Self-portrait by Jacek Malczewsky
Der Mensch ist etwas, das überwunden werden soll. Was habt ihr getan, ihn zu überwinden?
Man is something to be conquered. What have you done to conquer it?
Der Mensch ist ein Seil, geknüpft zwischen Tier und Übermensch - ein Seil über einem Abgrunde.
Man is a rope connecting animals and the superman - a rope across an abyss.Both quoted from Also sprach Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche (my own translations).
Nietzsche felt the body, the receiver and transmitter of the senses, was a thing to be overcome, conquered. In this he used the same duality of mind and body as many religions do. Dualities have the drawback of suggesting oppositions, where in fact there is a relationship. The image of the rope over an abyss also suggests something has to walk across it. The soul, perhaps?
Granted that we’re the vehicles of our DNA. In the process of nature this is our part in it. Yet we are, and feel ourselves, to be more than this. From reading the works of Daisetz Suzuki, and Nietzsche’s metaphors, the following thought struck me.
We are the results of countless causes, our parents meeting, for a start.
Our actions, and even our existences, have equally countless consequences, most of which we’ll never know.
Doesn’t this mean that even our organic selves are immortal?
Some food for thought, I hope.
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