Pulpo's Will to Power

Andy:

This spring, I formed a philosophy book discussion group in Grand Rapids, Michigan that ended up consisting of 5 tango musicians and tango dancers from the Grand Rapids Tango Community. We met once a week to discuss our first book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. After talking with Pulpo into the morning hours while in Pittsburgh I see some similarities in their approaches to life.

Nietzsche says that the greatest thing in life is a person's will. He says that each of us is to strive to do the greatest things we can with this life. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche compares the power to do great things in the life through our will to climbing a mountain.

Pulpo told us that really great people in tango should not be removed from dancers or put on a pedestal so to speak because being up so high and so great does not allow others to learn from them. He told us that we should get together and meet and learn from those who we admire so that we can become great artists too. We make this possible though courage and through our will to become better dancers, musicians, and artists.

If we look at Pulpo, he has done this very thing through his life by using his will, his drive, and his environment to push him to a new ground of creative dancing. Nietzsche says that we cannot really on having great parents or being famous because of a name--that is fake. Riding solely on the fame of others is like a house that looks beautiful on the outside but has nothing in it. Instead Nietzsche and Pulpo are saying that one should use all of their resources to fill their house with great things and have a meager humble outside.