My brothers in War! I love you thoroughly

October of Zarathustra

It's something of the spirit of our time that when someone encounters an essay or a book that offers a philosophical system, advice or framework, a lens for critique tends to be the question: Who does this apply to? Does this apply well to everyone?

And if it doesn't apply well to everyone, then that becomes a line of attack.

But based on my reading along the way about Friedrich Nietzsche and a few days of reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, my one big observation is: This book is only about the people it's about.

In fact, if Nietzsche had one big perspective shift he wanted us all to make it might have been that not all of us are the same. Some people are set apart. 

Which is not a notion people today are all that comfortable with, but there it is. 

IX. The Preachers of Death

There are a lot of people professing beliefs in another world who end up using those beliefs to criticize being alive right now. Made me think of some corners of the rationalist community that have veered hard into anti-natalism, because the idea of any suffering at all seems fundamentally unjust to them.

• For example, this might be the most off-putting post I read in all of 2026. I am no Nietzsche expert, but he would not like that essay.

X. War and Warriors

This could be the wrong read, but I took it it say that those on a war footing don't concern themselves with the little nonsense of the not-really-alive. From the edition I'm reading: "One can be silent and sit still only when one has arrow and bow: otherwise one chatter and quarrels."

• Y'know. Bluesky.

XI. The New Idol

The state is a new religion, making you comfortable and feeding you lies so that you love the comfort and agree its power is good.

XII. The Flies in the Marketplace

The great will forever be pestered by the banal. 

One line

"The earth is full of the superfluous; life is marred by the all-too-many."—Zarathustra.

It was tough to pick today because these four chapters were full of bangers. This line is interesting, though, in light of what I wrote above, about anti-natalists. 

I wouldn't say Nietzsche is pro-natalist, though. He only cares about the multiplication of people who actually live. He would be happy to see more people, opting to barely, live drop dead.

—Brady Dale
October 4, 2026

Next Zarathustra: The spectators often behaved like actors