Zarathustra’s Prologue
Zarathustra spent a considerable deal of his youthful time wandering alone in solitary places, in search of real meaning of life. According to Chapko, Zarathustra confesses that he is a wanderer and mountain climber who does not like sitting or wandering in plains (121). Zarathustra argues that, wandering in mountains is a pleasant experience, which is going to shape his fate, for he believes that he has control of his life and will not allow fate to overtake him.
He considers wandering in the mountains to be lonesome experience that makes one achieve greatness in life. Beginning his lonesome wandering, Zarathustra boards a ship and begins teaching sailors about the real meaning of life after two days of silence. He tells sailors that they are daring adventurers who have a lot of courage in that they can venture into deep seas. Aboard ship to a foreign land, Zarathustra observes that sailors are like him, for they have the courage to face lonely enigmas of the sea that complicates mystery of life.
Loneliness and enigmas troubles Zarathustra as he sails through the sea and talks to sailors about mystery of life. He asserts that happiness is somewhere between heaven and earth, and thus advices sailors to seek it in their lonely moments as they sail through the sea. Although Zarathustra waited for misfortunes to befall him before dawn, he was eventually happy when he waited in vain, and begins to turn upon heavens as a source of life.
He confesses that his wandering and mountain climbing were just actions of his helpless state for he could not achieve anything without heavenly intervention. According to Caro and Pippin, Zarathustra argues that he had been struggling to achieve blessing by becoming a blesser and yes-sayer (132). He learned that, a bit of reasoning forms the basis of wisdom and blessings. Arriving at dry land again, Zarathustra preferred to go into lonely mountains for he believed that solitary places are appropriate for one to achieve heavenly wisdom. He realized that people were getting smaller each day because they are modest in happiness and virtues.
Still struggling in solitude, Zarathustra appreciates winter climate because during it, he loves his friends and criticizes his enemies as compared to the summer season. He asserts that silence is his favorite art and malice because it does not betray him on the mountain during winter. Wandering in the mountains, Zarathustra eventually finds himself in a city, which he does not like because his life in the wilderness is not compatible to city life. After experiencing and observing the form of life people who are living in the city, Zarathustra spited on it because it had broken souls, sticky fingers and prying eyes, which were not in the mountains.
Zarathustra observed that apostasy had taken over the city and longed to go into solitude maintains and cave. In solicitude, Zarathustra have unlearned silence and learned that comprehension of everything requires apprehension of everything (Common and Scott 147). Eventually, Zarathustra identifies three evils that befall humanity, namely voluptuousness, selfishness and passion for power, all of which have corrupted minds of the people.
On the Hinterworldly
In his pursuit of real meaning of life, Zarathustra turned his quest into existence of humanity and God. He perceived the world to be as though a creation of a tortured and suffering god, who does not care about virtuous or evil things. According to Common and Scott, Zarathustra argues that the world look like a dream to humanity and god’s fiction, which gives out colorful smoke that satisfies divine eyes (20).
He wonders why moral and evil, happiness and suffering, and different forms of lifestyles exist in the world. Therefore, he presumed that combination of all these forces is pleasing to creative eyes of a divine being. Due to the complexity of existence, Zarathustra concluded that god created the world because he wanted to examine himself.
Zarathustra asserts that the world is a contradiction of the creator because it is an imperfect image of god. To him, the world not only seems to contradict its creator, but is also an eternally imperfect image of god. When he casts his delusion of humanity and looks beyond creatures into hinter-world, he realizes that he underestimates divine powers to be like human powers. Zarathustra overcame his self, suffering and strength when he wandered into the mountains in search of solicitude. In solitary paces across the mountains, Zarathustra discovered that incapacity and suffering created the hinter-worlds, for they provide false happiness to people in hinter-worlds (Common and Scott 21). Poor knowing and lack of wisdom created hinter-worlds and all forms of gods that are particularly deceptive.
Zarathustra further asserts that contradiction of ego reflects weaknesses in abilities of human beings to discern their nature since ego determine value and measure of things. Honesty being is ego because it needs the body and expresses love to the body even if it fantasizes and poetizes about reality of life. Hence, Zarathustra admonishes human kind that they should no longer assume heavenly things, but delve deeply into heavenly matters that add meaning to life (Common and Scott 22). Hence, humankind needs to adopt new will that desires to tread old ways that human beings have followed blindly for ages in hinter-worlds.
Works Cited
Caro, Adrian, and Pippin, Robert. Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, A Book for All and None. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Chapko, Bill. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. New York: Feedbooks, 2010.
Common, Thomas, and Scott, Michael. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Friedrich Nietzsche. New York: Michael Scott Publisher, 2009.