a hypothetical demon & a brilliant question
starting to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the Introduction references an amazing passage in Nietzche’s The Gay Science:
“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 you 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!”
…The question in each and every thing,
“Do you desire this once more and
innumerable times more?”
would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight.”
pp273-274
I had to stop and put the book down to really think about that. (And type it out for you to enjoy too)
I am very curious to see how many times tomorrow I begin telling my office mates about this hypothetical demon’s question and see where those conversations lead.
But I’m even more curious to see for how long Nietzche’s idea affects my decisions, if at all. (Might make for an interesting looking-back post, to be written on August 11, 2011).
*On a slight tangent, I think that is so fascinating; especially considering the vast quantity of things we read online/offline, we don’t always know which quotes, ideas, articles will forever bubble up to our memory and which ones will forgotten.
At any rate, if the hypothetical demon ever finds me, I hope he looks like this:
And I hope your tomorrow (and remaining existence) are full of things you’d be happy to do innumerable times over & over again.
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