Whose mockery — induces

October of Zarathustra

I have come to the end of part three of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Once again, he is alone in his cave. This time, he's talking to himself at great length.

At the end of parts 1 and 2 he also went off on his own. Each time he comes back to himself. 

And maybe this is a larger lesson of the book, maybe even without Nietzsche meaning to point to it? As the cliché goes: Wherever you go, there you are.

The musician Tom Waits apparently has a way of talking to the things he works on. He treats every song like it's a little god or a little spirit. He talks to it. He cajoles it. He tries to persuade it to come along and be the thing in the world he always meant for it to be. It works for him to do this.

Yes, it's animism. I should try it more often. 

At the end of part 3, Zarathustra is talking to life itself. He's saying he seeks it constantly, and sometimes life bites and sometimes it seems to run from him and hide. He tries to crack the whip, to discipline life, but life both resists being controlled but also never completely abandons him. He's the shepherd but life will never be a very good sheep.

He asks life: If I'm the hunter, are you the prey or the dog?

Life doesn't answer that question, but I think we know the answer. Life is both. And other things. Life will take whatever shape it wants to. You're just lucky to have it.

And that's what Zarathustra concludes, too. For all his wisdom, he loves life more than his wisdom.

And we gazed at each other and looked at the green meadow, over which the cool evening was just passing, and we wept to-gether. - But then life was dearer to me than all my wisdom had ever been. —Zarathustra, “The Other Dance Song"

Life defies wisdom. You can't make sense of life. But you're glad you have it.

Don't fact check me on this, but it seems to me that through all of human history there have been those who have concluded that life is more of a burden than a gift. I don't use the phrase "concluded" lightly. They reason themselves to this position. They use logic. They make a case. 

Nietzsche closes this section of the book in poetry, in song, in a medium that very intentionally is meant to step outside of reason and touch that space of ideas that are ephemeral, that are beyond the limited tool of language, to approach it like approaching the limit in a calculus equation. Never quite getting there, but always nearer. 

Reason can lead to the conclusion that life isn't worth living. It's tough all round. Pain never ends. Everyone is suffering. There's a reasonable-sounding string of words to justify almost any inane conclusion that you might like to come to. That's why reason, for all its power, is a pernicious gift of the mind.

Embracing the poetic and letting pure instinct make decisions from time to time is an insurance policy against being so smart that you do something very stupid. 

The other dance song

Poetry about how much he loves life.

The seven seals

Poetry about how eternity is the only worman he would ever want to marry. In the footnotes, Clancy Martin notes that his reference to the ring of rings here calls back to Wagner's "The Ring Cycle," about a ring of great power that destroys the person who holds it. 

What I can't tell reading this is whether or not Zarathustra is saying he longs for immortality or if he's saying he's happy he's mortal because that means he actually got to be alive? I just don't know.

Let's ask the robots:

Not bad, robots. OK. I can feel that. 

One line

“Where do you lure me now, you unruly paragon? And now you are fleeing from me again, you sweet wildcat and ingrate!” —Zarathustra

—Brady Dale
October 21, 2026

Next Zarathustra: What do kings matter now?