Inspiring waterfalls and cascades
in three of Nietzsche’s favorite places:
Mont Boron (la Terrasse Nietzsche),
Nice (France)
Villetta di Negro, Genova (Italy)
Ova da Surlej waterfall
above the lake Silvaplana,
near Sils Maria (Switzerland)
I’ve been there several times, of course,
and try to make a visual connection in
my “Dooiwind (thawing wind)”-works*.
zie: The language of the thawing wind
“When we look at the waterfall,
its countless twists and turns,
the braidings and beadings of its waves of water,
we believe that we can descry in it
a freedom of will, a kind of autonomy.
However, everything about it is necessary:
every motion can be calculated mathematically.
So it is with human actions:
if one were omniscient, one would be able
to calculate every action ahead of time,
including all progress of knowledge,
every error, every piece of malice.
To be sure, the one who acts is himself
stuck in the illusion of autonomy.
Yet if the cosmic wheel stood still
for a moment, and if an omniscient,
calculative intellect were on hand
to take advantage of this moment,
that intellect could tell the future
of every creature into the most remote of times,
marking every track on which the wheel would roll.
The actor’s self-deception, the supposition of free will,
is itself attributable
to this utterly calculable mechanism.”
Friedrich Nietzsche in Human, All-Too-Human
from: The Good European
by David Farrell Krell + Donald L. Bates
* Dooiwind: A moist warm wind blowing
from the sea in coastal regions,
this wind reduces a snow cover by melting.
(thawing- wind, called “snow-eater”,
meteorology:
any warm wind blowing over a snow surface)
The process of thawing:
a period of warm weather during which
ice and snow melt / a relaxation of reserve,
restraints, or tensions.
Video (BBC 1999):
Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche
zie: Dooiwind
zie: Parallel falls
zie: Cornucopia
zie: Cornucopia (2)
zie: Zomerse winterwaterval
zie: Landscape painting
zie: Contemplation
zie: Creation of the waterfall
zie: Chinese waterval
zie: cascata d’acqua
11 thoughts on “falling waters”