Anyway, Eternity, Lokmerde - a subject of fascination to you?
You take the view of the Gay Science?
“Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again—forever.” This is Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence, as depicted in
Eternal recurrence is announced in
The Gay Science as a question posed to the reader:
“The Greatest Weight. What if some day or night a demon were to sneak after you in your loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a speck of dust.”
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or did you once experience a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more godly.” If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you, as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” would weigh upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to
desire nothing more than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” [2]
Would such a prospect be a devastation or a joyous gift? Nietzsche’s next book,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, provides a dramatic narrative depicting the task of life affirmation in the face of eternal recurrence. Zarathustra comes to humanity in order to “redeem the earth,” to speak for natural life against all life-denying doctrines. Eternal recurrence is presented as the true test of life-affirmation, and Zarathustra goes through a deep trauma in confronting it. Saying Yes to the repetition of life includes all the things we regret and despise, all the things that go against what we find meaningful. Zarathustra has to focus on what he most despises, the Small Man, who cannot rise to the challenge of life and affirm earthly existence, who dodges that task by dwelling in trivial pursuits, cheap satisfactions, and life-suppressing norms. With eternal recurrence, the small man will return again and again, forever. Zarathustra goes through gut wrenching encounters with this terrible prospect, but in the end he comes to say Yes to eternal recurrence, and thus to all of life, including the Small Man.
