This however is my teaching:

Anyone who wishes to fly one day,

must first learn standing

            and walking                 

                        and running

                                    and climbing

                                                and dancing…

.…one does not fly into flying!

With rope ladders I learned to reach many a window, with nimble legs I climbed high masts; to sit on high masts of perfection seems no small bliss to me—

To flicker like small flames on high masts:

A small light, certainly,

But a great comfort to cast-away sailors and shipwrecked ones!  By diverse ways and wanderings I arrived at my truth; not by only one ladder did I mount to the height, where my eye surveyed my aloneness. 

I was unwilling to ask directions for my way (that was counter to my taste).  Rather I questioned and tested the ways themselves. 

A testing and questioning has been the method for all my travels—and in truth one must also learn to answer such questioning!  However, that is my taste—  Neither good nor bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer shame or secrecy. 

 

This – is now my way.      

Where is yours?

In this fashion I answered those who asked me ‘the way’.

For the way—it does not exist! 

Thus Spake Zarathustra.

excerpt Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche, The Spirit of Gravity. p. 190

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Philosophy is not everyone’s cup of tea.  Philosophy comes down to a solitary pursuit.  It amounts to temperament, and also to upbringing.  I doubt that it is possible for someone who is always “the life of the party” to be “at home” doing philosophy.  A philosopher is unlikely to be a regular at the local pub.

It is up to each of us to do what we will with our one solitary life.  What will you do with that box of marbles in your hand?

Will you waste what is most valuable?