It’s Monday morning. I watched the Oscar Awards event on television with Laura before bedtime. Memories linger. I am attracted to the exuberance and delight displayed when the envelope is opened.  Filmmakers, perhaps a director, a special effects professional, or an actor/actress hears their name called, which is a singular affirmation of excellence bestowed by a community of their peers. Some of the speeches were soul-stirring. Viewing the annual ceremony is a welcome education for me. I learn of films that otherwise I’d not know about.

Some of the story lines frighten me. Anora would be an example. I resist taking a dive into the world of sex workers, and Russian oligarchs. On the other hand, the story reflects a brutal extremity of reality. I shouldn’t flinch from the truth. So, I’ll watch the film in the future.

I’ve pondered for a while what Nietzsche meant by the transformation of Lion-like psyche and self to that of the child-like mode of existence. The Lion is hyper-critical, able to resist with a deafening roar of NO, the disingenuous lies that we tell ourselves.

The child by contrast, symbolizes the openness to a future, incipient potential forms of life, ways of relating unlike anything we’ve known in our past, even the re-imagining of our economy, of our governing institutions.

When I consider “the child” immediately I recall my five year old grandchild at work with colored markers, experimenting with ideas, pushing recently acquired skills to their ragged edge as she works upon a blank sheet of paper. Then she proudly presents her work to me announcing, “This is for you.” She is nothing else, “what you see is what you get.” She simply allows the sensations of her body, to explore the lead of a developing five year old Self on a sheet of paper.

The child-self is profoundly “magical,” a transcendent golden path, a pointer to what must happen if Homo Sapiens as a species has any opportunity to survive.

Is that what Nietzsche meant?

Yes.

“Body am I, and soul” – so says the child.
And why should one not speak like children?

But the awakened and the knowing say:
“Body am I entirely,
and nothing more;
and soul is only a word
for something about the body.”

The body is a great intelligence,
a multiplicity with one sense,
a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd.

An instrument of your body is also
your little intelligence, my brother,
which you call “spirit”
— a little instrument and toy
of your great intelligence.

“I,” you say, and are proud of that word.
But greater is that in which you do not wish to believe
— your body with its great intelligence;
it does not say “I,”
but does “I.”

…Behind your thoughts and feelings,
my brother,
stands a mighty ruler,
an unknown sage
— it is called the subconscious self;
it dwells in your body,
it is your body.

Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, The Despisers of the Body, page 31