The Burden of Love
Literary Nonfiction Inspired by Nietzsche’s Philosophy
First Story
Shariq Ali
Valueversity
He was a relative of ours, my father’s cousin, whom we called Uncle. Throughout our childhood, we knew him as a man who laughed heartily, smiled often, and spoke in a booming voice.
Like countless middle-class people in Karachi, he led a very difficult life. He worked in a government office during the day. When he finished at four, he travelled fifteen miles to his second job at Hakim Saeed’s clinic, where he kept the accounts.
The clinic was not far from our home. If he finished work early, he would sometimes drop in. He would have tea with my parents, bursting into laughter at the slightest remark. He would chat with us children. Then he would climb onto his Honda 70 motorcycle and ride home, another fifteen or twenty miles away on the outskirts of Karachi.
He had three daughters. Their education and eventual marriages weighed heavily on his mind. Two jobs, long journeys across the city, chaotic traffic, and the burden of family responsibilities. Despite such a difficult life, I always saw him smiling and laughing.
Whenever I read the metaphor of the camel in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I think of Uncle.
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche invites us to examine the values we hold. Do we thoughtfully accept what we consider good, bad, or our duty? Or do we accept these values simply because they are what we have always been taught?
Nietzsche’s philosophy places great importance on moving beyond the person we presently are, putting our thinking to the test, and taking responsibility for our own lives.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he describes the transformation of the human spirit through three symbols: the camel, the lion, and the child. Here, “spirit” refers to a person’s inner, intellectual, and moral life.
The camel represents a spirit capable of reverence, endurance, and bearing heavy burdens. It does not flee difficult responsibilities but takes them on to test its strength. At this stage, a person learns, develops discipline, and accepts demands they regard as greater than themselves.
For Nietzsche, however, the human journey does not end here. In the next stage, the lion confronts the commanding power in order to win its freedom. It challenges the voice that continually declares, “Thou shalt.” The lion makes room for its own choices. Then the child becomes a symbol of a fresh beginning, creativity, and the affirmation of life on one’s own terms.
The journey thus moves from bearing burdens to winning freedom, and then to creating new values.
When I consider Uncle’s life through this metaphor, a question arises. Was all his hard work merely obedience to society’s commands?
His circumstances certainly involved financial necessity and social expectations. But they also held a deep love for his family. The burden he carried for his daughters’ education and future was also part of what he himself wished to do.
In reflecting on Nietzsche’s metaphor, I would add a human dimension of my own. A person who carries a burden is not simply obeying a command. Sometimes, perhaps often, love leads them to accept the weight of responsibility consciously. Social demands and personal love can exist side by side within the same life.
Love gives meaning to burdens and hard work, but it should not prevent us from questioning social values. We can work hard for those we love while also examining the expectations that make their lives, and our own, unnecessarily difficult.
Uncle is no longer with us, but all three of his daughters are now employed and living prosperous lives in Canada and the United States. When I look at their lives, I see the fruits of the love that lay within his long journeys and hard work.
In the next story, we will explore Nietzsche’s metaphor of the lion: the person who refuses to shoulder society’s demands without question and stands firm, like a lion, for the freedom to choose.