Away from God and gods
did this will allure me;
what would there be to create
if there were – gods!

I read that one’s life amounts to a collection of stories. You and I existentially are a composition of everything that we believe about the world, believe about ourselves as a feature of the world. The trick is to assimilate productive humanizing stories… Nietzsche/Zarathustra identifies God/gods stories, as our primary foundation story. Nietzsche/Zarathustra declares belief in God/gods a fabrication which we insist upon, because it’s impossible for us to conceive otherwise. A god-story amounts to a total obstruction of our creative potential. “God” the undying, gimlet-eyed supervisor, of the mortal time-bound individual… God/gods alone are agents, creators.

Thus Nietzsche/Zarathustra sketches a dark side, the disabling effect of piety,

But to man
does it ever impel me anew,
my fervent creative will;
thus impels it the hammer to the stone.

Ah, you men,
within the stone slumbers an image for me,
the image of my visions!

Ah, that it should slumber
in the hardest, ugliest stone!
Now rags my hammer ruthlessly against its prison.
From the stone fly the fragments:
what’s that to me?

I will complete it:
for a shadow came to me
— the stillest and lightest of all things
once came to me!

The beauty of the overman
came to me as a shadow.

Ah, my brothers!
Of what account now are – the gods to me!
–Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Thomas Common, In the Happy Isles No. 24

Fair enough you may say. But what do you offer as an alternative story!?

Just this: As time bound creature (yes, I have an expiration date) in a time bound world, I have the responsibility, the high privilege to learn, to become progressively acquainted with what is excellent.

This learning opportunity pertains to simply everything, every single thing that I encounter, every person whom I converse with. Everything has potential to make a difference, in a small way. And this all adds up. Just like the hammer and chisel of a sculptor who incrementally removes, chip by chip, stone which encases the concept held in mind. As the sculptor works, in concert his/her skill grows. A feedback loop, enhanced sense of self, in parallel to improved capabilities, blow by blow, chip by chip. Even as the figure is realized from a mundane block of stone, so also the sculptor advances, becoming a master, an overman.

Beauty and meaning are a consequences of time, and of will. The fragments fly. Life itself is a hammer. Friction is important, essential even, for “the stillest and lightest of all things” to be born, be revealed.  You!