The Downgoing of Tim Dillon, a Nietzschean Comedian: "Make Peace With the Monster Under the Bed. Defeat Him. Be Him!”

"You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes!" -- Nietzsche's Zarathustra

There is a Nietzschean strain in comedian Tim Dillon’s oddly coherent ramblings. Take this very dark but very funny critique of safetyism and the padded play pen of modernity from ep. 185 [transcript begins at 1:01:42]:

There's something weird about being in your 30s and it’s like, everything's about weed. Something odd about that.

Grow up. Drink wine, take pills. Take pills and drink wine. Get drunk. OD in your bed. Die.

Be a fucking adult. Do something adult like get a drinking problem and lose your kids. That's what adults do. They don't fucking smoke pot, talking about how disappointing the new Star Wars was.

Lose your firm! Snort your house! Destroy yourself with pharmaceuticals.

I don't care. I'm not telling you to be a moralist, but enough of being a fucking pothead when you're in your mid 30s. Grow the fuck up. “I smoke to go to sleep.” Well, deal with your demons! Make peace with the monster under the bed. Defeat him. Be him!

I don’t hear this as literal advice about drugs (though it is in some ways), but as an exhortation to wearied millennials: Break the spiritual and cultural malaise of 21st century America, escape the mimetic death spiral, create your own values. That process of becoming requires one to throw prudence aside and hold moderation in contempt, at least sometimes. Moderation in moderation.

You have to save room for tragedy, make space for failure, delight in your suffering. This is the downgoing that Nietzsche spoke of through Zarathustra (or that Zarathustra spoke of through Nietzsche).

From chapter 4 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch — a rope over an abyss.

A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an overgoing and a downgoing.

I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.

From chapter 17:

And be on your guard against the good and the just! They would rather crucify those who create their own virtue — they hate the solitary ones.

Be on your guard, also, against holy simplicity! All that is not simple is unholy to it; it likes to play with fire and burn — at the stake. …

But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you ambush yourself in caverns and forests.

You solitary one, you go the way to yourself! And your way leads you past yourself and your seven devils!

You will be a heretic to yourself, and a sorcerer and a soothsayer, and a fool, and a doubter, and a reprobate, and a villain.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes!

Tim Dillon’s echoes of Nietzsche are so compelling because his life is a testament to downgoing. As he has detailed in various podcasts and stand up bits, he was raised by a schizophrenic mother and distant father, struggled with drugs and alcohol from his early teens through his mid-20s, and burned out many times before eventually finding success as a comedian.

But as Dillon hints in this bit and many others, these rock bottoms are an essential part of his success. What if he had taken a more stable path — went to an average college in New York, got a sales job he despised, dabbled in open mics but never really threw himself into the scene. Where would he be today? That timid and safe branch of life is what Dillon is warning us about. It scares him much more than the monster under his bed.

Dillon talked about this will to confront the abyss and how it shaped his philosophy comedy for years before he found success.

Here he is on the Worst Gig Ever podcast in 2013, when he was still working as an NYC tour guide and doing open mics (transcript starts around 7:25):

When I first moved to New York City, I moved in with an ex-methamphetamine addict and her husband. I knew it was gonna be a horror, right? But I did it anyway. I was told by everyone else in in the community, people we knew, not to do it and I did it. I took a job in Staten Island and I had to commute every day on a ferry. I knew it was gonna be the worst thing in the world but I did it anyways.

This is who I am. I wish I could tell you why. I wish I could tell you why I am so drawn to things that test me as a person, test my abilities — it’s like, how much can I take? If I can sit through this show, if I can get up there and do just 15 minutes to no one on New Year's Eve, and I can go home and wake up and still go back to do comedy the next day. …

The first seven months in New York City, I lived in a place where I never wanted to be home. I was always at open mics or shows. I was always out there mining for material. I’d walk around Times Square at night because I wouldn’t want to go home to them fighting. It was like I was 10 again. … Sometimes it just puts you in a frame of mind where you’re like, “I have to laugh about this.” … My humor has always come from: Let me make what's tragic funny.

I welcome any other examples of Tim Dillon’s Nietzschean streak in the comments! Or feel free to share bits from other comedians in his universe expressing similar sentiments.