"How to become what one is" is the maxim Nietzsche takes from Pindaro's II Pythian Ode, to oppose to the "Know thyself" (nosce te ipsum). "Know thyself" is a "recipe for ruin", while "how to become what one is" expresses the "conserve thyself". In order to establish this opposition, though, some clarifications are required. Above all, we cannot ignore that Nietzsche turns to the Latin translation nosce te ipsum to the Greek gnothi seauton, an ingenious choice, especially if we take into consideration the interpretative disputes around the meaning of "Know thyself" in antiquity. Originally, the Delphic maxim was equivalent to the sophrosyne, fulfilling its duty of recommending caution to man in his practical life. Subsequently, however, the "Know thyself" was assimilated as an appeal so that man would know his divine nous. This interpretation, predominant during Hellenistic and Imperial times, was introduced by the Platonic tradition, and was later, by Philo, combined with elements from the Hebrew tradition, culminating with the idea that the knowledge of oneself can only be reached by the conversion towards God. This digression reveals, though, that while Nietzsche uses the nosce te ipsum, he seeks to question precisely this late meaning, manifestly metaphysical, attributed to "know thyself". The Delphic maxim, then, appears as a problem in that it makes man an animal haunted by its lack of being. The illusion of wanting to achieve an "ideal of human being", "ideal of happiness", "ideal of morality", the faith of being deposited in the future or in the past, engenders the negativity in man and prevents him from being himself. Therefore, the maxim "how to become what one is" searches to indicate that it's only through a fatalist manner of facing life, that is, one that dispenses the knowing thyself and wanting itself differently, that one can conserve its' selfsameness and be complete.
