Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

Zarathustra accompanies the town’s youth to a wise man’s lecture. The wise man teaches the children the importance of sleep. He argues that to get good sleep matters of the day must not continue into the night. The wise man preaches, “Ten times a day you must overcome yourself, that makes for a good weariness and is poppy for the soul. Ten times you must reconcile yourself again with yourself, for over-coming causes bitterness and the unreconciled sleep badly” (18). In short, one must have virtues to sleep well. One must also learn how and when to put certain virtues to sleep so that they do not quarrel with one another. As the master of virtues, sleep is not summoned is rather passively received by the virtuous. The wise man says, “Ruminating, I ask myself, patient as a cow; what then were my ten overcomings? And what were the ten reconciliations and the ten truths and the ten laughters to which my heart treated itself? In this manner reflecting and rocked by forty thoughts, sleep suddenly falls upon me, the unsummoned, the master of virtues” (19). At this point, Zarathustra begins to laugh. He says that this wise man surely understands sleep, as it affects all those who hear him speak of it. Zarathustra then adds his understanding of wisdom by saying, “The meaning of wisdom is: wake in order to sleep well” (19). 

Zarathustra relates his previous understanding of the world and its creation. He used to believe the world was the suffering work of a tortured god. Then it seemed like a dream and the fiction of a god. He preaches, “The creator wanted to look away from himself and so he created the world…This world, the eternally imperfect, the mirror image and imperfect image of an eternal contradiction—a drunken joy to its imperfect creator: thus the world once seemed to be” (20). Zarathustra confesses that the god he once worshiped was only “a poor flake of human and ego” like all gods created by mankind (20). Zarathustra philosophizes that suffering creates the hinterworldly or those who believe in a world beyond. Suffering causes them to seek refuge outside of themselves and this corrupted world. Thus, suffering creates gods and the afterlife. They yearn for the day when they can shed their bodies and no longer suffer. Zarathustra proclaims, “I teach mankind a new will: to want the path that human beings have traveled blindly, to pronounce it good and no longer sneak to the side of it like the sick and the dying-out” (21). Believing in the other world allows the sick and dying to detach from the earth and their body and thus their suffering. Zarathustra concludes that one should not listen to the suffering and the unhealthy but rather to the prosperous. The healthy bodies speak the meaning of the earth and chose to live in the present moment. 

Zarathustra argues that if one chooses to despise the body one must renounce the body and be silent. Contrastingly, those who accept the body proclaim, “body am I through and through, and nothing besides; and soul is just a word for something on the body” (23). The spirit is a tool for reason whereas the body exercises its own reason. While the spirit says I, the body does I. The body is an active multiplicity, functioning as a place for good or evil, re-birth or destruction, among many other dualities.

There exists a self beyond one’s thoughts, feelings, and senses. This self laughs at the ego, whose leaps of faith and knowledge are nothing but detours to the self’s greater purpose. The self desires to overcome the body, but to do so it must confront the body and not despise it. Therefore, those who despise the body can never overcome it and thus are not bridges to the overman. 

Zarathustra states, “My brother, if you have one virtue, and it is your virtue, then you have it in common with no one” (24). Yet, mankind desires to personify its virtues. In so doing, it provides its virtue with a name, likening it to the shared virtues of others. This personification of virtues situates one back into a herd mentality and out of a creative one. One should not want one’s virtues to act as divine laws or human laws or to govern how others live. To name our virtues is to degrade them and use them for evil insofar as we police others by virtues we have created. Zarathustra argues, “Nothing evil grows anymore out of you, unless it is the evil that grows from the struggle among your virtues. My brother, if you are lucky then you have one virtue and no more: thus will you go more easily over the bridge” (25). When one has multiple virtues, they compete with one another. Each desires the highest position. Yet in this greed, they perish at their own hand. One must only have one virtue, and it must remain unnamed to not become a tool for greed or judgment. 

