TIGHTROPE WALKER

Try to conceive a tight rope walker balancing on a rope tied between two identical buildings. The rope represents the man’s current state. Man is something that must be overcome as he is a bridge with no ends. Thus while it is highly impossible for any one to balance on the rope it is impossible to stay there, eliminating the rope as a possibility for being the goal. Then again if it is two identical buildings and the walker has just left one then it is impossible that the other building should become a goal.

Then what exactly do these represent?? The building he has left is himself, the building he is targeting is himself and finally the rope he is walking on is himself. Thus the man is overcoming himself and in the process of doing so, he is overcoming others.

"Here man has been overcome at every moment; this has here become the greatest reality--whatever was so far considered great in man lies beneath him at an infinite distance. (The abyss.) The halcyon, the light feet, the omnipresence of malice and exuberance, and whatever else is typical of the type of man. While he has overcome self he is at a great height and he is looking down to see the people.

The rope is reality, reality without illusions--dangerous, elusive, contradictory, terrible and beautiful. Only while balancing on the rope, can man, look into that abyss, truly see it.

It also represents a kind of transformation and transcendence of man’s animal instincts. Here, man is seen as the bridge between the animals and finally the ubermensch or the overman that he must strive to become. Humans are not the be all and end all of existence, as the "last men" would see themselves. We are still largely governed by our animal instincts, which lead us to prejudice, superficiality, and to easy reliance upon faith. In order to refine our being, we must turn our instinct for cruelty upon ourselves, and carve away at our prejudices, superficiality, and faith, creating something deeper. Zarathustra speaks of the triumphant moment where we look with contempt upon all the human qualities that we once valued. This would signify our triumph over our shallow, human nature, and our progress toward the overman.