The Story of the Departure Ceremony (6): ‘Ranks of Travellers’

The Departure Ceremony/Pilgrim Lauden of the Walk of Walk of Wisdom on February 6 in the Stevenskerk in Nijmegen was unfortunately cancelled due to corona. As a result, the contribution of pilgrim Marlou Elsen, the text by Friedrich Nietzsche freely translated by Damiaan Messing, is not recited, but recorded.

The text for each Departure Ceremony comes from the book ‘Seasons of Life: a contemporary book of hours and pilgrims’.

Below you will find the text as recorded by Marlou.

Ranks of Travelers

Travellers can be divided into five ranks: the first and lowest rank travels and is seen – this rank is, as it were, blind and is actually travelled; The next rank also looks at the world itself; the third experiences something by looking and the fourth rank processes what she has experienced and carries it with her; Finally, the highest rank – a single individual of the strongest kind – lives out what it has experienced and processed as a natural consequence in actions and works, as soon as it has returned home.

Friedrich Nietzsche Influential German philosopher, poet and philologist (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900). Freely translated by Damiaan Messing