The ability or inability to separate oneself from an act committed is debated. Zarathustra states that the pale human was equal to his deed when he committed it. Yet, the lasting image of the deed on him became unbearable and so he turned pale. From then on, he failed to separate himself from his deed, forever suffering its imprint on his essence. Zarathustra calls this imprint on the soul a type of madness, but there exists yet another madness that precludes the pale criminal’s inability to preserve his essence. The judges ask this man why he killed when his intention was only to commit robbery? Zarathustra answers that the man’s soul wanted blood and that the man listened to his poor reason. Zarathustra proclaims, “Behold this poor body! What it suffered and craved this poor soul interpreted for itself—it interpreted it as murderous lust and greed for the bliss of the knife” (27). The pale criminal failed to reconcile his virtues and fell victim to the murderous will of his soul. Similarly, the judges have their own madness by which they will perish. Their virtues of truth, loyalty, and justice will provide them will long lives filled with contentment. 

Zarathustra claims that, since everyone can read and write, reading and writing have been robbed of their novelty and prestige. He preaches, “Of all that is written I love only that which one writes with his blood. Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit. It is not easily possible to understand the blood of another: I hate the reading idlers” (27). Whoever chooses to write in blood and proverbs desires to be learned by the heart and not to be read. To learn by the heart, one must be courageous against the hardship of life. Zarathustra asks why humanity is able to remain courageous and retain hope in the face of fear? He answers that people love life not because they have become accustomed to suffering or hardship but because they are accustomed to love. Zarathustra proclaims that all humankind should work to kill the spirit of gravity so that they can exist upon mountain tops and understand proverbs. 

Zarathustra approaches a young man who has been avoiding him. The young man says that he cannot shake this tree, yet the wind pushes it around however it desires. The young man feels as though he is like the tree, often tormented by invisible hands. Zarathustra responds, “But it is with human beings as it is with this tree. The more they aspire to the heights and the light, the more strongly their roots strive earthwards, downward, into darkness, depths, into evil” (29). The young man confides that since aspiring to new heights, none of his friends or family trusts him anymore. He tells Zarathustra, “If I am at the top then I always find myself alone. No one speaks with me, the frost of loneliness makes me shiver. What do I want in the heights?” (30). Zarathustra says that the tree too grew high up on the mountain and that if it could speak, no one would have understood. Now the tree waits, but for what? Zarathustra asks the young man if the tree awaits being struck by lightning. The young man relates the tree’s desire to his desire for destruction. Zarathustra tells the young man that he does aspire to reach new heights but so too do his wicked instincts. He tells the young man that he must be like the noble person and not the good person, for the noble person creates new virtues but the good person upholds old ones. The noble person is not in danger of becoming good, but rather, a “churl, a mocker, an annihilator” (31). Zarathustra tells the young man not to lose hope. 

Zarathustra speaks of those who preach of death, “They have not even become human beings, these terrible ones: may they preach departure from life and pass away themselves!” (31). These preachers wait eagerly for death, forgetting to live in the present. They preach that the man who clings to life is foolish, that sex is a sin, and that pity is necessary. Zarathustra argues that, because humankind has become accustomed to a hectic life that prioritizes work and whatever is new, man is primed to receive this sermon. Our lives as they are do not provide us with enough experience to become respectable and authoritative commentators on life or death. Zarathustra states, “Everywhere sounds the voice of those who preach death: and the earth is full of people to whom departure from life must be preached. Or ‘the eternal life.’ It’s all the same to me” (32). Those who preach of death preach that life has no value. 

Zarathustra preaches that we must learn not to be ashamed of hate or envy. He states, “And if you cannot be saints of knowledge, then at least be its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintliness” (33). Zarathustra is not speaking about waging war for one’s nation or beliefs, but rather for knowledge. The only winner of this war, Zarathustra states, is honesty. War and courage have done far more for mankind than loving one’s neighbor, he argues. Zarathustra states, “You may have only those enemies whom you can hate, but not enemies to despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the successes of your enemy are your successes too” (34). War seems to facilitate the evolution of knowledge wherein errors are corrected. Those who become warriors of knowledge adopt the “Thou Shalt” mindset of the good person as opposed to the “I will” sentiment of the noble person. Zarathustra provides a way for those who do not understand his teachings to still prepare the earth for the overman.