Perhaps the thought of the eternal recurrence/return defines and decides the thinking-philosophizing of Nietzsche in its entirety. Perhaps it is the origin, center, and destination of Nietzsche’s philosophy and metaphysics. Perhaps it is not only something philosophical, a philosophical questioning/arguing, but also something deeply personal, and is therefore what is most thought-worthy. Perhaps It was not a clever imagination that led to this thought but an uneasy coming to terms with the meaning of existence and with existing itself.
That which is to be taken as certain is that this thought, the thought of the eternal recurrence/return of the same, does not arise from a distance from life, from a distant glimpsing of living, or from a detached judgment, but from an experience in which fate is constantly thought, questioned, and lived; the fate of the individual, the fate of a people, and the fate of a tradition in such a a way that existing becomes the grounds of thinking. Here, thinking finds its roots in life and in that which is lived.
Nietzsche repeatedly mentions and goes back to this thought in his writings, confirming its still unthought consequences, acknowledging its heaviness, and grounding it further. It is found, hinted at, confirmed/affirmed, repeated, thought and rethought, and questioned everywhere in his writings.
The Metaphysical/Cosmological Claim of the Eternal Recurrence/Return of the Same
This thought, the thought of the eternal recurrence/return of the same, has its roots in Nietzsche’s metaphysical/cosmological understanding of how things unfold, appear, and happen in this world. Nietzsche sees in the things happening around us a specific order, a repeated ordering, and a recurrent emerging of the same patterns, forming links between events showing themselves initially as unrelated to each other and therefore unexpected.
Nietzsche thinks that there is a determinate order in the happening of things in the world, in their transforming into each other, in their unfolding. He says that events form things, things occur in cycles, and cycles follow each other, leading to one another, reaching the last one so that the first could reemerge again together with its events and things.
Within an infinite yet closed-off “year”, things are infinitely being repeated and are repeating themselves. The cycles of seasons; the months of the year; the days of the week; and the seconds of the day. Everything is closed off by a boundary outside of which there is nothing, leaving everything no other option but to engage in an infinite repetition of itself.
That is to say, because we are within an infinite time, that which is real has no alternative but to repeat itself infinitely. Despite its apparent richness, the real is finite in its events, entities, and formations, whereas time is infinite, and this means that the same real must be repeated, forever. There is poverty pertaining to the real. It is always the same. Even if this sameness shows itself in its richness. This is why repetitions must occur. They happen by means of cycles in the sense that events are cyclical in their formation and appearance. They recur cyclically, and nothing escapes this cyclicality.
The Existential Implications of the Metaphysical/Cosmological Claim
We are within this cyclicality, not witnessing it, but are traversed by it. We unfold through this cyclicality and it itself recurs throughout our lives. This is where existential thinking-philosophizing begins, for now we are brought face to face with our values, concrete situations, responses, and behaviors.
The question that, before all else, must be asked concerns the truth of the thought itself, the thought of the eternal recurrence/return of the same: Is it true that things and events recur and thus repeat themselves? Nietzsche says that welcoming and affirming this thought means taking something metaphysical/cosmological as a truth and true, and this, in itself, shows that we are turned toward these kinds of truths, the truths overflowing what can be easily proven and the certainly provable. This shows that we long for special truths, other ways, and different forms.
For Nietzsche, to decide to believe in this thought is to prepare a readiness required so that nihilism can eventually be overcome. To see the eternal repetition of things, events, and cycles is also to be able to look past those who refuse further development and growth, those who see the here/now as something beyond which there is nothing, as something outside of which nothing awaits. To realize that things and events are infinitely repeating themselves is not to let the decay, ruination, and decomposition of an epoch or the age announce itself as something permanent.
Nihilism fades away because affirming and believing in this thought exposes the age to different values, one of which is that there are neither origins nor end points, that is to say, origins are illusions and purposes do not exist.
All systems founded upon a belief in origins and ends immediately undergo a destabilization as soon as the thought of the eternal recurrence/return of the same is given its proper place within our truths and values. Also those who refuse further development and all growth will be overcome by this thought, for this thought wills and realizes their destruction by looking beyond them, toward different values and ways of living, toward different individuals, toward another form of “humanity”, that is, toward other humans.
What is most existential-personal in this thought is our relation with our fate. For to love one’s fate, to affirm one’s life, is to welcome suffering, sorrow, and pain; the repetition of sorrow and the repeatable in pain, for this welcoming refuses all attempts at escaping.
At its core, this thought, the thought of the eternal recurrence/return of the same, is about the relation between one and oneself, oneself and one’s fate, for what is at issue here is not merely an acceptance of one’s fate, but rather the loving and longing for one’s fate in the sense that one wills and calls upon one’s own fate.
Here suffering, pain, and sorrow are loved and not turned away from. Here one’s relation to oneself assumes its dominant place within philosophy and thought. Here one’s existence with oneself, the coming to terms of oneself with one’s life, becomes the whole philosophical attempt.
What is desired in one’s fate is not only the happening of events and things to oneself, but also one’s actions and responses; that is to say, one’s misbehaviors, foolishnesses, failures, and lacks. Desiring fate by affirming the eternal recurrence/return of sameness is a way of thanking the past because the present becomes another chance to find other ways of going under so that another overcoming can take place. Affirming essentially wills the going-under of oneself. This willing thinks toward and thanks the past, the repeated and repeatable past, for it is a manner of going higher.
Going under and overcoming are themselves neither origins nor purposes, for what is taught by the eternal returning of things and events is that there are no beginnings and nothing really ends, for the beginning is itself the end in such a way that everything ends as soon as it begins, and nothing ever begins without immediately ending. That is to say, either that beginnings and ends do not exist; or that they are one and the same.
That there are no beginnings and purposes does not mean that nothing exists at all. There is beauty lying at the heart of every overcoming; there are feelings of going higher; there are moments of going beyond; worlds are founded and futures are formed in relation to pasts showing themselves again in our present.
One’s Character and Eternal Return: Does One’s Response Eternally Return and Is Itself Part of What Is Eternally Repeatable?
Does one’s response to the eternal recurrence/return of the same also return and is thus the same every time an event repeats itself? How can one escape one’s repeated response to the repetitions of things? Can one escape one’s own repeated attempts? At the heart of this manner of questioning, there is a judging of the thought of eternal recurrence/return and ourselves by placing us outside the returning of things, by taking us as witnesses to the repeated things, including our own repetitions.
To be within the eternal returning of things is to be concerned with other endeavors, not with determinism, and not with the cosmological claims and assumptions at work here, but rather with one’s own thought and unique existence, with affirming one’s fate, with playing with it by testing its limits.
The recurrence of things, the circularity of events, is an invitation; it invites us to start playing with such things and events, to challenge all cycles and ourselves, to not turn away from any going-under, not only because a going-higher might follow every going-under, but also because time itself can be played with in the sense that it loses its value, threatening character, and fleeing manner. Everything is here forever and nothing will ever disappear.
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