“When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. Here he had the enjoyment of his spirit and his solitude and did not weary of it for ten years.” This is the beginning of Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. After ten years of solitude, Zarathustra goes down the mountains to seek the company of men with whom he tries to share his wisdom, but seldom do they understand him. Some, intrigued by his intricate prophetic worldview and philosophical concepts, become his disciples and offer to follow him to the ends of the world, but soon enough in displeasure, he leaves them and retires back to his solitude in the mountains. However, after some time towards the end of the book, eight men and one animal soon join him in the mountains to seek after his sagaciousness. These men he refers to them as Higher Men. They include the right and left king, the pope, the voluntary beggar, the shadow, the conscientious man of the spirit, the sorrowful prophet, the ugliest man and the ass.
The central idea Zarathustra preaches to men is that God is dead, and He died because of pity for man, therefore, now Superman lives. Man must strive to be Superman, to be a Higher Man. A deity dedicated to higher thoughts, who lives within his solitude to best understand himself as a person, his thoughts and feelings, his surroundings and interactions with other men, and most importantly nature. Man must realise that he is God. He creates his reality. He curves his life as a sculptor chisels out wood to create a sculpture. The past God has long since died, he notes, and now man must be Superman, a Higher Man who overcomes any form of weakness. Zarathustra says, “God is dead; God has died for his pity for man.” He further notes, “All gods are dead: now we want the superman to live.”
The Idea of Solitude in Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Among the central themes that Nietzsche brings out through the main character, Zarathustra is what solitude does to our consciousness. It is fair to say that Zarathustra, by staying alone in the mountains for ten years, develops the ability to fathom nature and gains much wisdom and mental fortitude to overcome human weakness. (What is human weakness in this case? The ability to stay in aloneness in peace and not develop any mental breakdown.) He seeks to look after the truth, of what things are and what he is as a person. He reflects on a lot of things about human nature, especially in the Christian religion and comes up with the supreme truth that indeed God is dead, and now lives Superman. He goes down the mountains in search of Superman, but he seldom finds him even after much searching, deliberation and council that he shares with fellow men. Eventually, he retires back to his animals, the snake and the eagle in the mountains giving up on humanity.
In his aloneness, Zarathustra deliberates a lot on many things including virtue and how man must overcome himself. Overcome his innate desire to perceive himself as lesser than he is, a being who lives under the dictates of a non-existent God. He says, ‘I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What should be overcome? What have you done to overcome him? All creatures hitherto have created something beyond themselves. And do you want to ebb of this great tide, and return to the animals rather than overcome man?’ Zarathustra calls upon man to become greater than what he currently is. He loathes human weakness, and informs men to be God-like, as he is himself. Undoubtedly, as both a stoic philosopher and a prophet, he educates us that it’s not too late to accept who we are and become Higher Men, Supermen! I find his writing style to be like that of Kahlil Gibran!
The Concept of Thoughts as Illusions in Fredrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It is my observation that Zarathustra’s perception is based on illusions, based on the events that unfold in the book. In many instances, he imagines non-existent abilities such as talking to his animals, the snake and the eagle, and these creatures verbally responding to his commands and desires. The same instance happens as the book comes to an end whereby a lion comes and licks him and plays with him, as the birds of the air sing and dance about him. This personification of animals could be a stylistic device the author uses to create imagery and to develop the plot. It could also be that Nietzsche is trying to show the abilities of Superman, who even communicates with inanimate objects like his shadow. It is hard to decipher which is which, but I think the author tries to show us what happens when one is overwhelmed by thoughts.
The idea that thoughts can create an illusion when one is under their weight can seem farfetched, bonkers and not prosaic to many, but I can understand the author profoundly. The thing is this, Zarathustra’s thoughts converge at a focal point creating unreal characters and, in his imagination as in a delirium perceives his ability to talk to these characters who are both animate and inanimate. This in psychology might be referred to as disillusionment, but I think Nietzsche did this intentionally. He intends to show what happens when one stays in solitude for long.
Zarathustra imagines himself as a sage who comes to show men the truth, light and the way much like Christ, but I find at times he acts like a madman who does not care about anything on the face of the earth. He starves himself for days until his animals plead with him to eat and drink. He lives in a dark cave with no form of modern luxury and barely goes out to meet the sun outside. He sleeps on the floor for weeks something only a mad person would do. He closes his eyes in deep meditation for weeks, only to spring up screaming like a monomaniac. All these things seem to me like the actions of a lunatic, but then again, this could be the abilities of a Superman. He imagines talking to the eight men who all converge into his cave to seek after his company. He lives in a world of his own. I suppose the core principle that he communicates is that man needs to overcome himself and develop the abilities of Superman.