Concluding Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885).

What's the wise way to live? We start in earnest into part three, treating the "spirit of gravity," where socially imposed values cover over your uniqueness; omni-satisfaction vs. being choosy; "Old and New Tablets," where Nietzsche explores various ethical and meta-ethical issues (e.g., is self-overcoming a matter of one-time self-actualization or is it continual?); and more on the Overman and eternal recurrence.

Listen to part one first, or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Upright Man" by Rachel Taylor Brown, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #91.

Constellary Tales presents an audio production of "Ambassador," cover story of Issue #2. Then story author Michael Adam Robson joins us for an interview.

Get more Constellary Tales podcasts, and read original sf in the magazine at constellary.com.

On the remainder of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885).

How can we keep our spirits up and avoid nihilism? We consider Nietzsche's "solution" of eternal recurrence, why he uses a poetic, allegoric style, and more.

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Continuing on Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, books 1 and 2 (1883).

We talk through Nietzsche's symbolism (tightrope walkers and gravediggers and snakes, oh my!), the path toward the overman, his screed against the state, the Will to Power as the will to overcome oneself by reconciling oneself with the past, and more.

Listen to part one first or get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

Wes Alwan is joined by Dr. Glenn Mobray to discuss this classic 1946 psychoanalytic text.

This is a preview of a 63-minute discussion. You can listen to the whole thing by becoming a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, books 1 and 2 (1883).

What is wisdom? In this text whose style parodies the Bible, we get pithy advice and allegorical imagery to guide us away from self-defeating, life-denying attitudes and orient us toward creative self-overcoming (i.e., exertion of the Will to Power). The Last Man who no longer knows how to give birth to a dancing star is a rotten egg!

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Continuing on What is Literature? (1948).

Sartre gives a phenomenology of reading and writing that makes reading into a creative act of completing the writer's work, and calls this cooperation ethical: the work is an appeal to the reader's freedom, and also the reader's responsibility to then know what the work reveals. Are you shirking, all you skimmers?

Start with part one, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition.

End song: "Things I Shouldn't Have Told You" by Sam Phillips, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #90.

On Jean-Paul Sartre's What is Literature? (1948), ch. 1 and 2.

What's the purpose of literature? Why write prose as opposed to poetry? Sartre argues that while poetry is about the words themselves, prose is about the ideas, so it's necessarily political. A written work is essentially an ethical appeal for a reader to apply his or her own faculties and experiences to complete the work through the act of reading.

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Wes Alwan is joined by Monica McCarthy of the Happier Hour podcast to discuss Anton Chekhov's 1898 play about family dysfunction and potentially wasting your life.

This is a preview of a 54-minute discussion. You can listen to the whole thing by becoming a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon supporter. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to learn how.

SFWA Grand Master and multiple Hugo and Nebula winner Joe Haldeman talks about The Forever War, The Twilight Zone, and his next novel in an exclusive Constellary Tales interview.

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