Comrades:

Arthur Schopenhauer

I was just a simple country philologist until I came across Schopenhauer's phenomenal book The World as Will and Representation. His pessimistic philosophy totally spoke to me, and his notion that human existence is characterized by a "will to life" had a huge influence on my own concept of the "will to power."

While I never did give up my love for Schopenhauer, I eventually came to reject most of what he stood for. For starters, he was just so negative all the time: suffering this, suffering that, always with the suffering.

I'll admit it. Like Schopenhauer, I also believe that suffering is an absolutely unavoidable—indeed, essential—part of life, but here's my secret: underneath the boundless sarcasm and constant ridicule I'm always pouring on other philosophers, I'm a total optimist. Schopenhauer? The only reason he didn't just come out and advocate suicide is because he thought none of us deserved an easy escape from the living hell that is existence.

A lover of life such as myself just can't get down with all that pessimism and self-negation. That's part of why I ended up rejecting everything he said—well, everything except for all that horrible stuff he said about women. The only thing I hate more than women is the masses—those stupid, lowbrow masses and their herd mentality…

Whoops, sorry about that. Sometimes I forget to save the ranting for my books.

Lou Andreas-Salomé

Oh, Lou… she was my one and only. She was also the smartest woman I ever met, which makes the fact that she turned down my marriage proposal all the worse.

I met her in Rome way back in 1882 through my friend Paul Rée. She actually proposed an… ahem… ménage à trois with Paul and I (did I mention she was a very "progressive" lady?), but that never happened. What did happen is Paul and Lou ran off together later that year without even saying goodbye. I never saw either of them ever again. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

Some people have argued that the Lou Salomé debacle fueled my misogyny. In actuality, I already had mommy issues (and sister issues), but the fact that Lou up and ran off with a guy I thought was my friend surely didn't help matters—nor did my intense love of the reigning king of Germanic woman-haters, Arthur Schopenhauer.

Franz Overbeck

I'll be honest: I never had all that many friends (greatness requires solitude, you know?), but Franz was there through thick and thin. We met when he took a position as professor of theology at the same university where I was teaching. We even lived in the same place for five years.

When I took early retirement in 1879 due to health problems (I'm not talking about your grandpa's sniffles—I'm talking chronic migraines and a nasty case of irritable bowel syndrome), Franz made sure I received my pension. Ten years later, I sent him what he thought was a "worrying" letter from my temporary lodging in Turin (I had written "I am not a man, but a destiny," which to this very day I maintain is totally accurate and thus no cause for worry), and—the true friend that he was—Franz came immediately to take me to Basel for treatment.

Even though I never recovered from my mental breakdown, Franz never stopped visiting me and, when he saw my sister misrepresenting our relationship (and my work), he wrote an open letter showing my sis to be the liar and opportunist that she was.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wherever I went, I always carried a copy of Emerson's Essays—until some miscreant stole it from me at a Swiss train station, that is. (No biggie—I bought another copy.)

For someone who was never considered a "philosopher," Emerson sure had a profound philosophical influence on my own work. Just between you and me, had I not read Emerson, I might never have arrived at my famous conclusion that one is influenced more by one's own nature and biology than by external factors.

But you don't need me to tell you how big an effect Ralph Waldo had on me: just try reading one of his essays side-by-side with one of mine. It's like we're—well, not brothers, exactly (I'm too original for that), but certainly first or second cousins.

Rivals:

Richard Wagner

Like Professor X and Magneto, Richard and I were the best of buds in the beginning. I was in awe of his music, and he and his wife Cosima were two of the first real admirers of my work. What went wrong, you ask?

Here's the thing: his German nationalism and constant hating on the Jews really started to grind my gears after a while. Sometimes a guy just wants to talk about the weather, you know? His conversion to Christianity was probably the final nail in the coffin; that's when I looked in the mirror and said to myself, "Friedrich, you've got to get away from this nutjob." And so I did.

Later on, I thought it would be good fun to write a couple of lengthy essays on how lame Wagner was. So lame.

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche

I know, I know: "But Freddy, that's your sister!" So? I didn't care much for my mother, either (just so you know), but Elisabeth was a whole new level of loathsome. Not only did she chase away Lou Salomé, the love of my life, she also married an anti-Semitic bigot just to spite me. (Well, okay, I suppose she was also scared of spinsterhood.)

Just how bigoted were they, you ask? Maybe this will give you an idea: soon after their wedding (which I refused to attend, by the way), they actually left Germany to found a colony of "racially pure" Germans in Paraguay called Nueva Germania. Is it just me, or is that totally not the type of behavior you'd expect from normal, non-rabidly-anti-Semitic people?

As if that weren't enough, after I went mad, she published numerous writings about me, spreading the bald-faced lie that I was an anti-Semite with nationalistic tendencies. Thanks, sis. Thanks.

Socrates

Let's be honest: you could probably put most famous philosophers on my list of "rivals." I certainly tried to make fun of all of them. But there's a special place that I have reserved for Socrates... a place as my own personal footstool. "But wait," you say, "didn't Socrates basically invent Western philosophy as we know it?"

Uh, yeah, and that's why I'm putting him on this here list.

You see, as much as I love philosophy, Socrates sort of started the whole thing on the completely wrong foot. For starters, I blame Socrates's rationalism for ruining Greek theater: the idea that something has to be reasonable in order for it to be beautiful inspired that crappy tragedian Euripides to ditch emotion, character development, music, and basically everything that makes a play exciting if it didn't accord with "reason." Hell-o: art is life, and life isn't always reasonable, mmmkay?

What really ticks me off about Socrates, though, is that he thought life was an "illness." Really. When he was forced to drink hemlock by the Athenian council, he asked that a rooster be sacrificed to the god of healing as a token of thanks for dying. There are a lot of things I can't stand, but hatred of life is close to the top of my list.

That being said, I never have been able to shake the feeling that Socrates is a kindred spirit of sorts, and I often think nice things about him—when no one is looking, of course.