First file: Modern Man and the Lost Meaning of Life
Presented at the Iranian Culture and Art Association of Sydney
Saturday, 26/5/2018 — presentation at the Sydney Culture and Art Association

Have you not heard of that madman who, in the bright morning, runs into the marketplace with a lit lantern and keeps crying out:
I seek God, I seek God!

Because many of those who did not believe in God happened to be gathered there, they burst into laughter when they saw the madman.
One says:
Has he got lost?
Another says:
Has he lost his way like a child? Or is he hiding himself?
Is he afraid of us?
Thus they all shout over one another and laugh.

But the madman jumps into their midst, fixes them with his piercing gaze, and cries out:
“Where has God gone?
I will tell you! We have killed him—
you and I! We are all his murderers!
But how did we do such a thing?
How were we able to drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge with which to wipe away the whole horizon?
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
And where is this earth going now?
Where are we going?
As we move away from every sun, are we not continually falling?
Is there still any up or down?
Are we not wandering through infinite nothingness? Does empty space not breathe upon us?
Has it not become colder? Is the night not growing darker?
Are we not compelled to light lanterns in the morning?
God is dead!
God remains dead!
We have killed him!
How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?
With what water shall we cleanse ourselves?
Has this deed not been too great for us?
And now, merely in order to appear worthy of what we have done, must we not ourselves become gods?”

Here the madman falls silent and looks again at his listeners. They too are silent and gaze at him strangely.
At last the madman throws his lantern to the ground; it shatters and goes out.
Then the madman says:
“I have come too early. My time has not yet arrived.”

It is said that on that same day the madman went into various churches and there sang funeral prayers for God. When he was driven out of the churches for doing so and questioned, he always replied: What are these churches, then, if not the graves and tombstones of God?