JOIN THE MAILING LIST FOR GIG UPDATES, LYRIC POETRY, QUOTES,PHILOSOPHY,METAPHYSICS, ASIAN CULTURE,OTHER WRITINGS. A Quote From Nietsche The... European..., all in all --definitely requires a costume: he needs history as his storeroom for costumes. He realises, to be sure, that none of them fits him properly --he changes and changes. Consider the nineteenth century with regard to these rapid predilections and changes in style-masquerade; notice too the movements of despair because 'nothing suits' us-. It is in vain we parade ourselves as romantic or classical or Christian or Florentine or baraque or 'national', in moribus et artibus: the 'cap doesn't fit'! But the 'spirit', especially the 'historical spirit', perceives an advantage even in this despair: again and again another piece of the past and of foreigness is tried out, tried on, taken off, packed away, above all studied --we are the first studious age of in puncto of 'costumes', I mean those of morality, articles of faith, artistic tastes, prepared as no other age has for the grand carnival in style, for the most spiritual Shrovetide laughter and wild spirits, for the transcendental heights of the most absolute nonsense and Aristophanic universal mockery. Perhaps it is precisely here that we are discovering the ream of our invention, that realm where we too can still be original, perhaps as parodists of world history and God's buffoons--perhaps, even if nothing else today has a future, precisely our laughter may still have a future!