The Super Aware Revisits the Ordinaire
Thus Spake Geothustra, Episode Two
by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor, 3 May 2010
When Geothustra departed the valley town, he told the maiden, "I shall return, when I can celebrate with you." He had sown new values, and was waiting in the solitude of his cave while they sprouted. Now he heard from a traveler that the town was celebrating Arbor Day, and so Geothustra descended from the mountain to see if there was any fruit to reap.Before entering the town, he looked at his visage in a mirror, to avoid looking too scary, but instead of his own face, he beheld a devil smirking at him. Geothustra knew what that meant. His teachings were in danger!
"Weeds seek to be wheat!" he thought. His teachings were being distorted into dangerous doctrines! No teaching is so clear and evident that it cannot be distorted into perniciousness. "I have enemies," he thought, "who are twisting my teachings into their opposites."
Everyone was busy planting trees. The young man who had been unemployed was now working for the state, planting trees. Geothustra saw that there were many new dwellings. "Do you also celebrate chopping down trees so that you can build houses?" he asked the lad.
No. Your teachings have borne fruit. We no longer desecrate the earth. We have all been commanded to plant trees and celebrate the growth of new trees.
Geothustra looked closely at the saplings the land was planting in the soil. "You are planting too many trees, too close together. They will choke. They will deplete the soil. What was here before?"
"Wild stuff," said the land. "The foliage was in chaos, all random and unplanned. With these trees planted in neat rows, we can control what grows. The trees will be sprayed to kill off insects, and the branches will be trimmed to be optimal. It’s all totally scientific."
"Such planning is a conjecture," said Geothustra. "Your conjectures should be limited to what can be known. Your attempt to replace nature goes beyond what is thinkable."
An old man came and said, "Huh! Geothustra is wandering among us and observing us as if we were animals in a zoo. He lectures us as if he were some kind of super-person!"
"I will be the animal, so you may observe me in turn," said Geothustra, and he disrobed.
"Have you no shame?" asked the lad.
"The noble person commands himself not to shame," replied Geothustra. "You people do not enjoy being human, all too human!"
Then a woman in rags came by and stretched out her palm. "Please," she begged. "I need food, I need money. Please, anything!" Hearing this, other beggars came and stretched out their arms. Some held out cups. "You have money, Geothustra. Please give us some! Share the wealth!"
"I despise beggary," exclaimed Geothustra. "Begging should be completely abolished !"
"Don’t you have pity for the poor?" asked the maiden.
"I despise pitying," answered Geothustra.
"So we should just let beggars starve?" asked the maiden.
"If out of pity we only keep feeding the hungry, we commit an evil. The policy of the super person is to prevent beggary by letting all become rich."
"Ho!" said the lad. "Now you are the one who is going beyond what is thinkable. Jesus said that the poor we always have with us."
"That is so only because you have never heeded the teachings of the superior being."
"What were the teachings? I forget," said the lad.
"Let people become themselves, be skilled with arrows, and share the earth," said Geothustra.
It was evening, and Geothustra said he would camp out among the few wild trees that were left standing.
"Why don’t you stay with us?" asked the lad. "We have a spare room."
"No thank you," replied Geothustra. "I do not live with others, because it is difficult for me to remain silent when I see how people bite one another."
As he walked to the edge of town, he came upon a meadow in which girls were dancing. When they saw him, they stopped their dance. "Why do you stop?" asked Geothustra. "I am not a spoil sport. I am not an enemy of girls."
"Many people disapprove," said one of the girls.
"The will to power is too often the will to be a master," said Geothustra.
As he walked further, a dog ran up to him. Its snout was on fire. "It is the fire dog!" exclaimed Geothustra. "You know how to bark," said Geothustra to the hound, "but do you know trees?"
The dog ran to one of the trees, and its bark became wet. It was the bark of the dogwood!
The lad, the maiden, and the old man came to see what the noise was about. "The state is like the firedog that bellows," Geothustra told them. "The hypocrite chiefs think they are super persons. Their snouts are on fire, and the people mistake the fire for brilliance."
"So what should we do?" asked the maiden.
"I say to the chiefs, let yourselves be overthrown!"
"You want to abolish government?" asked the maiden.
"What should be overthrown is their conceit. Only then may people become themselves. Only then will we realize that the earth is made of gold."
"I want some of that gold!" said a beggar.
"Mankind is in ruins, as though and because it has been in a battlefield," said Geothustra. "It has been a battle for land and gold, when the gold was already in the land of the earth!"
Geothustra camped by the edge of the town, and the others went to their dwellings. The dog came and lay down quietly beside Geothustra, its snout no longer on fire.
"It seems that only the fire hound learned my teaching. In this town, there are no super-persons, but at least we have a super-dog who knows when not to bark."
Thus spake Geothustra.
(Reference: Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzche, Cambridge University Press, 2006.)
-- Fred Foldvary
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Copyright 2010 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary and The Progress Report.
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Also see: The lack of autonomy should be shocking
Until we geonomize, some battles need re-winning
Taking Shorter Showers Doesn't Cut It |
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