I’ve been reading about the fairly difficult existence that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche endured over his life time. Given his self-imposed isolation and the debilitating health issues that he endured: fairly constant migraines and nausea, it’s small wonder many of his thoughts were less than uplifting.
But, the physical and mental infirmities led him, I suppose, to one of his most notable ideas.
Eternal recurrence, stated simply, is to “live this life again in all its aspects, every pain and every joy, every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small and great must return to all in the same succession and sequence over and over for ever and ever”, which must have been a pretty horrible idea for Nietzsche given his health and loneliness issues.
So, I’ve been thinking, maybe there’s something to be learned here, you know, make friends, go to the doctor, do good things; if life is indeed cyclical than maybe recurrence wouldn’t be so bad. There still would be periods of boredom to deal with though, I suppose.
