Taking a Closer (and Different) Look at Nietzsche's Deepest Thought
In Section 341 of "The Gay Science," Friedrich Nietzsche introduces us for the first time to what he considered his "deepest thought," the eternal recurrence.
"The greatest weight - What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest 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 unutterably small or great in your life will have to 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 upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Imagine that for a moment. Repeating your life eternally. Not a single detail changed. Repeating all the highest and most joyful moments, but also the lowest and most painful ones.
Nietzsche continues,
"Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'"
There are multiple different ways to approach Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence. Some considered it to be "just a thought experiment," some believe it is the most serious and ambitious call for self-creation, and some even believe Nietzsche attempted to give us a cosmological theory.
What I would like to do is pay attention to one specific aspect of this idea that could help us understand what Nietzsche was actually asking of us.
After all, he believed that the idea of eternal recurrence could change a person. So let's see if it can change us.
Nietzsche concludes Section 341 with a question that is frequently overlooked when discussing the eternal recurrence:
"...how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"
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