Yesterday while at lunch I spoke with a friend.  He told a story of an exchange with a Facebook acquaintance. His interlocutor sent a list of common ethical principles held between varieties of religious traditions. Conspicuously missing was that of the atheist position. Naturally my friend composed his version of the common ground that exists between atheism and other “faiths.” He summed up the matter thusly. We come here and the best that we can do is to leave this world a better place than we found it, knowing that failure is inevitable. In the end we die, oblivion.

Instinctively I knew he was right, the inner voice within me said, ‘yes, we fight on, in retreat, as time takes its toll, our demise approaches.’  The temptation is to surrender to panic, either to join “the enemy,” those who despoil the earth and their fellows in order to aggrandize themselves or equally demeaning to release their hold on their self-respect, their self-discipline, becoming a lost and defeated soul.

The conversation reminded me of a passage from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra which I will render here.

The speaker, Zarathustra, is recounting a dream vision. He is hiking an ascending mountain trail and has a conversation with his doppelganger, an evil dwarf who accompanies him, an evil spirit that drags him downward.

WARNING: What follows is extended dialog.  You can, bailout now, read on, or print a copy for more comfortable reading.

Upwards:—in spite of the spirit that drew it downwards, towards the abyss, the spirit of gravity, my devil and archenemy.
Upwards:—although it sat upon me, half-dwarf, half-mole; paralyzed, paralyzing; dripping lead in mine ear, and thoughts like drops of lead into my brain.

“O Zarathustra,” it whispered scornfully, syllable by syllable, “you stone of wisdom! You threw yourself high, but every thrown stone must—fall!
O Zarathustra, you stone of wisdom, thou sling-stone, you star-destroyer! You threw yourself so high,—but every thrown stone—must fall!
Condemned of yourself, and to your own stoning: O Zarathustra, far indeed your threw your stone—but upon yourself will it recoil!”
Then was the dwarf silent; and the silence lasted. The silence, however, oppressed me; and to be thus in pairs, one is verily lonesomer than when alone!

I ascended, I ascended, I dream’t, I thought,—but everything oppressed me. I resemble someone sick, one worn out by bad torture, one who wakens from sleep to a worse dream.—

Who does not live with the negative of self-criticism? I cannot fathom how it is possible to reach adulthood without a quotient of shame, of regret —to add psychological friction to the good and necessary friction of addressing the practical challenges of life. Nietzsche addresses this personal darkness that is carried around inside of every man and every woman.

“Halt, dwarf!” I said. “It is either you or I! I, however, am the stronger of the two:—you do not know my most abysmal thought! You couldn’t endure it!”
Then something happened which made me lighter: for the dwarf sprang from my shoulder, the prying sprite! And it squatted on a stone in front of me. There was however a gateway just where we halted.

“Look at this gateway! Dwarf!” I continued, “it has two faces. Two roads come together here: these no one has yet gone to the end of.
This long lane backwards: it continues for an eternity. And that long lane forward—that is another eternity.

They are antithetical to one another, these roads; they directly abut on one another:—and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is inscribed above: ‘This Moment.’

But should one follow them further—and ever further and further on, do you think, dwarf, that these roads would be eternally antithetical?”—

“Everything that is straight lies,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

“Thou spirit of gravity!” said I wrathfully, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where you are squatting, Haltfoot,- and I carried you high!”

“Observe,” I continued, “This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runs a long eternal lane backwards: behind us lies an eternity.
Must not whatever can run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

And if everything has already existed, what are you thinking, dwarf, of This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?
And are not all things closely bound together in such a way that This Moment draws all coming things after it? Consequently—itself also?
For whatever can run its course of all things, also in this long lane outward—must it once more run!—

And this slow spider which creeps in the moonlight, and this moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, whispering of eternal things—must we not all have already existed?

—And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that long weird lane—must we not eternally return?”—

Thus did I speak, and always more softly: for I was afraid of mine own thoughts, and arrear-thoughts. Then, suddenly did I hear a dog howl near me.

This is where the dialog between Zarathustra the hiker, and his evil double momentarily pauses with a interlude for the reader’s reflection. A coda is offered, that of a hound dog mournfully howling in the distance.

Had I ever heard such a dog howl? My thoughts ran back. Yes! When I was a child, in my most distant childhood:

—Then did I hear such a dog howl. And saw it also, with hair bristling, its head upwards, trembling in the stillest midnight, when even dogs believe in ghosts:

—So that it excited my commiseration. For just then the full moon, silent as death, over the house; just then did it stand still, a glowing globe—at rest on the flat roof, as if on some one’s property:—

Of that moon the dog was terrified: for dogs believe in thieves and ghosts. And when I again heard such howling, then did it excite my commiseration once more.

Where was the dwarf now? And the gateway? And the spider? And all the whispering? Had I dreamed? Had I awakened? ‘Between rugged rocks I suddenly stood alone, dreary in the dreariest moonlight.

But there lay a man! And there! The dog leaping, bristling, whining- now did it see me coming—then did it howl again, then did it cry:- had I ever heard a dog cry so for help?

With this coda, a pause for reflection, the resolution of the story is to follow.

More to come tomorrow.