Drunk on the ground

William James pitied "poor Nietzsche's antipathy," as most of us who were early smitten with Zarathustra eventually do. See Gary Kamiya's "Falling Out With Superman," for instance. Or the alienated teen in "Little Miss Sunshine" who (unlike his hero) eventually reconciles with, and rejoins, the human race. (When Nietzsche Wept is another cinematic tribute that has its moments of insight.)

But somehow the books remain, in some pre-postmodern way detached from their author and standing magnificently apart... as on a tall peak just beyond reach. The Dawn, Human, All too Human, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Antichrist, Twilight of the Idols, Gay Science, Thus Spake Zarathustra... Works of genius, and of despair that refuses to name and accept its condition. But, with enough of the truth to arrest a young person who knows this can't be all there is, who knows there has to be something better still to come. But (this sensibility attests) it must come here, in this life, and perhaps recurrently, eternally.

James and Nietzsche did have in common a mutual affinity for the heights, bracing and invigorating and (ultimately, forJames) terminal. Mountain hikes became James's "main hold on primeval sanity and health of soul." Maybe he was insane to hike so hard in his condition, at his age (60+ with a fluttery heart), but he might have been crazy not to. In 1899 he told his brother Henry, the novelist, that his "ridiculous cardiac weakness" was inconvenient, that his strenuous hikes had probably strained his heart, but that he nonetheless was "glad I had the experience, even at the price!"

Alain de Boton chronicles the price Nietzsche paid, tracing the bleak objective day-to-day mundanities of

his soaring Swiss Mountain philosophy. "Nietzsche spent seven years in Sils-Maria... He would rise at five," work all morning in his small rented room, then hit the peaks. (That's Piz Corvatsch.) In the evening, typically, it was back to the room, a solitary dinner, and an early bed. Sounds stark and easy, and to most of us drearily depressing. But it must have been hard. That's what he liked most about climbing mountains, and writing books: the difficulty and challenge and growth-opportunity ("What doesn't kill me" etc.) of scaling those imposing altitudes. Then, the great payoff at the summit, "a primal delight at being alive to see such beauty."

Again, Nietzsche (the rare tea-totaling German) admired Emerson... who could get drunk sober, simply treading the bare flat ground. (In Nature Emerson famously wrote: "Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.")

Me too. Crossing Hillwood High School's playing fields with my dogs, in dappled morning sunlight, thinking only of getting home and having a good breakfast... It happens all the time.

I love the mountains as much as the next philosopher, but I really think it's more about where you plant your head than your feet.

None of which is to deny that feet, particularly feet in motion, are indispensable too. We have walked far, up and down and all around. Walk on.

oldest recorded footprints