The Monday after Easter, I feel disoriented, as if with a hang over.  The day is splendid with full sunlight and singing birds.  That is not the only thing on my mind.  I am thinking of Aunt Clara, very sick with the final stages of cancer.  The Sri Lanka bombings over the weekend are disturbing.  At an earlier time in my life, before the internet and real time communications, I would not even know about such as this.  Moreover I think that at an earlier time such a large scale, coordinated and deadly attack would not have occurred.  And there is the report of production quality control problems with the Boeing 737 Max jetliner,– the one that recently crashed twice, upon take off.  My confidence in the future of the time in which I live has been shaken.  Is not everything “falling apart?”  There is no oracle that I may consult for the answer.  If there were, it would be better not to know.

I read this morning a weird and delightful passage written by Nietzsche.  The tale is of two Kings leading a single ass as they encounter Zarathustra on a high mountain trail near Zarathustra’s cave.  It turns out that the Kings are in search of a “superior man,” an individual with inordinate wisdom and ability to administer the affairs of society.  Zarathustra overhears their discussion and discloses himself to them on the path.  He understands the conundrum of their discussion, how political affairs swing as a pendulum.  When governing norms fail, things swing in the direction of populism: populace-virtue  ‘Lo, I alone am virtue!’  Nietzsche is impressed with their insight and just when he is prepared to speak, the ass speaks aloud in verse form.

(Here, it happened that the ass also found utterance: it said distinctly and with malevolence, –YES!)

‘Twas once—I think, in year one of our blessed Lord,—
Drunk without wine, the Sybil thus deplored:—
“How ill things go!
Decline! Decline! Ne’er sank the world so low!
Rome now hath turned harlot and harlot-stew,
Rome’s Caesar a beast, and God—hath turned Jew!

This is a reference to the first century AD passage from the book of Revelation in the New Testament.  From an certain angle of view the world was “going to hell in a hand-basket.”  I doubt this has been more elegantly expressed than Nietzsche’s words coming from the mouth of the ass.

The conversation continues between the two kings and Nietzsche about the conflict within human nature.

Finally here is a starkly beautiful passage:

O Zarathustra, our fathers’ blood stirred in our veins at such words: it was like the voice of spring to old wine-casks.

When the swords ran among one another like red-spotted serpents, then did our fathers become fond of life; the sun of every peace seemed to them languid and lukewarm, the long peace, however, made them ashamed.

How they sighed, our fathers, when they saw on the wall brightly furbished, dried-up swords! Like those they thirsted for war. For a sword thirsts to drink blood, and sparks with desire.”——

excerpt, Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, no. 63 The Talk With Kings. p 239