“Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becomes a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.”
-Nietzsche
Discussion
The Camel — The Weight You Chose to Carry
Once, in a wide and silent desert, there walked a traveler—let’s call him you.
You weren’t born carrying anything, but somewhere along the way you started picking things up:
Expectations
Obligations
Rules you never wrote
You knelt down like Nietzsche’s camel and said, “Give me the heaviest burden.”
And the world obliged.
You carried the weight because you believed strength meant endurance.
You believed virtue meant saying yes.
And for a long time, that was enough.
But deserts have a way of stripping things down.
And eventually, the silence around you began to ask a question you couldn’t ignore:
“Is all this weight really yours?”
The Lion — The No That Sets You Free
One night, under a sky so clear it felt like glass, something inside you shifted.
You stood up straighter.
Your breath sharpened.
Your spirit grew claws.
You became the lion.
And in front of you rose the great dragon Nietzsche described—its scales glittering with a thousand commandments, each one engraved with the same words:
“THOU SHALT.”
Thou shalt be who they expect
Thou shalt not disappoint
Thou shalt follow the path already drawn
The lion in you didn’t roar out of anger.
It roared out of recognition.
You realized that to create your own life, you first had to claim your right to say no.
And so you did.
The dragon didn’t vanish in smoke or flame. It simply lost its power the moment you stopped bowing to it.
The Child — The Yes That Creates Worlds
After the battle, the desert changed.
Or maybe you did.
The air felt lighter.
The horizon looked wider.
And where the lion once stood, there was now a child—bright‑eyed, curious, unburdened.
Not childish.
But new.
The child didn’t ask what was allowed.
The child asked what was possible.
Play returned
Imagination reopened
Creation replaced rebellion
This was the final metamorphosis:
Not strength, not defiance, but freedom.
The freedom to invent.
To begin again.
To say yes to life without needing permission.
The Child — The Yes That Creates Worlds
After the battle, the desert changed.
Or maybe you did.
The air felt lighter.
The horizon looked wider.
And where the lion once stood, there was now a child—bright‑eyed, curious, unburdened.
Not childish.
But new.
The child didn’t ask what was allowed.
The child asked what was possible.
Play returned
Imagination reopened
Creation replaced rebellion
This was the final metamorphosis:
Not strength, not defiance, but freedom.
The freedom to invent.
To begin again.
To say yes to life without needing permission.