Nietzsche, illness, and meaning

Nietzsche was perpetually sick throughout his life, suffering from debilitating nausea, pain, and worsening eyesight. These problems inhibited his career as a professor and even stopped him from being able to read and write for weeks at a time. These facts at first can appear almost ironic when juxtaposed with the general tone of his philosophy, which abstractly values strength and vigor over weakness. For example, in Geneology of Morals, he claims that in the time of antiquity morality was predominately "aristocratic" and valued “good=aristocratic=beautiful=happy=loved by the gods,” which was gradually replaced by a “slave” morality, which holds that “the wretched, the poor, the weak, the lowly, [...] are the only ones who are pious.” He argues that the latter is developed by the oppressed as a result of feelings of resentment caused by the frustrated desire for revenge against the oppressor, which he calls ressentiment. Furthermore, he believes that in the past two millennia there has been a “slave revolt” in morality, with powerful kings praying not to Gods of war, as in antiquity, but to “that awful paradox of a ‘god on the cross." Ressentiment, according to Neitszche, is "poison" because a morality that rejects power in general results in the development of morally and politically incoherent social structures, which Neitzsche sees as inciting a rise in nihilism. All of this is to say that Neitszche is committed to the idea that power must be incorporated into our systems of morality as a valuable resource rather than something to be idealistically shunned. So how was it that Neitzsche developed or squared these beliefs under conditions of perpetual physical malady and affliction?

Neitzsche's periods of recovery from illness characterized his most jubilant writing. In The Gay Science, for example, he states that "[this book] seems to be written in the language of the wind that brings a thaw: [...] one is constantly reminded of winter's nearness as well as the triumph over winter that is coming, must come, perhaps already has come [...] Gratitude flows forth incessantly, [...] the gratitude of a convalescent." In other words, it is the triumph over the violence of illness that informs Nietzsche's view on power, enabling him to extract meaning from experiences of intense suffering. This is inspiring to me because it points to an understanding of the duality of life manifesting in ways such as illness resulting, not in an adversarial power-relation of master and slave where the master is perpetually healthy, but rather a bracketed power-relation of 'incessant gratitude' born out of the subjective experience of desire inherent to violent illness. In this sense, illness itself could be compared to a sort of wilderness through which one could sojourn; I'm reminded of Anne Bradstreet's poem "for deliverance from a fever" --

When sorrows had begirt me round, 
And pains within and out, 
When in my flesh no part was found, 
Then didst Thou rid me out. 
My burning flesh in sweat did boil, 
My aching head did break, 
From side to side for ease I toil, 
So faint I could not speak. 
Beclouded was my soul with fear 
Of Thy displeasure sore, 
Nor could I read my evidence 
Which oft I read before. 
"Hide not Thy face from me!" I cried, 
"From burnings keep my soul. 
Thou know'st my heart, and hast me tried; 
I on Thy mercies roll." 
"O heal my soul," Thou know'st I said, 
"Though flesh consume to nought, 
What though in dust it shall be laid, 
To glory t' shall be brought." 
Thou heard'st, Thy rod Thou didst remove 
And spared my body frail 
Thou show'st to me Thy tender love, 
My heart no more might quail. 
O, praises to my mighty God, 
Praise to my Lord, I say, 
Who hath redeemed my soul from pit, 
Praises to Him for aye.