Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Schopenhauer as educatornot at all of themselves. To the question: 'To what end do you live?'they would all quickly reply with pride: 'To become a good citizen, orscholar, or statesman' - and yet they are something that can neverbecome something else, and why are they precisely this? And not,alas, something better? He who regards his life as no ore than apoint in the evolution of a race or of a state or of a science; and thusregards himself as belonging wholly to the history of becoming,has not understood the lesson set him by existence and will have tolearn it over again . This eternal becoming is a lying puppet-playin beholding which man forgets himself, the actual distraction whichdisperses the individual to the four winds, the endless stupid gamewhich the great child, time, plays before us and with us. That heroismof truthfulness consists in one day ceasing to be the toy it plays with.In becoming, everything is hollow, deceptive, shallow and worthy ofour contempt; the enigma which man is to resolve he can resolveonly in being, in being thus and not othelWise, in the imperishable.Now he starts to test how deeply he is entwined with becoming, howdeeply with being - a tremendous task rises before his soul: to destroyall that is becoming, to bring to light all that is false in things.He too wants to know everything, but not, in the way the Goetheanman does, for the sake of a noble pliability, to preserve himself andto take delight in the multiplicity of things; he himself is his first sacrificeto himself. The heroic human being despises his happinessand his unhappiness, his virtues and vices, and in general themeasuring of things by the standard of himself; he hopes for nothingmore from himself and in all things he wants to see down to thisdepth of hopelessness. His strength lies in forgetting himself; and ifhe does think of himself he measures the distance between himselfand his lofty goal and seems to see behind and beneath him only aninsignificant heap of dross. The thinkers of old sought happinessand truth with all their might - and what has to be sought shall neverbe found, says nature's evil principle. But for him who seeks untruthin everything and voluntarily allies himself with unhappiness a miracleof disappointment of a different sort has perhaps been prepared:something inexpressible of which happiness and truth are onlyidolatrous counterfeits approaches him, the earth loses its gravity,the events and powers of the earth become dreamlike, transfigurationspreads itself about him as on summer evenings. To him hosees these things it is as though he were just beginning to awaken andwhat is playing about him is only the clouds of a vanishing dream.These too will at some time be wafted away: then it will be day. -155