The Superman is one:
whose self-mastery yields an abundance of the power to create;
who exercises the master privilege of the free spirit
- living experimentally;
who bids farewell to the reverences of youth
and who stands apart from the views and values of the herd;
who reverences enemies as allies;
who knows how to forget and recuperate from the blows of life;
who shakes off with a single shrug the vermin that eat deeply into others;
whose overflowing plenitude and gratitude
cleanse both body and spirit of all guilt and ressentiment;
who perceives that "body" and "spirit"are two names for a single mystery;
who calls humankind to return to love to its true home, the Earth;
whose every muscle quivers with a proud consciousness of truly free will
and a sovereign individuality that 'no longer flows out into a God';
who realizes that creative individuality
is indeed the Earth's goal and humanity's hope;
who without metaphysical consolations,
affirms life not only in its joy but also its horror
and who, thereby, conquers nihilism
This 'anti-nihilist;
this victor over God and nothingness -
he must come one day.'
This Superman is shaped in the school of self-overcoming
whose curriculum requires both courage and discipline,
and above all, the ability to distinguish between
the asceticism that denies life and one that stands in its service.
The school of self-overcoming gives birth the the creative will.
-Philip Novak
