Third Part · LV. The Spirit of Gravity

My way, not the way

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss;—

—To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and shipwrecked ones!

By divers ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness.

And unwillingly only did I ask my way—that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.

A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling:—and verily, one must also LEARN to answer such questioning! That, however,—is my taste:

—Neither a good nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.

“This—is now MY way,—where is yours?” Thus did I answer those who asked me “the way.” For THE way—it doth not exist!

Thus spake Zarathustra.

Zarathustra recalls climbing masts and reaching his truth by many windings, questioning the ways rather than asking directions. To those who ask 'the way' he answers: this is my way, where is yours? For the way does not exist.

Creation and the creatorEach must find a path of his own through testing and questioning, with no universal road.
Revaluation of values (old and new tables)'The way' does not exist; only one's own way and taste.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Learning to love oneself; my wayAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici explains the doctrine of self-love in 'The Spirit of Gravity' as a response to modern man's terror of being alone with himself, which betrays self-contempt, so that learning to love oneself requires a slow inner transformation; and he notes that Nietzsche does not coerce but says 'This is my way, where is yours?'

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Gospel of selfishness and aristocracyH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that Nietzsche offers a gospel of intelligent selfishness and absolute individualism, citing Zarathustra on loving oneself rather than one's neighbour, and an aristocracy that sacrifices the masses as scaffolding for a higher race under the law of natural selection.

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

The sublime ones stuck at the camel stageAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici says the sublime ones are a type Nietzsche did not wholly dislike but who take life too seriously and never surmount the camel stage; real greatness is to speak of lofty things without being oppressed by them, and Nietzsche breaks old things not with the anarchist's irreverence but with the fingers of an artist at ease with beauty, guided by his own taste.