The Painted People — Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Zarathustra says he flew too far into the future and was seized by horror. When he looked around, only time was his companion. He flew backward, homeward, faster and faster, until he landed among present-day people in the land of culture.

He wanted to love them, but he had to laugh and tremble at the same time. They look like living paint pots. Fifty colors cover their faces and limbs. Fifty mirrors flatter them back to themselves. Strip away the veils and gestures, he says, and little real person remains. They borrow beliefs from every age and wear them like costumes. They call themselves realistic and free from superstition, yet they are walking refutations of belief. They cannot create; they only copy. Many feel spiritually empty and joke about their own thin ribs, as if something was stolen from them while they slept.

Zarathustra feels homeless among them. He cannot endure them naked or clothed. He loves only the undiscovered land of the future, the country his children may find. If you feel alien in a world of performances and borrowed opinions, you are not alone. Authentic life asks you to stop layering masks and start building something real instead of collecting more borrowed colors.