A Little Thought Experiment

This Wednesday, a little Nietzschean exercise

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

This Wednesday, a little Nietzschean exercise.

An exploration of the myth of eternal recurrence.

To avoid boring you with long-winded explanations, let’s simplify the idea as much as possible.

You’re rubbing a lamp.
A genie appears.
You get a wish.

“When you’ll die. 
I’ll give you the chance to relive your life, with your sorrows, your pains, your joys, your sufferings, your victories… exactly the same life. Nothing new. Everything that has been experienced will be experienced again.

If you don’t want to relive it, you will be able to choose the void.

What will you choose?”

I won’t comment on the two answers because they’re intimate.
But this answer, for some, can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Some philosophers propose that we should live our lives so intensely that this eternal return would not be frightening, but a joy.

That life should be lived so intensely that all we want to do is relive it.

And others believe that the true lovers of life are those who would say yes instantly without even knowing the end of the story.