On the Spirit of Gravity
1
My mouth—is of the people: I speak too coarsely and heartily for the silken rabbits. And my word sounds stranger still to all ink-fish and pen-foxes.
My hand—is a fool’s hand: woe to all tables and walls, and whatever else has room for fool’s frills, fool’s scrawls!
My foot—is a cloven hoof; with it I trot and tramp over stick and stone, crisscross and cross-country, and I am devilish with joy at all fast running.
My stomach—is it an eagle’s stomach, perhaps? For it loves lamb’s flesh best. But certainly it is a bird’s stomach.
Nourished on innocent things and on little, ready and impatient to fly, to fly away—that is my way now: how should there not be something of the bird’s way in it!
And above all, that I am an enemy of the Spirit of Gravity, that is the bird’s way: and truly, a deadly enemy, an archenemy, a primal enemy! Oh, where has my enmity not flown already, and flown astray!
Of that I could sing a song—and I will sing it: although I am alone in an empty house and must sing it to my own ears.
There are other singers, of course, for whom only a full house makes the throat supple, the hand eloquent, the eye expressive, the heart awake:—I am not like them.—
2
Whoever one day teaches human beings to fly will have moved all boundary stones; all boundary stones themselves will fly into the air for him, and he will baptize the earth anew—as “the light one.”
The ostrich runs faster than the fastest horse, but it too still sticks its head heavily into heavy earth: so does the human being who cannot yet fly.
Heavy he calls the earth and life; and so the Spirit of Gravity wills it! But whoever wants to become light and a bird must love himself:—thus I teach.
Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and the addicted: for with them even self-love stinks!
One must learn to love oneself—thus I teach—with a whole and healthy love: so that one can bear to be with oneself and does not roam about.
Such roaming about baptizes itself “love of one’s neighbor”: with this word the best lying and dissembling have been done until now, and especially by those who were heavy on the whole world.
And truly, it is no commandment for today and tomorrow, to learn to love oneself. Rather, of all arts this is the finest, the subtlest, the last, and the most patient.
For whatever is one’s own is well hidden from its owner; and of all treasure pits one’s own is dug up last—so the Spirit of Gravity brings it about.
Almost in the cradle we are given heavy words and values to take along: “good” and “evil”—so this dowry is called. For its sake we are forgiven for being alive.
And that is why they let the little children come to them: so as to forbid them in good time to love themselves: so the Spirit of Gravity brings it about.
And we—we faithfully drag what we are given on hard shoulders and over rough mountains! And if we sweat, we are told: “Yes, life is hard to bear!”
But only the human being is hard to bear for himself! That comes from his dragging too much that is foreign on his shoulders. Like the camel he kneels down and lets himself be well loaded.
Especially the strong, load-bearing human being in whom reverence dwells: too many foreign heavy words and values he loads upon himself—now life seems to him a desert!
And truly! Many things of one’s own are hard to bear too! And much that is inward in the human being is like the oyster, namely loathsome and slippery and hard to grasp—
—so that a noble shell with noble ornament must plead on its behalf. But this art too one must learn: to have a shell, and fair seeming, and clever blindness!
Again, it is deceptive about many things in the human being that many a shell is paltry and sad and too much shell. Much hidden goodness and strength is never guessed; the most exquisite delicacies find no tasters!
Women know that, the most exquisite of them: a little fatter, a little leaner—oh, how much fate lies in so little!
The human being is hard to discover, and hardest of all for himself; often the spirit lies about the soul. So the Spirit of Gravity brings it about.
But he has discovered himself who says: This is my good and evil: with that he has silenced the mole and dwarf who says: “Good for all, evil for all.”
Truly, I do not like those either for whom each and every thing is good and this world even the best. Those I call the all-content.
All-contentment that knows how to taste everything: that is not the best taste! I honor the refractory, choosy tongues and stomachs that have learned to say “I” and “Yes” and “No.”
But to chew and digest everything—that is the true swine’s way! Always to say Yea-a1—only the donkey has learned that, and whoever is of his spirit!—
Deep yellow and hot red: so my taste wants it—it mixes blood into all colors. But whoever whitewashes his house betrays to me a whitewashed soul.
Some in love with mummies, the others with ghosts; and both alike hostile to all flesh and blood—oh, how both go against my taste! For I love blood.
And I do not want to live and linger where everyone spits and spews: that is my taste now—I would rather live among thieves and perjurers. No one carries gold in his mouth.
But more repulsive to me still are all spittle-lickers; and the most repulsive animal of a human being that I found I baptized parasite: it did not want to love and yet wanted to live on love.
Unblissful I call all who have only one choice: to become evil animals or evil animal tamers: among such I would build no huts for myself.
Unblissful I call those too who must always wait—they go against my taste: all the tax collectors and shopkeepers and kings and other keepers of lands and shops.
Truly, I too have learned waiting, and from the ground up,
—but only waiting for myself. And above all I learned to stand and walk and run and jump and climb and dance.
But this is my teaching: whoever wants to learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance:—one does not fly into flying!
With rope ladders I learned to climb to many a window, with nimble legs I clambered up high masts: to sit on high masts of knowledge seemed to me no small bliss—
—to flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, to be sure, but still a great comfort to storm-driven sailors and the shipwrecked!—
By many kinds of paths and ways I came to my truth; not by one ladder did I climb to the height where my eye roams into my distance.
And only reluctantly did I ever ask the way—that always went against my taste! I preferred to question and try the ways themselves.
A trying and questioning was all my going:—and truly, one must also learn to answer such questioning! But that—is my taste:
—not a good taste, not a bad one, but my taste, of which I am no longer ashamed and which I no longer hide.
“This—is my way now—where is yours?” So I answered those who asked me “the way.” For the way—it does not exist!
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Notes
1. The German donkey’s bray I-A (ee-ah) sounds like Ja, “yes.”