I want to present and interpret a few quotes from Fichte. The italics are mine. To be clear, I'm not interested in what Fichte "really" meant at the time. I "had" a system or anti-system when I discovered Fichte, and I find it interesting to read him through that lens. I also present him as viewed through that lens.

There is within me an impulse to absolute, independent self-activity. Nothing is more insupportable to me, than to be merely by another, for another, and through another; I must be something for myself and by myself alone...I explain this feeling to myself, by reflection; and add to this blind impulse the power of sight, by thought. — Fichte

I read something like Nietzsche's will to power in this. We might just as well call it a will to nobility or independence. For me it is a crucial point that this is a "blind impulse." Fichte points beneath rationality, beneath justifications in the realm of concept, and postulates an irrational or pre-rational urge. The systems of philosophers are the flowers of this urge.

The immediate feeling of my impulse to independent activity lies at the foundation of this thought; the thought does no more than portray this feeling, and accept it in its own form,—the form of thought.
— Fichte

The urge comes to know itself or portray itself to itself through Fichte's philosophy, for instance. I was originally exposed to this idea through Nietzsche. But here we find that Fichte was already there.

I have found the organ by which to apprehend this reality... Knowledge is not this organ:—no knowledge can be its own foundation, its own proof; every knowledge pre-supposes another higher knowledge on which it is founded, and to this ascent there is no end. It is Faith, that voluntary acquiescence in the view which is naturally presented to us, because only through this view we can fulfil our vocation;—this it is, which first lends a sanction to knowledge, and raises to certainty and conviction that which without it might be mere delusion. It is not knowledge, but a resolution of the will to admit the validity of knowledge. Let me hold fast for ever by this doctrine, which is no mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, bearing with it the most important consequences for my whole existence and character. All my conviction is but faith; and it proceeds from the character, not from the understanding. Knowing this, I will enter upon no disputation, because I foresee that thereby nothing can be gained; I will not suffer myself to be perplexed by it, for the source of my conviction lies higher than all disputation; I will not suffer myself to entertain the desire of pressing this conviction on others by reasoning, and I will not be surprised if such an undertaking should fail. I have adopted my mode of thinking first of all for myself, not for others, and before myself only will I justify it. He who possesses the honest, upright purpose of which I am conscious, will also attain a similar conviction; but without that, this conviction can in no way be attained. Now that I know this, I also know from what point all culture of myself and others must proceed; from the will, not from the understanding. — Fichte

This idea that "no knowledge can be its own foundation" encourages me to read Fichte as non- or post-systematic philosopher. At least in this passage he is an "irrationalist." Others will come to a similar conclusion as his own if they possess "the honest, upright purpose" of which he is conscious. This is elitism. This is not a universal philosophy. It is closed to those who do not experience the urge or will-to-power at a sufficient intensity. They are (it is implied) insufficiently noble. He is implicitly (like Nietzsche) reading philosophies as "symptoms." The noble or good man will manifest this nobility or goodness in a philosophy of freedom that portrays the "will" conceptually. For me a key line is before myself only will I justify it. In its purity (or at a sufficient intensity) this urge toward independence refuses the duty to justify itself.

"All my conviction is Faith" is an abandonment of the authority of an ideal universal reason. Fichte sees the limits of theory. Skepticism is irrefutable. Metaphysics in its bloodless purity is futile. He understands himself to be foundationless in terms of the calculating, logic-chopping mind. If this urge is posited as a necessary structure of the self, then we might ask how this urge is served by being conceptually portrayed. I postulate that this portrayal is a rhetorical weapon against constraints on its own freedom. The urge firsts manifests the notion of an ideal universal reason in order to combat the oppression of superstition. Natural science is justified pragmatically, so we are really talking about ideal reason as a value or an authority. We are talking about unnatural science or what a positivist might call the pseudo-science of metaphysics. This is why the "urge" eventually (if sufficiently intense in the thinking individual) abandons the notion of ideal universal reason as an obsolete tool. The "blind impulse" rejects its dependence on this object that is not itself. It dis-identifies with "Reason." But the individual involved "walks away" from this obsolete tool or identification having transcended or negated "superstition." Yes, Fichte writes of faith, but clearly the supreme "spook" of ideal universal reason or Truth is not abandoned in order to go backwards toward a belief in ghosts and astrology. Reason demystified the world, cleansed it of threatening unknowns. Reason "tamed" the world into a system of predictable necessity that could be exploited without reverence when not being enjoyed aesthetically. Fichte, like Nietzsche, is a "post-rational" or "post-metaphysical" thinker. He can endure skepticism. He is not afraid of the "negative." He has immediate access to his "god," namely his own urge toward independence. Projecting this urge outward on others as the "truth" of their systems, he is not tempted by indirect or confused portrayals of this urge. He reads their systems as projections of personality that do not yet recognize themselves as such.

The metaphysician needs impractical and untestable propositions to be true or false in an ideal "logical" space. To insist that this logical space does or does not exist presupposes this same logical space. As Fichte saw, those earnestly invested in plumbing this logical space as metaphysicians wander in an abyss. True, a systematic thinker can accuse Fichte of a premature retreat from metaphysics. The systematist might tell us that we are either shirking our duty to pursue the Truth or lost in error, which is to say pursuing it incorrectly. But these accusations presuppose an investment in the truth for its own sake. A Fichtean or a pragmatist challenges the necessity if not the sincerity of this investment. While "Truth" is one of the noblest identifications that "Spirit" itself passed through to its current worldview, it understands this identification to be imperfect or not quite absolute. "Spirit" seeks to be "fatherless." It hovers like a perfect sphere, complete in itself. This is a portrayal in the imagination of the goal of a blind or irrational impulse. We can postulate that this impulse wants to know itself conceptually and pictorially, which is to say in philosophy and art.