This essay is the last in an essay trilogy regarding Friedrich Nietzsche. The essay deals with a former colleague whose favorite one-liner from Nietzsche is “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Therefore, this essay is my tribute to my friend whose quote from Nietzsche got me thinking about what Nietzsche believed.

Interestingly, while I can’t find any citation by Nietzsche, it seems to me that he had read Henry David Thoreau. In both their writings, they addressed my personal mantra, “I’m free to be me.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Henry David Thoreau

Let’s start at the beginning with Thoreau. On Independence Day, July 4, 1845, Thoreau moved into a small cabin, which he built in the woods near Walden Pond. He lived alone until September 6, 1847, which was exactly two years, two months, and two days of pondering and finding himself. During that time, he spent a great deal of time writing. After writing and rewriting, he published Walden: Or, Life in the Woods. It took him a half dozen years before he felt that he accurately penned what was from his heart and mind. In 1854, the world discovered Thoreau’s insights. He discovered a great deal about his life while he lived near Walden. Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Walden

Thoreau said, “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.” While that resonates with my mantra of free to me, Nietzsche said a similar thing, “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Obviously, Nietzsche discovered how to be free and in control or Übermensch.

Nietzsche’s Walden

It seems to me that Thoreau’s “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away” is no different than what Nietzsche, wrote, “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Essentially, Nietzsche and Thoreau are attempting to get their respective readers to discover reality for themselves just as each of them had done.

Merely following the edicts of politicians, religious leaders, or other voices in the crowd of life won’t work. Much of those voices are uninformed voices. Those voices are repeating what the voices had heard others saying. Thoreau and Nietzsche are clamoring to get their readers to think and ponder, but not merely to repeat. As a result, the crowd of repeaters are hollow people who think they are alive and thinking but aren’t. Being alive, really alive, will necessitate each of us to find a different drummer or to listen to the music that we pick.

As a postscript to this essay, I need to be near the water also. In fact, my office in my home is on the Lake La Mancha.

This video is Thus Spoke Zarathustra from the opening scene of 2001, A Space Odyssey.

This video also is Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Interestingly, the video contains a half dozen paintings by William Turner who is my favorite artist.