"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going-across." - Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I've had several thoughts in reading the opening pages of this thoughtful book. It would seem that man is indeed a journey and not a destination. Everything aspires to be greater than it is, whether it's conscious of such behavior or not. Stars endeavor to become bigger, brighter as they burn more and more fuel, converting elements into heavier elements. Planets jockey for the best positions.

A tree in a forest: is it a thing? Is it really an object? The tree can live for decades, sometimes centuries. A tree is a noun, but perhaps there is another view. Trees aspire to be the tallest, to gain the most light and rain to grow. These trees benefit the ecosystem, but does that matter to trees? If a tree could think, would it care if other beings got oxygen from it? A tree can't be a noun, because a noun is an object. Trees aren't objects; they are a bridge and not a goal. Their entire purpose over their decades of life is to grow as big and tall as they can, and then return to the earth. This is not a noun, this is a verb. This is a process, an action. To say that a tree is a noun is to insist that the tree exists in a static state at a specific period in time. Can this be? No, a tree exists across the years, across the weeks, across the days, across the hours, and across the seconds. To point to a tree and say "This is a tree," can one say the next second that "This is the same tree?" How can you call the tree that existed one second ago the same tree it is now? Its chemical state has changed, and you would be wrong to assert that it is indeed a noun. A noun is a static concept, and reality simply does not deal in static concepts.

Obviously this would stretch to almost any noun, as a result. Especially the living nouns. If man is a bridge, then is man a noun? Mankind is a process towards some unknown goal at some unknown time. Time would have to stop completely for the noun to exist, but perhaps that is the point. Time cannot stop otherwise the whole system breaks down. But if man reaches the end, does man achieve control of time? Is the goal to have the ability to say "This tree is a noun?" That would be a great power, indeed.

Cooperation is needed for this journey. All mankind must work together, setting aside the petty differences that divide it. There will be a day when humans no longer care to anger with each other over political debates, or murder each other over land. The money is all ours, the land is all ours, and the power is all ours. We all own it. The bridge can be built much faster with all of mankind's resources instead of arguing technicalities. We can all have the power to declare a tree to be a noun.