Thus I Willed It

A soothsayer has been preaching that everything is empty and nothing is worth doing, and the end of Book Two is Zarathustra's answer: three words, thus I willed it, said of everything you would give anything to undo. Clancy Martin reads this as the hardest instruction in the book, redemption as willing backwards, a yes that reaches even your cruelties and your wasted years, because the alternative has a name, and the name is revenge. Then a voice arrives at midnight, walking on dove's feet, to ask why the deepest teaching is still unsaid. Martin ends with a confession about his own children that any parent will recognize.