We Are Raising Camels in a World That Needs Children

Nietzsche, burnout, obedience, rebellion, and the strange difficulty of becoming free

There is a particular kind of modern adult who deserves both applause and a nap.

They wake up tired, answer emails before brushing their teeth, carry family expectations, workplace pressure, church duties, school fees, social obligations, economic uncertainty, and a secret fear that if they stop moving, life will expose them as unfinished. They are reliable. They are decent. They are exhausted.

Nietzsche had a name for the first version of this person.

He called him the camel.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche describes three transformations of the spirit: first the camel, then the lion, then the child. It sounds mystical until you realize he is describing almost every life you know. The camel is the stage of burden-bearing. It kneels. It carries. It says, “Give me the heavy thing; I will bear it.” This is the phase in which we inherit values from family, school, religion, culture, tribe, nation, and history. We learn discipline. We learn duty. We learn how to endure.

And to be fair, that is not a small thing. A society without camels collapses by Tuesday.

The problem is not that people learn responsibility. The problem is that many never go beyond it. They become experts in carrying what they never chose. They become fluent in “should.” They can explain exactly what is expected of them, but cannot answer a far more dangerous question: What do I actually believe?

That is where the second transformation becomes necessary.

The camel eventually goes into the desert and becomes the lion. The lion does not kneel. The lion says, “I will.” Nietzsche imagines the lion confronting a great dragon whose scales all glitter with the words “Thou shalt.” The dragon is tradition, external morality, inherited duty, and all the respectable voices that announce what a life must be.

The lion’s job is to say no.

No to dead rules. No to borrowed scripts. No to moral blackmail dressed as virtue. No to living someone else’s life with excellent manners. If the camel is the patron saint of over-responsible adulthood, the lion is the patron saint of the modern awakening. This is the person who says: I have followed the script; now I want my own voice. They leave jobs, question institutions, confront hypocrisy, abandon stale identities, and stop mistaking compliance for character.

But here is Nietzsche’s uncomfortable point: the lion is necessary, but incomplete.

Rebellion is not the same as freedom.

Many people get stuck there too. They become permanently oppositional. They define themselves by what they reject. They are excellent at critique, poor at construction. They can burn down an old worldview in one afternoon but cannot build a home in its place.

Which brings us to Nietzsche’s final transformation: the child.

The child, for Nietzsche, is not silly or immature. It is the highest stage. The child creates. The child plays. The child says a sacred yes to life. Not a naïve yes. Not the yes of someone who has never suffered. The yes of someone who has carried burdens, fought dragons, and still decided to create beauty, meaning, order, and style.

That may be the great shortage of our time. We have many camels. We have many lions. We have too few children.

At work, this shows up when institutions reward obedience, tolerate cynicism, and then wonder why innovation never arrives. At home, it appears when parents teach children to succeed, but not to imagine. In society, it appears when we swing between conformity and outrage, but struggle to create humane, joyful, intelligent ways of living together.

We are surrounded by people who are either carrying too much or shouting too loudly.

Too few are building.

And perhaps that is why so many accomplished people feel strangely unfree. They did everything right. They carried the load. They met expectations. They even rebelled at some point. But they have not yet arrived at the stage where life becomes self-authored rather than merely endured or resisted.

Freedom, then, is not irresponsibility. Nietzsche does not tell us to drop our burdens and become unserious. He says something harder: bear what must be borne, reject what must be rejected, and then create what must be created.

That is a terrifying assignment.

It means your life cannot forever be an argument with your parents, your boss, your society, or your past. At some point, you must stop explaining yourself and begin composing yourself.

That is the move from survival to style. And that may be one of the deepest questions for our age: Are we merely carrying the world, or are we learning how to remake our corner of it?

A final uncomfortable truth: many of us are praised for being camels because camels are useful. They keep the machine running. Lions are tolerated only when they are fashionable. Children—the creative, playful, value-making kind—are the most dangerous of all, because they cannot be managed by fear alone.

Still, that is the destination. Not blind obedience. Not endless rebellion. But creative responsibility. In simpler language: not just doing what you are told, not just rejecting what you hate, but building a life you can respect.

That is freedom with bones in it.

The Daily Pulse takeaway: Ask yourself three questions this week: What burden am I carrying that made me stronger? What false “thou shalt” do I need to confront? What small act of creation would mark the beginning of a freer life?

Because adulthood is not complete when you become useful. It becomes complete when you become awake.

bout the Author

Dr. Julius Kirimi Sindi is a global expert in research funding, policy impact, and donor relations. With extensive experience in analyzing philanthropy, business, and science funding, Dr. Sindi fosters sustainable and inclusive research ecosystems. He has facilitated international business relationships across Africa, Europe, and Asia. His upcoming book, "The Blueprint of Life Well Lived," explores successful strategies for navigating complex business environments while achieving sustainable growth. He is the author of an upcoming book "How Societies Change and Why Most Reforms Fail," which introduces an African Theory of Scaling rooted in emotional truth, political safety, and system coherence. I hope to publish "CHANGING THE BATTERIES - How to Renew Purpose, Growth, and Connection When Your Light Grows Dim" as soon as possible. He is also the creator of The Daily Pulse, a widely read LinkedIn newsletter offering sharp, human-centered analysis of policy, politics, and development.