The overman surpasses man as he is
by entering into the relatedness to Being—
Being which, as the will of the eternal recurrence of the same,
eternally wills itself and nothing else.
The overman goes toward the eternal recurrence of the same,
because that is where his essential nature is rooted.

Nietzsche cast the overman’s being in the figure of Zarathustra.
Who is Zarathustra?

He is the teacher of the eternal recurrence of the same.

What Is Called Thinking by Martin Heidegger, Part I, Section X, page 106

I seldom think about thinking. I assume that I am thinking all of the time. “Thinking” happens when I select another station on the FM display as I am driving. Or when I place my Starbucks cup on the counter and say out loud, “I’ll have dark roast.” Can that be thinking? Heidegger writes that such instances are hardly thinking. Thinking is rare and difficult, and is provoked upon encountering the unexpected, especially a personal loss. A irreversible event stuns, potentially reminding that I am not thinking at all. I notice how often the un-redeemable erupts, punctures my journey, also that of others around me. The professor insists to awaken to the “unthinking” course of one’s life is the greatest provocation to learn to think. Difficult though the quest surely is.

Heidegger expands, builds upon the writing of Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra, and in The Gay Science — that Existence/Being considered in itself is a willing of itself, an affinity for life and more life. Being with a capital “B” is will, writ large.

Nevertheless it is hardly possible to circumvent the loss, the consequence of decline, a decay to elemental constituents which “life” entails. To put it simply, a stick has two ends. You cannot pick up one end alone. It’s both! The thought occurs then, of time as a recurring matter, rather than linear. There’s a “coming back” even if you cannot buy into reincarnation! In some form what was thought to be over, echoes again, in our present.

Paired with the thought that time entails return, what we superficially assumed was taken from us by fate, is the twin notion of the Übermensch, or overman, the individual who functions as a bridge. The overman/woman says a “yes” to the dark, to a grief wracked banditry of time as well as the triumph-of-yes to the joy of light and of success, and of satisfaction. The overman concludes that ALL is well. These twin concepts belong together – that of the recurrence of everything, and such an individual take ownership of every single bit of life.

To say it in a different mode: there’s no retreat from the jagged edges of this life by imagining that the equation will be supernaturally balanced in the afterlife. The vision that Nietzsche famously cast, which Heidegger illuminates: this life is it. There is no do-over. This life is not a mulligan, that life after this life is what counts for real!

I am uncertain that this illustration works. For me the experience of accompanying a powerful race car to the starting-line, – those moments of pre-race ritual are a sensation of measured calm in the face of whatever happens. It is a privilege, a felt thrill to be there, whether the driver of the car, or a crew-chief responsible for prep and last minute adjustments, or family that lent support and still believe the car and driver has potential yet to be achieved… I could go on. (My role close to the starting line is to capture the best photos that I can of an event lasting a few seconds.) All that is to say, no one there would desire to be anywhere else, or doing anything else, no matter what the outcome proves to be. The magic and the terror of that segment of time is “worth” the living. 

Perhaps you can indicate, whether this gets at the twin concepts of recurrence and the overman/woman who says a “yes” to the light and the dark of life.  A “bridge”, a symbol indicating a mind-space and heart-space alternative to what is customary for us.

Thoughts?