I was saying what the Superman isn’t based on my reading of N, because apparently no one in this thread besides Fixed Cross has even read TSZ. The Superman IS the lightning (per TSZ). He IS the meaning of the earth and the meaning of man. He IS a new species of man. He IS the “stillest and lightest of all things”. He IS beautiful ("the beauty of the Superman came to me as a shadow).
But he’s not a god. But like a god he’s greater than man. “he is that sea; in him can your great contempt be submerged” So he’s a “sea” in which we can submerge ourselves and he’s the lightning that inoculates us (against wretched self-complacency and perhaps even death?).
I’m also wondering the about the connection between the “Self” and the Superman.
"Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings. “What are these prancings and flights of thought unto me?” it saith to itself. “A by-way to my purpose. I am the leading-string of the ego, and the prompter of its notions.”
Man to the Superman is similarly a “laughing-stock.” But the self wants to create beyond itself… does it also desire to be a bridge to the Superman?
But the Superman being a new species of man doesn’t necessarily mean he is any less wholly human(as a new “species”), or that he’s imperishable (like some omnipotent god…but being perishable doesn’t mean one is any less eternal)… Nor can we assume he wouldn’t be subject to the vicissitudes of love (Another important question is the relationship between EROS and the Superman…Especially how TSZ is full of “Longing” for the Superman)
So we can gather from TSZ that the Superman does not yet exist, but Zarathustra certainly has various premonitions/dreams/visions of the Superman… For if the Superman does not yet exist, how can Zarathustra even say he’s the lightning, the sea, a shadow etc etc.
Zarathustra also says we can not become the Superman: " Not perhaps ye yourselves, my brethren! But into fathers and forefathers of the Superman could ye transform yourselves: and let that be your best creating!—" N seems to be envisioning a long protracted generational chain of men willing/creating/perishing for the future of the Superman (marriage and friendship are means).
But who would perish for the future of the Superman if he himself didn’t experience some sort of vision of the Superman?
The creative man builds himself up/climbs higher and higher, becomes “pregnant” a “dark cloud” on the heights, get closer/more in touch with that which he loves, suffering/longing reaches a precipice…this begs the lightning which is both a source of destruction/inoculation. Man is destroyed but returns again and again (eternal return). But never becomes the Superman. Man in a sense is both Semele and Dionysus but not Zeus.
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“He moved through bosom of the heavens, flashing with lightning, and unwillingly husband Zeus the lightning-gather fulfilled the request of his bride. He went towards Semele holding in his sorry hand the bridal spark of the marriage-stealing thunderbolt. The chamber was lit up with lightning. Ismenos glittered and all Thebes sparkled with the breath of fire” -Nonnus