 So Nietzsche offers us a three-step process towards freedom, and it is the camel, the lion, and the child. It's not three separate modes of being, this is three metamorphoses that a human being can go through in order to find something like meaning and something like freedom. The first one is the camel. This is from the Spagues Arathustra. Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you. How the spirit becomeeth a camel, the camel, a lion, and the lion at last a child. Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong, load-bearing spirit, in which reverence dwelleth. For the heavy, and the heaviest, longeth its strength, my interpretation would be that it starts out with the idea that we should bravely face the things that we have to do, that we should be willing to bear a burden. Camels are capable of great feats of endurance of carrying very heavy loads, and they strike out into the desert into an extremely dangerous, extremely hostile environment in which there's a thousand one ways to die horribly, and are very, very good at it. They have a skill, they have a discipline, they have a willingness to be strong and to bear the burdens. In this, I think I can see overtones of the, or rather I can see in Jordan Peterson, the overtones of Nietzsche, where he says, pick up your burden, pick up your burden and face your responsibilities to the best of your ability. Jordan Peterson believed that that alone gives life meaning, that just by bearing your burdens, carrying, he actually says, carry the heaviest load you can manage, and that that will give life meaning. I personally think it's a very, very crucial part of that and you can't do without it. I don't see as much meaning in suffering alone as Jordan Peterson would. What is heavy? So asketh the load-bearing spirit. Then kneeleth it down like the camel and wanteth to be well laden. So the spirit of the camel is actually saying, what have you got? What have you got? What's heavy? Strap it on me. Just stick it on my back and kneels down, you know, the way that they do with their weird. If you've ever ridden a camel, it's extraordinarily uncomfortable. It's not like riding a horse. It's painful. It's shockingly painful. You have to be very, very tough to ride camels and they're very, very strong animals back to Nietzsche. What is the heaviest thing ye heroes asketh the load-bearing spirit? That I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength. Is it not this? To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? To exhibit one's folly in order to mock one's wisdom? And isn't the heaviest thing that you can give me for me to, it says here, to humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? Wouldn't it be for me to show how self-aware and humble I can be that I can take on anything even if the thing I take on defies my entire ideology, defies my entire philosophy? That's how tough I am. That's how strong I am. That's a burden I'm ready to take on. There's a number of these listed. It's beautifully written. I suggest you go read it. It's the three metamorphoses from Thus Bakes Arathustra by Nietzsche. So there's a bunch of these questions, but the first one is a really good one. What is the heaviest thing you can lay upon me? Is it not this? To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? The Dostoebsky Brothers Karamazov was written in 1880. I think this was finished in 1883. It's tempting to believe. I'm sure Nietzsche was reading all the major books. It would be like if a Netflix show came on and everybody was like, wow, have you seen this? There's no way you wouldn't have known about it. But in this, there's overtones of Father Zazimov's speeches about the necessity for humility, the necessity for discipline, the necessity even here to subvert your own worldview. And it says to humiliate yourself and to mortify your pride, to go through a narcissistic humiliation. That takes great strength, really emphasizing the kind of intellectual honesty and the intellectual courage it takes to make progress in this world. The camel goes out into the lonely wilderness. But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis. Here the spirit becomeeth a lion. Freedom will it capture and lordship in its own wilderness. In the lion we have the spirit of an individual, a ruler, a king of their own space, someone who would be concerned with their personal sovereignty and the sovereignty of their own kingdom. This is a person who has to learn to set boundaries. This is a person who is learning to move beyond cultural norms. It's last lord it here seeketh. Hostile will it be to him and to its last god. For victory will it struggle with the great dragon. What is the great dragon, which the spirit is no longer inclined to call lord and god. Thou shalt, is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion sayeth, I will. The lion here is also overthrowing a previous god, a previous hegemonic entity, a previous hierarchy and saying, no, I'm not doing that anymore. That was the last god. So what is the great dragon, which the spirit