Voluntarily Going Into A Madhouse
“I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.
Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
‘What is love?
What is creation?
What is longing?
What is a star?’ thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
‘We have invented happiness,’say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one’s neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth…
One still works, for work is a form of entertainment. But one is careful lest the entertainment be too harrowing. One no longer becomes poor or rich: both require too much exertion. Who still wants to rule? Who obey? Both require too much exertion.
No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
‘Formerly, all the world was mad,’ say the most refined, and they blink…
One has one’s little pleasure for the day and one’s little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
‘We have invented happiness,’ say the last men, and they blink.”
Excerpt – Thus spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche p. 3,4,5, trans. by Walter Kaufmann
Do I have enough chaos in myself; enough to write a book, to work with Nietzsche’s words, to fashion a photo book, scenes ripped from today? I have no idea. I’ll never know without dropping over the edge. “Do… or do not. There is no try.”- were the words of Yoda, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.
Where are men creating the future on this last day of February? The Donbas in eastern Ukraine a mortar crew at work to blunt the Russian advance.
