This charming fellow is Courage Wolf. If life's got you down, he has the answer, and he's not afraid of what consequences the action will bring. He's got everything in life figured out, and he's more than happy to share his advice with the world. The defining aspects of courage wolf mostly have to do with his cavalier attitude, and message that most of life's problems can be solved with a little courage. Or insanity.
One philosopher who would smile upon Courage Wolf's attitude is Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who wrote most of his books between the years 1879 and 1888. In those nine years, Nietzsche published a book a year, an astounding accomplishment even by modern standards. In one of those books, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche introduces one of his core concepts, that of the Ubermensch, or over-man. Nietzsche writes:
"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? ...And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.... The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, §§3–4)
What Nietzsche describes in the above paragraph are the three fundamental traits that the ubermensch should have. First, the ubermensch must be one who is unafraid of life, and whatever it brings. Second, the ubermensch must be willing to be a bridge to the rest of mankind. The final and most important step for Nietzsche is that the ubermensch must be able to see life for what it is. He acknowledge that life inevitably brings pain, and he must not advocate trying to stop pain, but rather advocate fighting through it. Beyond this, the ubermensch must be a mentor. He must be willing and able to allow others to see his example, and empower them to also rise above their chaotic nature. The ubermensch to Nietzsche is absolutely imperative if mankind is ever to become what it is meant to be. Without the ubermensch, Nietzsche worried that society would become nothing more than a herd of sheep, obeying and never thinking. With this in mind we return to Courage Wolf.
In this one example, Courage Wolf demonstrates all the qualities of the ubermensch. He is unafraid. He is willing to pass his wisdom on to us, the lowly masses and he recognizes the pain life brings. Courage Wolf never advocates that attempt to rid life of pain. Instead, he advocates that we always see what can be learned from our current situation, and apply that to the future. These qualities espouse exactly what Nietzsche envisioned when he thought about what the role model for humanity should be.
Nietzsche's philosophy is often misunderstood and misapplied because most of the works we read now are not even Nietzsche's own words. The most egregious of these misrepresentations is the charge that Nietzsche is an anti-semite. When Nietzsche had a nervous breakdown in 1889, his sister, an ardent follower of the National Socialist Party (Nazi), and an anti-semite, took over the publication of his works. Most of the language that has become known to link his work to anti-semitism were added after his death in 1900. In fact, Nietzsche wrote an essay specifically denouncing anti-semitism, which caused him to break from his first publisher. Courage Wolf provides an ideal example of what Nietzsche's pure hopes for humanity are. That humanity has the courage to overcome its problems, and is able to accept life for what it is, and overcome it.
Even though Courage Wolf can safely lay claim to the title of "Internet Ubermensch", he is not a clear choice for the title of best internet representation of Nietzsche's overall philosophy. For that title, Courage Wolf faces some stiff competition from another meme that rivals even Courage Wolf's level of insanity.
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