Chapter 13 The first hermit

recluse Once upon a time, like a recluse, Zarathustra threw his fantasies beyond the human race.Back then I thought the world was the work of a suffering God. The world seemed to me then a god's dream and whim; a colored smoke placed before the eyes of a holy insufficiency. Good and evil, bitterness and joy, me and you—I think they are all colored smoke in front of the eyes of the creator.The Creator would not see himself any more—so he created the world. It is to him an intoxicating joy that the suffering man can forget himself without seeing his pain.Once upon a time, the world was to me also intoxicated joy and self-forgetfulness.

The world, this ever-imperfect, approximate image of an eternal contradiction--an intoxicating delight of its imperfect Creator;--I once thought the world was thus. So I, like a recluse, threw my fantasies beyond human beings.But has it really been thrown beyond human beings? Alas, brethren, this God I have created is, like all other gods, the work of man and man-made madness! He is human too, and only a poor part of a "man" and an "I": he is a phantom from my own ashes and flames, really!He didn't fly from outside! Brothers, what will happen in the future?I overcome my afflicted self; I carry my own ashes up the hill; I invent for myself a brighter flame.look!The phantom is far away from me!

To believe in such phantoms now is pain and insult to the newly healed; it is doom and humiliation to me.Thus I say to the recluse. Suffering and impotence—they create other worlds and this short-term blissful madness that only the most miserable can experience. Weariness wanted to reach the last end with one leap, one fatal leap; poor ignorant it would no longer have will: so it created the gods and other worlds. Trust me guys!This is the disappointment of the flesh for the flesh,—it gropes along the last wall with strayed fingers of the spirit. Trust me guys!This is the flesh's disappointment with the earth,--it hears the belly of being speaking to it.

So it puts its head through the last wall and sticks out, not just the head—it wants to go to the "world beyond" in its entirety. But this "world on the other side" is inhuman and inhuman, it is a supreme emptiness; it hides deep and cannot be seen by human beings; if the belly of existence does not use the identity of a human being, it will not speak to human beings. Really, proving existence, or making it speak, is hard.But tell me, brothers, don't you think the strangest things are the best things that have been proven? Yes, this "I", this creative, willful "I" that gives measure and value to everything, its contradictions and confusions are the most faithful affirmation of its own existence.

This "I", the most loyal existence, talks about the body and needs the body when it is meditating, fanatical, or flying low with its broken wings. Every now and then this "I" learns to speak faithfully; the more it learns, the more it finds words to praise the body and the earth. My "I" taught me a new kind of arrogance, and I taught people: no longer hide your head in the sand of heaven and things, but freely wear this earthly head, this head that creates the meaning of the earth! I teach mankind a new will: Consciously follow the road that humans have walked unintentionally, affirm that this road is good, and don't leave it quietly like the sick and dying!

The sick and the dying despise the flesh and the earth, and invent things of heaven and blood-spots of atonement; but, this sweet and deadly poison, they still take from the flesh and the earth! They want to save themselves from misfortune, and the planet is too far away.Then they sighed: "Unfortunately, why is there no heavenly way, by which we might steal into another life and another happiness!"--then they invented tricks and little drinks of blood! They think they are separated from the flesh and the earth, these ungrateful ones.Who gave them the convulsions and ecstasies of separation?Or their flesh and the earth!

Zarathustra was kind to the sick.Really, he wasn't offended by the way they masturbated, or by their ingratitude.Let them heal, surpass themselves, and give themselves a superior body! Zarathustra is also generous to the newly healed.He is not offended that they cling to lost visions, and rise at night to visit the grave of his God; I think the tears of the newly healed are a sickness and a sickness of the body. Many are sick; they hate the seeker and the smallest virtue: that is honesty. They often look back on the dark times that have passed: of course, the madness and faith at that time were different.The confusion of reason is considered the way of God, and doubt is sin.

I know these godlike people well: they want others to believe them, and doubt is sin.I also know very well what they themselves believe most. It wasn't really another world or a point of redemption: it was flesh they believed in most; they saw their flesh as the absolute. Still they think the body is a sick thing: they are willing to shed the body. So they listen to the preacher of death, and they speak of another world. Hear, brothers, the cry of healthy flesh: it is a truer and purer cry. A healthy, sound and square body speaks more faithfully and purely; and it speaks of the meaning of the earth. ——

Thus spake Zarathustra.