My children are near me

October of Zarathustra

At the end of the book, Zarathustra steps out of his cave alone and gets swarmed by doves and greeted by a lion. When his guests wake up and come to see them, the lion scares them back into the cave. Then Zarathustra walks out into the wilderness to do his work. 

It ends as it begins, with him leaving his cave. It has all the feeling of a beginning, which might be what the lion indicates. At the beginning of the book, Zarathustra describes the three metamorphoses. The camel. The lion. And the child. 

The lion is the courage to go your own way. The child is the innocence at a new beginning. The ability to say yes after the lion said no. In this last chapter, the lion appears, mollified, and Zarathustra goes off in a good mood.

But he goes off alone. 

A theme that I've focused on through this whole month is the recurring motif of loneliness. I wonder how much of that was really a part of the story Nietzsche set out to tell or just something that escaped into his writings because he was in fact lonely? He was a lonely guy.

Living like Nietzsche did, like Zarathustra does, it's a lonely road. It has its highs and lows, but it's a fair warning to anyone who thinks they might want to pursue an exceptional calling. Whatever it might win a person, it has a good chance of leaving them on their own. 

In fact there's something that's worth noting about all the higher men and Zarathustra themselves: they each chose a solitary pursuit. There are other ways to live differently. Some people join communes or religious movements or artistic movements. So while you're marching to the beat of a different drummer, there is a drummer. Some people when they want to live a different kind of life, they go find a different leader. A different set of norms.

That's not what any of these guys did (except maybe the old pope). They each pursued their own curiosity about the world, and they ended up lonely old men.

So here's Zarathustra at the end of the book, he has his own little gang devoted to him, and yet he walks away from them. In fact, he's been walking away from a group over and over again throughout the book. As I recall, at the end of each of the three sections of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he has found himself with people, but then he leaves them. 

And of course Nietzsche himself died cut off from others, trapped in a madness that overtook him. 

It's almost like that's the real warning of the book, even if Nietzsche didn't intend it. Insisting on some kind of purity in those you're willing to stay with will probably leave a person unable to stay with anyone.

This is the part I can't help but notice here at the end anyway, even if it might not be what Nietzsche intended to illuminate. I know it's cliche to critique Nietzsche's writings based on the way his life turned out, but it was also Nietzsche himself who said that to understand the philosophy you had to look at the philosopher. 

Three lines

"My animals are awake, for I am awake.
"My eagle is awake, and like me honors the sun. With eagle talons he grasps at the new light. You are my proper animals; I love you. 
"But I still lack my proper men!” — 
—Zarathustra

One other theme I only noticed here at the end: Zarathustra's relationship to animals. We are told in the beginning that man is a bridge from animals to the Ubermensch. 

Regardless, throughout the book, Nietzsche uses animals as the source of comfort for Zarathustra and signs of higher truths. So at the end, when he finds himself in this blessed state, that's shown by birds surrounding him and a lion staring at him adoringly. 

If there's a progression from animals to Ubermensch, then why are animals the source of truth and wisdom and other humans only a source of more confusion? 

I understand the inclination. Nothing is more reassuring to me than a strange cat or dog that acts relaxed around me. I tell myself that they are tap into perception people have cut themselves off from. But if Zarathustra is showing mankind a path to transcendence, then his deference to animals generates a thematic dissonance. 

Then again, to go above one has to go below.

—Brady Dale
October 31, 2026