpetrator, Even in self-defense.

In fact, it is a bit philosophical now. If you define a monster as a "person who hurts others", as a hero who fights against it, you cannot and cannot hurt others, because when you do that, you will It meets the definition of a monster , which is why I emphasized "can't" earlier.

Or should I put it this way, people who can become heroes must have their own persistence and bottom line in their hearts. That is a line that they have drawn for themselves. Once they accidentally cross this line, they will do things that are not recognized by themselves. , then from that moment on, the brave man will disappear, in addition to not being recognized by others, he will not be able to recognize himself.