A friend commented regarding the post of yesterday, that my anger was showing, a turbulence roiling the waters of mind and expression. Nevertheless I continue because what follows in the Nietzschean tale is important that we consider.

Our leading character in this tale is Zarathustra, who by chance happens upon a gathering of townspeople in the marketplace square. They are there to be entertained by a high-wire walker, (the rope dancer) who is to traverse the square upon a rope stretched high overhead of the observers. Who is not eager to see a life and death performance? The crowd waits breathlessly. Zarathustra having something to say seizes the interlude before the main event to deliver his message to the crowd.

~*~

Perhaps you’ve been at a concert, the opening act is ending, everyone is anxious to experience the main event. In the crowd someone shouts out for the main act to begin, – the crowd laughs.

The waiting tightrope performer hearing the commotion begins his crossing, high above the crowd, above the cobblestones below.

Zarathustra though, is not finished, there’s one more point to convey, and he continues to speak.

“You my friend(s) are that rope stretched across an abyss,” – speaking loud enough for everyone to hear. I would wager the laughter becomes silence, all eyes are on the tightrope walker, tensely suspended above their heads while they hear these words:

When Zarathustra had thus spoken,
one of the people called out:

“We’ve heard enough of the tightrope walker; now let’s see him also!”
And all the people laughed at Zarathustra.

But the tightrope walker,
who thought the words were for him,
began his performance.

Zarathustra, however,
looked at the people and wondered.

Then he spoke thus:

Man is a rope stretched between animal and Overman
— a rope over an abyss.

A dangerous crossing, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking back,
a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal:
what can be loved in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.

I love those who know not how to live
except as down-goers,
for they are the over-goers.

I love the great despisers,
because they are the great adorers,
and arrows of longing for the other shore.

I love those who do not
first seek a reason beyond the stars
for going down and being sacrifices,
but sacrifice themselves to the earth,
that the earth of the Overman may someday arrive.

I love him who lives in order to know,
and seeks to know in order that
the Overman may someday live.
Thus he seeks his own down-going.

I love him who works and invents,
that he may build a house for the Overman,
and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant:
for thus he seeks his own down-going.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, Trans. by Thomas Common, aphorism 3

If the words of Zarathustra frighten you, as well as invite you, that is precisely how they effect me too. These words challenge, are a provocation to be, to become more, much more than I or anyone else has imagined. I am encouraged to dispense with limiting and negative expectations that I learned from others. Why does it matter? The future actually depends upon my openness today to the lessons my circumstances have to teach. The suggestion is made that we cannot envision the potential for greatness that will be slowly fulfilled generation by generation.

That humility, mindfulness, and self-possession are their own justification, are in themselves warranted.

The earth and every living thing, the future co-depends upon my practice.

Courage! If you are just beginning to get the idea. This is heavy. It takes a while.