“Hiking With Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are” by John Kaag

Nietzsche was the first philosopher that I read that I felt like I connected to, somehow, mentally. I felt as though he was articulating something that I had felt for a very long time while reading The Birth of Tragedy as an undergraduate. Which is not an uncommon sentiment among adolescents, his nihilism is very popular among the younger philosophy crowd.

In this memoir of sorts, Kaag describes how when he was in college he went on a Nietzschean pilgrimage to Basel, Switzerland to walk in his footsteps for a time. He then makes the same journey as an adult, with his wife and daughter alongside him. In doing so he describes how his interpretations of Nietzsche have changed over time, and how his life has changed in general from the two trips.

This isn’t so much a book about Nietzsche’s work than it is about the people who read Nietzsche. As such it’s for a very specific demographic, which just happens to include me. Kaag does include explanatory segments about Nietzsche’s life and works, enough so you understand the ideas at play here, but he doesn’t go into any extreme philosophical depth. As such it’s very accessible, or if you are me and haven’t read these works in a while, it makes for a good recap. I get the feeling though that if you have picked up this book, you know who Nietzsche is and what he’s done.

But Kaag’s main point here is that Nietzsche is not just for the young nihilists looking for a reason to abandon the world, his thoughts take time, years in fact, to truly make sense and mature in your brain. There is a depth to Nietzsche’s words and deeds that cannot be fully comprehended unless you have lived a little bit, have some experience outside of the book. Which is what makes Nietzsche really cool, in my opinion, there is some practicality to it. Some application to the outside world.

This book made me want to read Nietzsche again. And not just the works that I’m familiar with, like everything, to get a sense of the man behind the thoughts. And to travel myself to Basel and see what it is like, get a feel of what was surrounding Nietzsche as he came up with concepts like the eternal recurrence and wrote certain books. And this is really an ode to his life and his philosophy, so Kaag really hit the nail on the head here.