When Nietzsche writes of health, he writes of “overflowing health,” “well-being,” the “abundance of existence,” “joy,” and “strength.”
His is the health—psychological, physical, and spiritual—of the pre-Socratic Greeks, the Greeks of Homer, “the most accomplished, most beautiful, most universally envied race of mankind.”
He is a problematic philosopher for most of us today. He has a disdain for science and reason, a contempt for democracy and equality, and a disgust for Christian morality.
Yet in our modern world, where health is an undefined concept—deliberately left vague by corporations to better allow them to extract data from our electronic health records and other digital footprints to improve “it”— he is like a breath of fresh air.
Reading Nietzsche to understand an alternative perspective about health is a dangerous game. The meek should avoid this project, and instead wait quietly to inherit the earth.
But for the brave who relish combat—particularly with themselves—his writings on health have much to offer.