When I first read this, I intuitively felt that it was about suicide. I went to look up how Nietzsche died. It seems that a year or so before his death, he went a bit crazy. They put him in several different places to try to help him get better. He died a year or so after he got sick, due to a series of strokes.
More recently, some doctors speculate that he was manic-depressive. I wouldn’t bet against that. When people with bipolar disorder are really depressed, and are thinking about suicide—that’s how if feels. You’re swamped in heavy darkness and your only hope, it seems, is death. You stare across that abyss and it stares back at you, neither warmly, nor coldly, but expectantly. “You want me?” It asks. “I’m right here.”
There is something desperately seductive about the thought of leaping into that particular abyss. If you stand on the edge, it’s as if your feet get a mind of their own. You can almost watch yourself, dispassionately, taking that last step. Death really doesn’t care one way or the other. Death isn’t a person. It is we who are staring ourselves in the face. That abyss is a mirror, and what it shows us is utter despair. It offers the only surety of surcease.
It would be interesting to know what happened during Nietzsche’s last year. If he felt as bad as I’m guessing he felt, he was grateful for the strokes.