the three metamorphoses..

Nietzsche’s Thus spake Zarathustra deals with the concept of man and superman and all that comes in between. The first part consists of a description of the three metamorphoses of the spirit. The spirit goes through a metamorphosis from the camel to the lion and then to the child.
First, the spirit is very strong and is a loadbearer, a camel. It is filled with reverence for the rules laid down for it and it willingly bears all the weights of spurning pleasure for the quest of goodness, to suffer the huger of soul for the quest of truth. This is the masochism most commonly seen in the religion of every man, a willingness to believe that self inflicted pain makes for a holy experience. In this phase the soul is ruled by the dragon that stands for the golden rule “thou shalt”. And the soul obeys, and does as its bid. The dragon stands for the values of all of humanity before us and all that we’ve been taught as moral and good from our childhood.
Then the soul stands facing the dragon of thou shalt and fights for its freedom. The dragon says that all values have already been formed and laid down and hence no more “I will” is necessary, only “thou shalt” reigns. The soul fights for the freedom to make “thou shalt” into “I Will” and this is when it becomes the spirit of the lion. This change from the beast of burden to the lion is needed for the sake of making new values. The lion cant yet make the values itself, but it does have the freedom for new creating, to say a no to duty. Now even the holiest things the soul loved earlier seem arbitrary and illusionary to it in the new spirit of freedom.
Then it is ready to become the child. The child is needed because it is innocent, and has no prior bond or bias, it’s a new beginning. This soul now creates a new set of values for itself and makes a world unto itself.