Say who everyone is as you go along - Faculty of Philosophy ...

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'We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own
heavens. We create our own hells. We are the architects of our own fate' (WD 17)
Nevertheless, neither Nietzsche nor the Zen Buddhists envision a straightforward
transition from suffering to happiness. There is a philosophical problem standing in
the way of this. Happiness and unhappiness are dialectically related. In a quasi
Hegelian sense, happiness and unhappiness are antithetical. Although semantically,
psychologically and ontologically, opposites, happiness and unhappiness are
mutually dependent on all three levels. It follows that one can no more abolish
unhappiness and leave happiness as a residue that one may abolish up so that there
remains only down. This dialectical dependence is implicit in Nietzsche's remark:
'without our ready tolerance of pain we should have to give up too many pleasures!'
(DD para.354 p.166)
It is a commonplace (inexplicable by evolutionary theory) that many pleasurable
human activities cause us suffering. Harmful and addictive drugs such as alcohol,
heroin and nicotine bring disease and death. Sexual relationships might bring
anxiety, emotional trauma, and disease. Overeating causes obesity and heart disease.
These are specific instances of the dependence of happiness on unhappiness.
Nietzsche says
'happiness and misfortune are brother and sister' (GS 267)
Nietzsche calls his suffering his dog:
'My Dog. - I have given a name to my suffering, and call it "dog", - it is just as
faithful, just as importunate and shameless, just as entertaining, just as wise, as any
other dog' (GS 244)
The metaphor is in many ways apposite. Suffering is faithful because it follows with
inevitability certain kinds of thought and action. Suffering is importunate and
shameless because it appears irrespective of one's wishes to the contrary. It is
entertaining because it is just about possible to view suffering with wry, cynical,
humour. It is wise because it teaches you about life. Nietzsche has already pointed
out that we are ironically attached to our suffering. We are also attached to pet dogs.
If Nietzsche were to push the metaphor to its Zen conclusion he would have to advise
freeing the dog.
Despite, or perhaps because of, their endorsement of the quasi-Hegelian ‘identity’
(ie, mutual dependency) between happiness and unhappiness, Nietzsche and the Zen
Buddhists think this opposition may be transcended in a higher form of happiness.
The transcendence is quasi-Hegelian because it is dialectical (or more accurately,