Suppose someone has flown often in his dreams and finally, as soon as he dreams, he is conscious of his power and art of flight as if it were his privilege, also his characteristic and enviable happiness. He believes himself capable of realizing every kind of arc and angle simply with the lightest impulse; he knows the feeling of a certain divine frivolity, an "upward" without tension and constraint, a "downward" without condescension and humiliation--without gravity! How could a human being who had had such dream experiences and dream habits fail to find that the word "happiness" had a different color and definition in his waking life, too? How could he fail to--desire happiness differently? "rising" as described by poets must seem to him, compared with this "flying," too earthbound, muscle-bound, forced, too "grave."

--from Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, by Friedrich Nietzsche; translation by Walter Kaufmann.

posted by Larry at 9:14 AM