The Importance of Being Nietzsche

 I draw circles and sacred boundaries about me; fewer and fewer climb with me up higher and higher mountains—I am building a mountain chain out of ever-holier mountains.

          —Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Of Old and New Tablets”

           

     “Will this fit in your pack?” she asks.

            “Probably,” I say, rearranging the contents to make room.

            “Can you hold this a minute?” I say, handing her a book.

            I manage to stow her package in my pack, then turn to find her looking suspiciously at my book.  I answer her unspoken question.

            “You just never know when you might have the sudden urge to read Nietzsche,” I say, retrieving “Beyond Good and Evil” and replacing it in my pack.

           A mildly mocking smile is her only response.

            What a time to be reading Nietzsche—here in the Vaterland, the place Nietzsche called home.

            Well, not exactly. We’re hiking mainly in Austria, a country that could proudly claim Wittgenstein, but seems more fascinated with Schwarznegger.

            Nietzsche wrote in German and is most often thought as a German philosopher.  In fact, he was a man without a country for most of his life. At his birth, Germany did not yet exist.  Instead, there was a German Confederation of states.  Nietzsche was a citizen of Prussia for a time, but later applied for the annulment of his his citizenship.  His request was granted and from April 17, 1869, until his death on August 25, 1900, he remained stateless.

            Nietzsche’s health was terrible and he spent a lot of time trying to find the ideal climate for his assorted ailments.  He loved the mountains and especially enjoyed remote outposts near the Swiss and Italian Alps during the summer where he could convalesce, brood and write.

            And it shows in his writing. There is sort of a mountaintop sensibility to Nietzsche, a feeling that the world he describes is one viewed from high, brisk perches where the the men and their ideas are heartier and more full of life.
             Most assuredly, he wrote, in remote places, in rarely penetrated mountain valleys, self-contained communities manifesting a much older sensibility can be more readily preserved. That is where we have to go looking for them.

    As we breakfast on yogurt and Cocoa-Puffs, I’m reminded of a remark from “Beyond Good and Evil”: The stomach is the reason men do not so readily think of themselves as gods.
       It is interesting how often Nietzsche's criticisms are expressed in terms of smells, tastes and other visceral responses, pleasant and unpleasant.  For example: 

     Books for the whole world always smell foul: the stink of small people clings to them. Where the folk eat and drink, even where they worship, the place usually stinks. One should not go into churches if one wants to breathe clean air. 


      Speaking of foul smells, Rocco told me it wasn't snoring that kept him awake last night, but rather the occasional aromas emanating from one or more of our six roommates.
      He shrugs.  “But some of those were girl farts, so I guess it was OK.”

      This is really a beautiful part of the trek. After a brief tram ride, we embark on a fairly gentle and relatively gravel-free trail, which gives way to a long and brutal descent to Winkel near Wenns. We’re traipsing through what are presumably private fields in a way that would astound property rights activists in the U.S. of A. Maybe the idea of private property isn't such a big deal to Europeans because there just isn't enough land to go around. So they share. Imagine that.

       We take a cab up through Pitztal and lunch at a place crowded with geriatric tourists who are force-fed schnapps from a glass beaker with a stem that shoots streams of liquor into their mouths and, occasionally, their eyes.

    I order something I'm told resembles bacon and eggs, but they run out of whatever it is before they get to me.  So I order a platter of speck and cheese, which shows up right about the time everyone else is finished. 

     Lynda is jonesin’ for a piece of plum pie, which several agree sounds great.  Turns out they have only one piece of plum pie, so we all order tiramisu instead.  Everyone gets tiramisu, except me; I get the last piece of plum pie, which I offer to Linda, but she refuses.

      Now we start the ascent to Braunschweiger Hütte at 9,051 feet.  Our packs, happily, precede us on another utility lift, so the fairly brutal climb is only miserable.  We walk along a dirt road pitted with the impressions from the tractor-style wheels of some vehicle that is probably a direct descendant of the lunar rover. 

     I’m thinking we’re going to just follow the road all the way up to the hütte, which we can see perched atop the looming rock outcropping to our left, when I notice a group of hikers traversing the slope above us.  I’m concerned because it looks like the kind of exposure that freaks Shawn out. 

      Sure enough; that’s the way we’re going.  The trail is a very steady ascent in places, but requires some scrambling in others.

     As we near the top, I begin to run.  Ursula takes up the challenge and pretty soon we’re racing up the side of the mountain. We reach the top in a final sprint and offer each other a high-five.

     “Berg Heil!” she says, then explains it means something like “glad you made it safely up the mountain and didn’t kill yourself.”  Interesting you'd need an expression for that.  "Gesundheit" is a useful word because people are always sneezing and there's really no other response to a sneeze. But the usefulness of "berg heil" would seem fairly limited. Unless Germans are always climbing mountains and killing themselves.  
       Charly is also in a jubilant mood.  
       "Brett!" he says, spreading his arms. "Come onto me!"
        In Charly-speak, this means: Give me a hug.  Which I do.

This hütte, turns out, is in the middle of a renovation and has only one working bathroom for 200 people.  But they tell us it’s OK to go outside.  Danke.

Charlie explains, with Ursula “translating,” that we have two rooms—one for 10 people and one for six.  I end up in the 10-seater with Rocco and Shawn for bedmates.

  No showers.

But what a view of the glacier!  Magnificent, although apparently greatly diminished over the last 20 years.  Take that, you global warming skeptics.

We dine on the usual first course of soup followed with a main course of . . . potatoes?  What is this?  The gulag hütte?

As usual, I'm off to bed early (without alcohol, what’s the point of staying up?), but find that everyone seems to have the same idea.  Pretty soon, Karen and Kathy are in the room and chatting about trips they’ve taken and causes they’ve championed. I eavesdrop and learn that schooling Thai children to become manicurists keeps them from becoming prostitutes.  Interesting.

Then Rocco, Shawn and Lynda arrive and the scene becomes something like summer camp. Kathy suggests that we all name the places we'd most like to visit.  Everyone names several exotic locales before it comes to me and I realize I'm stumped.  I think for a few seconds and finally admit that there's no place I want to go.  

I decide to take a final trip to the bathroom and as I stand, I come face-to-face with those lovely eyes of indeterminate color.  She's lying on her stomach in the upper bunk.  She smiles, says nothing, but holds my gaze. Should I kiss her?  Every instinct is saying YES!  But, hell, if I'm wrong, it's going to make the rest of the trip pretty awkward.  Nah.  Not a good idea.

      Tonight, I put everyone to sleep with Nietzschean lullabies.  Nietzsche is famous for his ability to write aphorisms--short, compressed and cryptic observations expressed in provocative language that rarely yields a single interpretation.

      That which is done from love always takes place beyond good and evil.

            After a moment or two, I hear “mmmmm” which is about the most you can expect from a cold reading of Nietzsche.

            When the game requires neither love not hate, woman plays indifferently.

            “. . . mmmmmm.”

            “I have done that,” says my memory.  I could not have done that—says my pride and remains implacable.  Finally—my memory gives up.

            “ . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”