Wrestling with Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Aphorism 1

Nietzche believes that all wise men before him were infected by the same sickness, namely the idea that life is worthless. Ostensibly at the onset Nietzsche sees himself as the only defender of or champion for a certain kind of fullness and joy to life. Yet this type of life or way of living that he fights for, that he spends his whole life devoted to, is never fully explained to the reader. Furthermore, it doesn’t really seem to have legs of its own to stand on, as it is always found in opposition to the prevailing and evident ways of life surrounding Nietzsche. I imagine Nietzsche’s philosophy will deflate rather quickly once it runs out of things to yell at. He points endlessly to the people around him, and exclaims that they are sick, that they have been fooled by the legacy of philosophers before them. Yet, he has the audaciousness to begin this particular book with the assertion, “In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless…Everywhere and always their mouths have uttered the same sound—a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness with life, full of opposition to life.” By this definition of wise, Nietzsche ought to count himself the wisest.
It also seems apparent to me that Philosophy ought to have a prescriptive function; if it speaks anything wise at all it should be for the welfare of the people receiving it. If people are already well off when a philosophy finds them, I doubt it would have much more to say than, “well done, carry on.” And if that’s all it has to say to us, do we really have any use for it? Clearly then, any philosophy worth hearing, worth remembering, is one that points to the ills of the people in order that they may be healed. Indeed, this is exactly what Nietzsche aims to do with his own philosophy, even if it is a philosophy that deconstructs all others, it still functions in this way: for the good of people…or so Nietzsche would have us believe. Thus, the “wisest” of every age are those individuals who have prescribed a new and better way of living to the people than the one they are presently living in. Nietzsche, the “deconstructionist,” seems to be functioning in the exact same manner as the wise men of every age who he abhors. As he puts it, he is just another raven “inspired by the smell of carrion.”