Nietzsche mentioned on his book “Beyond good and evil”, the following:

“Because you are able to tyrannize over yourselves–Stoicism is self-tyranny–“

To live, is to impose limitations, to act, is to choose from one path or from another, whichever suits you the most. Tyrannical living is a most if we want to live truly our lives(as we need to make decisions). Even when we speak, we are choosing from a set of ideas that we gather from the world and cage them into words for other people to understand, because how could you speak the whole thing, it is just not possible. We most act from meaning and from what is relevant to us in any given situation.

Tyranny over self, does not sounds so pretty, but it feels as if that’s the way it is. It feels that we are a someone in our heads giving orders and from experience this tyrannical boss isn’t so great or always obeyed. Sometimes we wish to be healthy, but some buzz hits our way, and there we are drinking til sunrise, thinking, that it most be a worthwhile opportunity, almost always it just a severe hangover.

Stoicism, as Nietzsche argues can be deemed as tyrannical, and that’s something to think about.

It seems as if stoicism runs on willpower, and there are lots of people who certainly do so, but it can be argued that not in a tyrannical way.

Following Carl Jung arguments, we are composed not of a commander and a follower, but of many “archetypes” within them is the shadow.

Navy seal David Goggins talks on Inside Quest about a part of himself that is a monster and not pretty. he says “that I’m pretty comfortable, being pretty fuckin uncomfortable”. and he refers to this part of himself named “the dark side” which can be compared to Jung’s idea of the part of ourselves that represses everything that we don’t like of ourselves, every instinct that most be repressed to work on society, but all this repression I believe, is very powerful, and so Goggins says so:

Now, to the point. I believe tyranny on self is not something to aim at, tyranny does not work. I’d argue that to rule on self, one has to recognize all of our parts, including our shadow, and merge them into a sort of unified, self, that true, is leaded by our consciousness, We have to be conscious enough to know this forces. This is to know thyself, to know our shadows, our knights and our internal turmoil, to unify it and to act. Stoicism is tyranny on self, but more than a tyranny, it can be seen as a good leadership over self. Following stoic principles, will make any life better. Nietzsche just made a criticism, which is fair, however he did not denied stoic principles in his life, in fact he lived with Amor Fati for example, but he did noticed something worthy to think about.