What Dreams may come...

oil on panel



Dear Reader,

Its been a while but I have not been sleeping and I don't mean that in the literal sense. Or rather I've been pondering the sweetest sleep and some arcane philosophical rumminations from Nietzsche. Now I know that sounds a bit high falatulent but really, the other day I was up in bed with my laptop and decided to review Nietzsche's free spirited book called " Human All Too Human" . Sometimes I wonder if thinking too much affected his "essential man". I like thinking but I also feel we were designed for movement and activity.

In his book which I am reading online he discusses everything from Religion to Art . His thoughts on Art are thought provoking at the very least whether I agree with him or not. But what caught my attention and how it relates to my topic at hand was that he observed that with the death of God and Religion that Art had and would fill the void left by their absence. Of course this is theoretical and really only applies to those individuals who wanted and needed something besides God to worship and praise. He felt that man would continually evolve to a more moral and scientific man ( we are talking 1878 ) . Of course we know now how that turned out! But he felt that all those impulses that were felt by the man of Religion and the old philosophy would be replaced with newer evolved sentiments.

Here is a sampling of Zarathustra...

the slow arrow of beauty. The most noble kind of beauty is that which does not carry us away suddenly, whose attacks are not violent or intoxicating (this kind easily awakens disgust), but rather the kind of beauty which infiltrates slowly, which we carry along with us almost unnoticed, and meet up with again in dreams; finally, after it has for a long time lain modestly in our heart, it takes complete possession of us, filling our eyes with tears, our hearts with longing.
What do we long for when we see beauty? To be beautiful. We think much happiness must be connected with it. But that is an error.

Like I said, he has some interesting insights and here is the crux of the matter. Nietzsche disputes that the way we feel now will in any way be constant for man in the future or that those feelings and sensations of modern man have anything in common with man in Roman Times for example. He states that there are no absolutes and that belief in any universal binding notion of man as man is error. I know that this is an oversimplification but I am writing in mass strokes to get to the point which is that man's nature , as complicated as he makes himself out to be , and regardless how men like Nietzsche thinks he can change...remains unchanged as to desires.

When I saw my son sleeping on his bed years ago I stopped and observed something beautiful. His sleep was so pure and innocent. It was sublime and the light from the suns early rays illuminated his face as if he was posed like a model for the great Raphael. How i envied his tranquility. I did not sense that he worried about anything. What was he dreaming and what was the inner world of a 2 year old? Often times I am robbed of sleep because I am going over plans and to do lists. Other times an ache or torment robs me of my rest. Oh to sleep and dream the rhapsodic visions of my little David. How I would trade places with you at times. Bills and interest rates and sales...what are these but beguiling demons?

If you are reading this and identify with what I am saying and have also looked at awe at your child as they sleep then we both share a common drama that I am certain has been experienced by others past and will be by others future.The image of a child in sweet sleep is beautiful. And in seeing that beauty I am all the richer...and much happiness is connected with it and that is no error. Nietzsche is dead...thank God!