Even a king may be a cook

October of Zarathustra

I'm an expert in naps. 

In college I would take a 20-minute nap every day after lunch on campus. My university had this little library that wasn't part of the university library system, called the browsing library. It was more of a study room. It had several couches, and usually I could find one of them empty each day.

I would lie down on the couch, look at the clock, announce the time that was 20 minutes from when I dropped in and pass out. I'd nearly always wake up right on time (this even amazed me). 

I wonder if I snored? No one ever said anything to me about it if I did! 

Since then, I have been a nearly daily napper any time I haven't had to go into the office. Naps are so good. Usually I nap for less than 20 minutes. That's what I find optimal. A short one. It's great if you are only asleep in the end for a few minutes. That gives you a boost. Longer and you can end up very groggy.

Sometimes I don't go to sleep at all. I just lie there and grow calm. But sometimes I fall asleep and when I wake up it's like I actually died, that's how far down it feels as though I went. 

These days I do set an alarm. I don't trust myself like I used to. 

I intentionally sleep in two different modes. If I really want to go down (which is most of the time), I lie on my stomach. If I want it to be lighter, I rest on my back, because that usually ends up being more of a snooze than a sleep. Sometimes you want to keep it to a snooze.

I also like to nap on my couch, not on my bed. And I don't try to darken the room. A nap is best in a room with some light. It keeps it lighter.

In the first chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra that I read today he takes a little nap at noon. Just a quickie. And he talks to himself the whole time. 

And that's also a potential byproduct of napping. Sometimes you go to lie down, you start to calm yourself, and then your brain perks up with some idea it's been brewing in your subconscious. The pause gives it an opportunity to bring it to your consciousness. It doesn't feel as nice, but that's OK. Sometimes that idea is just what you needed, but it took a break for it to come out.

That happened to me just yesterday! And now I'm vibecoding an app for nonlinear storytelling. It's looking good already!

The pleasure of the nap is something that always intrigues me. I love to nap, but I disappear. I go unconscious. Do I really enjoy it when I do it? Or do I enjoy the feeling of having had the feeling? The feeling of coming out of it?

The pleasure of sleep is such a mystery when you stop to think about it. How can you enjoy a thing if the nature of the thing is that it makes "you" disappear?

At Noon — The Greeting — The Last Supper

Today's sequence is among the clearest set of tangible events in the whole book. 

After wandering around his woods, trying to find the person crying in distress and meeting several people, but at noontime he's feeling good. So he has a nice nap under a tree. Then he heads back to his cave and all his new acolytes are excited to see him. He tells them that they aren't bad, but they aren't quite good enough. Then they all make dinner. 

The voluntary beggar proves to be like that one vegan you didn't realize was vegan when you invited them to the party. 

One line

“I ask of your love that you speak to me of my children. For them I am rich, for them I became poor; what have I not surrendered, — what would I not surrender that I might have one thing: these children, this living garden, these life trees of my will and of my highest hope!” —Zarathustra.

—Brady Dale
October 26, 2026

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