Saturday dawns bright.  The spring sun intensely warms vegetation, evaporation continues from the rain-soaked ground.  We bear with climate change, the downpours and the droughts as best as we can.  The effects are always local, as the suffering is always personal.  Thus the great lords in the manor houses are enabled to believe and to say whatever they please.  Indeed do they not fly away whenever they please to another home outside of the affected area?  Patronize the peasants.  As long as they are “happy” as long as they do not rise up, all is well.  Give then plenty of social media, video sporting spectacles, pizza and beer.

My day begins.

Our plan is to search for a place to live in the Batavia area.  Several places are in mind.  May good fortune smile upon us today in our search!

I finished reading Thus Spake Zarathustra.  This was Nietzsche’s great work, his straight-up, mature argument for a humanity that aspires to surpass itself.  Does the argument succeed?  As the expected rejoinder, that’s a question that misses the mark.  Nietzsche’s offer is a program for action, a proposed vector for a way-of-life.  Only through the living can it proved or found deficient.

At conclusion of the tale of Zarathustra is a scene that is mysteriously provocative.  The guests within Zarathustra’s cave are enjoying an evening of convivial fellowship.  Fellow travelers, they are extraordinary individuals who have “apparently” laid aside the burden of self loathing, sinfulness, shame, etc. and are in recovery from the gloom that has characterized their old way of life.

The host, Zarathustra has stepped away from the party for a bit.  Upon his return he hears the sound of a service of worship emanating from the room.  The sound indeed is a liturgical call and response, an improvised ritual of worship; the ass which is present in the room, is acclaimed to be divine.

Enjoy Nietzsche’s language!

“They have all of them become pious again, they pray, they are mad!”—he said, and was astonished beyond measure. And behold! all these higher men, the two kings, the pope out of service, the evil magician, the voluntary beggar, the wanderer and shadow, the old soothsayer, the spiritually conscientious one, and the ugliest man- they all lay on their knees like children and credulous old women, and worshipped the ass. And just then began the ugliest man to gurgle and snort, as if something unutterable in him tried to find expression; when, however, he had actually found words, behold! it was a pious, strange litany in praise of the adored and censed ass. And the litany sounded thus:

Amen! And glory and honor and wisdom and thanks and praise and strength be to our God, from everlasting to everlasting!

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

He carried our burdens, he has taken upon him the form of a servant, he is patient of heart and never says Nay; and the God disciplines those who love him. (as a parent disciplines a child)

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

He does not speak: except that he always says Yea to the world which he created: thus does he extol his world. It is his artfulness that is mute: thus is he rarely found wrong.

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

He goes incognito through the world. He is unrecognized.  Grey is the favorite color in which he wraps his virtue. He has spirit, which then he conceals; every one, however, believes in his long ears.

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

What hidden wisdom it is to wear long ears, and only to say Yea and never Nay! Has he not created the world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

You go straight and crooked ways; it concerns you little what seems straight or crooked unto us men. Beyond good and evil is thy domain. It is thine innocence not to know what innocence is.

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

Lo! how you turn away none from thee, neither beggars nor kings. You suffer little children to come unto you, and when the bad boys make you the butt of a joke, then you simply, say ye-a.

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

Thou love she-asses and fresh figs, you are no food-despiser. A thistle tickles your heart when you happen to be hungry. There is the wisdom of a God therein.

—The ass, however, here brayed ye-a.

–excerpt, Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Awakening p. 302