Metamorphosis of Spirit

In the book 'Thus spoke Zarathustra', Friedrich Nietzsche describes a person named Zarathustra who lived in solitude for 10 years and now is ready to come out and Share the wisdom he had gained. He describes that man’s spirit undergoes 3 transformation first to the camel, from camel to lion and lastly from lion to child.

The Camel

Like camel the spirit takes the burden of society’s expectations, his family’s beliefs his community's ideals, and lives up to them. Thus the spirit becomes camel. Generally, during adolescence or in adults we undergo this transformation. All the societies’ expectations, cultural beliefs are portrayed as a dragon, a golden scaled dragon. In each scale, its written ‘thou shalt’ meaning all the ideals or beliefs that implicitly says that ‘you have to’ follow them is portrayed as a dragon in the book.

The Lion

To defeat this dragon the spirits undergo the second transformation to the lion. Lion defeats the dragon. The lion represents the rejection of the convention and the desire to set free. The lion represents that ‘I will’ create my own ideal and values. Thus spirit becomes a lion. This metamorphosis is achieved by few. To reject the convention is to critically analyze them and logically accept what is true to your self and reject anything else.

The Child

After being free from all the expectations and ideologies, one still needs a reason to live, one still needs the illusion to stay alive and thus the third transformation of spirit to the child.

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

Like child to accept the first thing that comes in mind and to achieve it sincerely, to live somewhat impulsively. Where you solely are the commander and the follower, you are the judge of your own actions and ideals. There is persistence in the child to follow his desires. Another implicit virtue the child has is self-forgetfulness if there is a new impulse child will forego the old one and set on its new experiences. This virtue is very essential many people are the victim of sunk cost fallacy where they stick to the activity even if it’s in loss, just because they invested time and resources in that activity. Many hold on to their opinions just because they believed them to be true in the past.

 The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

Like a child, the spirit then embarks on the journey from one virtue to another following one ideal in one moment and another ideal in another moment. Because there is no objective morality and no superiority among virtues these transformations are repeated again and again. Repeating the cycle to constantly building and destroying yourself that I think is the essence of life.

In his work, Nietzsche describes these transformations as a way to become superman/overman (originally in German Übermensch). Overman is the highest to the man and animals, the man says Nietzsche is but a bridge from animal to Overman.

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