Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationswhat we all do fo r the greater part of our lives: usually we fail toemerge out of animality, we ourselves are the animals whose sufferingseems to be senseless.But there are moments when we realize this : then the clouds are rentasunder, and we see that, in common with all nature, we are pressingtowards man as toward s something that stands high above us. In thissudden illumination we gaze around us and behind us with a shudder:we behold the more subtle beasts of prey and there we are in themidst of them. The tremendous coming and going of men on thegreat wilderness of the earth. their fo unding of cities and states, theirwars, their restless assembling and scattering again, their confusedmingling, mutual imitation, mutual outwitting and down treading,their wailing in distress, their howls of joy in victory - all this is a continuationof animality: as though man was to be deliberately retrogressedand defrauded of his metaphysical disposition, indeed asthough nature, after having desired and worked at man fo r so long,now drew back from him in fear and preferred to return to theunconsciousness of instinct. Nature i eeds knowledge and it isterrified of the knowledge it has need of; and so the flame flickersrestlessly back and forth as though afraid of itself and seizes upon athousand things before it seizes upon that on account of whichnature needs knowledge at all. In individual moments we all knowhow the most elaborate arrangements of our life are made only so asto flee from the tasks we actually ought to be performing, how wewould like to hide our head somewhere as though our hundredeyedconscience could not find us out there, how we hasten to giveour heart to the state, to money-making, to sociability or sciencemerely so as no longer to possess it ourselves, how we labour at ourdaily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessar;y to sustainour life because to us it is even more necessary not to haveleisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is inflight from himself; universal too is the shy concealment of this hastebecause everyone wants to seem content and would" like to deceivemore sharp-eyed observers as to the wretchedness he feels; and alsouniversal is the need for new tinkling word-bells to hang upon lifeand so bestow upon it an air of noisy festivity. Everyone is familiarwith the strange condition in which unpleasant memories suddenlyassert themselves and we then make great efforts, through vehementnoise and gestures, to banish them from our minds: but the noiseand gestures which are going on everywhere reveal that we are all insuch a condition all the time, that we live in fear of memory and of158