> though I suspect it has very little to do with Nietzsche and a whole lot
> more to do with religious writers and speakers who've been talking like this
> since, what?, 1870s?
>
Yeah, I don't expect that Oprah's been reading The Birth of Tragedy or anything. But all of that highest evolution of the self within a reality that is the purest expression of my thought stuff strikes me as some kind of off-the-shelf Nietzchianism. Although now that I think about it, a pretty important distinction - if I understand Nietzsche - is that Zarathustra is always butting heads against the world. Oprah, on the other hand, knows damn well that there are millions of people eager to listen.