Once upon a time they wanted to be heroes; now they are merely indulgents. For them, heroes are a form of torture and fear. But I beg you with my love and hope: Don't abandon the hero in your soul! Maintain your divine highest hope!
Zarathustra noticed that a young man was hiding from him. One night, as he walked alone through the mountains on the edge of the city called the spotted cow, he saw the young man sitting against a tree, staring wearily at the valley. Zarathustra grabbed the tree on which the young man was leaning and said:
"If I wanted to shake the tree with my hands, I wouldn't be able to do it. But the wind, which we do not see, can torture it and bend it at will. We are also ruthlessly twisted and destroyed by these invisible hands. ”
The young man suddenly stood up in a panic and said, "I heard Zarathustra's voice, and I just thought of him!" ”
Zarathustra replied, "Why are you afraid of this?" Man and tree are actually the same. The more he wanted to rise to the heights of the light, the more determined his roots were to reach out into the dirt, to go down, into the dark depths of man, into the sin. ”
"Yes, into sin!" The youth cried out, "You have discovered my soul, how is this possible?" ”
Zarathustra replied with a smile, "Many souls can never be discovered by people unless they are invented first." ”
"Yes, go into sin!" The youth cried out again. "You told the truth, Zarathustra. Ever since I ascended to a high place, I no longer trusted myself, and no one trusted me anymore. But what is the reason for this? I changed too quickly: my today refuted my yesterday. When I was climbing, I would often jump over some steps, but all the steps did not forgive me for this. When I'm in the heights, I always find myself alone. No one spoke to me, and the lonely frost made my whole body tremble. What am I doing here? How ashamed I am for my climbing and stumbling! How I taunted myself with heavy gasps! How I hate that flyer! How tired I was at that high place! ”
At this point, the youth was silent. Zarathustra looked at the tree standing beside them and said, "This tree grows alone in the mountains here; it grows so high that it surpasses that of humans and animals." If it is going to speak, then no one can understand it: it grows so tall. Now it waits again and again, but what is it waiting for? It lived too close to the clouds; perhaps it was waiting for the first lightning bolt? ”
When Zarathustra finished saying this, the young man reacted strongly, gesturing and shouting, "Yes, Zarathustra, you are telling the truth." When I climb to the top, I am actually pursuing self-destruction, and you are the lightning I am waiting for! look at! What have I done since you appeared among us? It was my jealousy of you that destroyed me! The young man said as he wept bitterly. However, Zarathustra put her arm around him and led him away.
They walked together for a while, and Zarathustra began to say, "It hurts me. The look in your eyes expresses all your dangers better than your words. Because you are not yet free, you are still seeking freedom. Your pursuits make you too awake and sleepless all night. You want to reach the heights of freedom; your soul longs for the stars. But even your bad instincts are longing for freedom. Your wild dogs want freedom when your spirit is struggling to break through all the cages, and they bark happily in the cellar. It seems to me that you are still a prisoner of your own fictitious freedom. Ah, the souls of these prisoners became astute, but at the same time treacherous and evil.
It is still necessary for the spiritually free to purify themselves. There was still a lot of restraint and dirt on his body: his eyes still needed to become purer. Yes, I understand your dangers. But I implore you with my love and hope: Do not abandon your love and hope!
You still feel noble, and other people who hold grudges against you or throw malicious glances at you still think you are noble. Because, you have to know this, that is, noble people will become obstacles to any one person. Even for a good man, the noble man is an obstacle: even if the good people call him a good man, they always try to exclude him. Noble people want to create a new thing and a new virtue. Good people need old things, and they need old things to always be properly preserved.
The danger of the noble man is not that he will become a good man, but that he will become an arrogant, a cynic, or a destroyer. Ah, I have known all noble men who have lost their highest hope. At this time, they denigrate all noble hopes. So they had no shame in having fun in time, and they got by. "Spirit is nothing but extravagance," they said. At this point, they broke the wings of their spirits: now they were crawling around, making a mess of the places they had eaten.