is no longer inclined to call lord and god. The spirit here is the spirit of the lion. And it has this great dragon that was the great enemy, which the spirit of the lion used to call god. This great dragon was the god, lord and god. Its name, the dragon's name, the great enemy that the spirit of the lion used to previously call lord and god. Thou shalt. So this is a person who used to be obedient. This is a person who used to just accept cultural norms and accept the cultural baggage and do as he was told. And now he's saying, no, I will not do that. The dragon says, Thou shalt. And the dragon in the story is covered in scales. And all of these scales are different values and different Thou shalt. Direct reference, obviously, to the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt this, Thou shalt not that. It's telling you, you must do this, you must do that. It's being imposed upon you. It's not coming spontaneously from within. It's generating codependency. It forces you into the role of receptacle. You are a cop for this ideology and you accept the wand of this ideology into the cop. It forces you into a passive stance. And Nietzsche says here, no, in your second metamorphosis, you will become the lion. And you will say, Ich will. I will. It is my will. And so there is this fiery lion-like rebellion that says, no, I will. To create new values, that even the lion cannot yet accomplish. So the camel can bear the burden. The lion can say no to the old values in the old value system. But the lion is not capable of creating a new value system. To Nietzsche, to create new values, that even the lion cannot yet accomplish. But to create itself freedom for new creating, that can the might of the lion do. So the lion's strength, it gives it space by saying no, by pushing back on the hegemonic force, on the ideological force. He goes, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not doing that. It needs strength. It needs a lion's strength. The roar of the lion in this story is no. It's written in arcane English. It's nay, which means no in old English. The lion roars nay. I will not. I will not do this. I will not accept. I will not go through the thou shalt. It is what it will, my will, my want. That is what I will put in this place. So it creates the freedom, the space in which values can be, a new value system can be configured. To create itself freedom and give a holy nay even unto duty. For that, my brethren, there is the need of the lion. So Nietzsche could see here that if you were going to turn your back on this, you would need great strength because of the pressure and the shame and the guilt that would be exerted against you. You won't do your duty. You know, Nietzsche was born, I think he was born into Prussia and he served. I'm pretty sure he was a horseman and then he became sick in the Prussian military. So imagine the pressure, the pressure from his church, the pressure from his state, the pressure from the military, you know, be a man, do your duty, take care of Prussia, of the military needs. And he said no. He himself, Nietzsche, walked away. He walked away from all of that and said no. He renounced Prussia. He became stateless. So I say again, to create itself freedom and give a holy nay even unto duty, incredibly courageous. All of us need to give a holy nay even unto duty, even unto patriotism, nationalism, faith, whatever. We must do it to become authentic and to individuate. For that, my brethren, there is need of the lion. But to create new values, that even the lion cannot yet accomplish. But to create itself freedom for new creating, that can the might of the lion do. What you need after that is the child. The child is innocent. The child is spontaneous. The camel bore the burden. The lion said no to the past and created space. But we have to go back to a spontaneous state of life affirming innocent. So we bear a burden. Then we say no. Then we need to say yes. Once we've cleared the table, we've cleared the ideological crap. Then it's time to say yes. Then it's time to be in life with the spirit that you would find in the tarot card of zero. The spirit of the fall. We approach life with a degree of openness and innocence and in a life affirming way. The camel and the lion can't do that. Only a child can do that. The child shouts the sacred yes that affirms life. This is what we need to remember about Nietzsche is he was a life affirming man. He wasn't a nihilist. He liked red-blooded, life-affirming ideas and concepts and structures. So he was trying to find a way to bring people back to a place where they could have the courage to be spontaneous, natural and to take risks, to live their lives and to affirm life. The game of creation can only be said with the yes. So he was in the Spake Zarathustra. Nietzsche talks about the game of creation. We can only create when we are in a child-like state of innocence and saying yes, yes, yes. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your time and for your attention. I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Cheers.