“I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?… Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman –a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” That’s repeated for affect. The human condition is not, nor has it ever been, a fixed state. It is perpetually evolving, even when it seems to be at rest, even when it seems to be stagnant. We are not the be-all-end-all of human evolution. There will always be a next step, a next level. And it is up to us, to a certain extent, if that next level will be healthy and robust or unhealthy and weak.
The Übermensch, or overman, is Nietzsche’s multicultural vision of human excellence, his meta-ontological elite. On an individual level, the overman is the healthy and robust adaptation of a person who consistently practices the art of self-overcoming. Such an individual has learned how to translate their multi-fractured self into a multifunctional force of nature. Self-actualized, fully individuated, and doggedly able to adapt and overcome the path toward enlightenment, these masters are prepared to take on all comers.
