The Gay Science

Give It a Shape

Here is a lump of play-dough.
It is yours.
Not the other lump.
This lump here.

Say it with me.
This is my lump.
I can give it a shape.

You can squeeze it.
You can roll it.
You can pinch a bit off.
You can stick a bit on.

You cannot swap it
for someone else’s lump.
You cannot wish it
into a different lump.

This is my lump.
I can give it a shape.

Look, a lumpy bit.
It will not come off.
Can you make it a nose?
Can you make it a hill?
Now the lumpy bit helps.

Pick one thing you like.
Maybe you like dots.
Put dots on the snake.
Put dots on the ball.
Now it all goes together.

This is my lump.
I can give it a shape.

Some days the lump feels ugly.
Do not smash it on the wall.
Sit down with it.
Give it one slow push.

When you are mad,
the lump is still yours.
When you are proud,
the lump is still yours.
Work a little.
Then you stop.
Tomorrow, work a little more.

Pick it up.
Give it one push.
That is the job.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: the one idea is becoming what you are (Common’s translation of §270 reads “Thou shalt become what thou art.”), worked out in §290 on giving style to a character. Nietzsche’s recipe is the one the play-dough carries: survey what you were given, strengths and weaknesses both; add some, take some away, with daily work; turn the part that won’t come off into part of the design; and let one taste run through the whole. The play-dough is a swapped picture; the mechanism is his. Fence two misreadings: this is not a promise that you can be anything you want (you don’t get a different lump), and not permission to smash it when you hate it. The book’s more famous slogans, God is dead and to live in danger, are not this idea and are not for this age.

Why?

A big kid says a thing.
Step on a crack, and bad luck comes.
Everybody believes it.
Everybody hops over the cracks.

You can ask.
Say it with me.
How do we know?

Is there a reason it is true?
Is there a reason it is not?
Nobody can say.
Nobody went to look.

How do we know?

Maybe some kids laugh.
That is okay.
You can still wonder.
You do not have to be sure yet.
Wanting to know is a good feeling.
Keep that feeling.

You can look.
Step on one crack.
Watch the day.
Did bad luck come?
Try it again tomorrow.

How do we know?

Ask in a kind voice.
Do not ask to be mean.
Listen to the answer.
Sometimes the answer is good.
Then you know a bit more.

Some things a grown-up says,
you do right away.
Hold hands at the road.
You can still ask why.
Ask after you are across.

Find one thing you believe.
Ask it: how do we know?

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: this is §2, on the intellectual conscience. Nietzsche’s complaint is that most people believe a thing and live by it without ever asking for the reasons for and against, and that kindness and talent don’t make up for it. What he wants is a person who can stand in the uncertainty and keep asking. He ranks people by this, calling it what “separates higher from lower men”; the primer leaves the ranking out and keeps the question. The two misreadings to fence are asking “why” to win a fight or mock someone, and treating a safety rule as up for debate before it’s followed; the beats fence both, and the second is the one to hold firm if your child tests it.

Again!

You love the swing.
Push, push, up high.
When it stops,
what do you say?

Say it with me.
Again!

Now think of a whole day.
Your day today.
The toast at breakfast.
The big puddle.
The time you fell down.
The hug after.

What if the whole day came back?
The same day.
The same way.
Every bit, in the same order.
The puddle, and the fall, and the hug.

Would you groan?
Or would you shout,
Again!

Some days you would groan.
That is okay.
Some bits hurt.
You do not have to like the fall.
But the hug came after the fall.
They come as one day.

Again?

At bedtime, look back.
Find one bit you want again.
Say it out loud.

Tomorrow, try one thing
you would want again.
Share your blocks.
Help with the cups.
Run fast to the gate.

Then at bedtime, ask.
Again?

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: this is §341, “The Heaviest Burden.” In the book a demon tells you that you must live this same life again, innumerable times, “every pain and every joy,” “all in the same series and sequence,” and asks whether you would curse him or call him a god. It is a test you put to your yes, not a claim about how the universe works. The swing is a swapped picture; the whole-day-in-order mechanism is his. Fence the misreading that every day has to be an “again” day, or that a hard day means your child did it wrong. Nietzsche puts the groan first, as the natural answer, and asks what it would take to say yes to the whole. The primer asks for one bit at bedtime, not for loving the hurt.