Creek Running North 大自然 Because I seem to be ending post titles with commas lately,

October 19, 2007

Because I seem to be ending post titles with commas lately,

I will do so again.

I just learned something about myself.

Cosma Shalizi quotes an old Nietszchean chestnut:

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in 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!” — Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?

Cosma quotes it snarkily, but I took the philosopher’s question seriously despite myself.

No. I would not. Though some of it has been excruciating it has all been worthwhile so far. I would do everything again.

Posted by: Chris Clarke

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three or four times, yeah, i can see that. beyond that ... i think i’d be looking for loopholes, trying to tweak the flow. bunch of stuff i’d do differently. several adventures i’d pass on. many many people i wouldn’t give the time of day.

what’s the point of having all these learning experiences if i can’t apply the hard-won knowledge?

1
By: siriosa
on October 19, 2007
at 03:23 PM

How do you know you’re not already in just such a cycle? With a memory wipe between iterations?

I’d do it again but there are some relatively small changes that would make things better for all concerned. Version 1.2 or so.

2
By: black dog barking
on October 19, 2007
at 05:59 PM

But Chris, isn’t that exactly Nietzsche’s point? After all, he immediately goes on to say:

Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You area god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ [...] 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?

In short, gnashing your teeth and cursing is a sign that you haven’t loved life deeply enough.

I’m not surprised at your reaction. As you have shown many times when you bear your heart to the world, you have loved deeply - your dog, your wife, the desert, our species, our ephemerality. Of course you would live it all again, with all its sorrow and all its sublime delight.

3
By: Cris
on October 19, 2007
at 09:38 PM

The movie Fight Club, and the book, had a nice question in it. Tyler Durden, in the movie, was driving a car headlong into the lights of an approaching semi. He asked, more or less, what is the one thing you want?

That’s not the same as asking if you’d relive it all till now.

I think I’d have to. How else could I be me?

As for Tyler’s question. Well, I’m working on that.*

As for the rest of the respondents here thus far, I’d point y’all to Groundhog Day.

====

* When he does get that annoying, I’ll remember, Chris. Thanks. :)

4
By: Warren
on October 19, 2007
at 10:27 PM