(Extended) If Today Lasted Forever – A Meditation on Eternal Recurrence

Introduction:

           If you knew this life would repeat itself for eternity, how would you choose to live it? That is, this life as you live it is repeated forever. This is Nietzsche’s thought experiment called an “Eternal Recurrence”. How one interprets this as positive or negative can give insights into your life. What would you change if you knew this life would repeat as you live it forever?

Discussion:

“What if a demon were to steal 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…’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.’” This is an excerpt from “The Gay Science” by Nietzsche. Here he reimagined the ancient idea of cosmologic recurrence into a philosophical test. How would this change how you structure your life? And how would you adjust today to change your answer? He uses this thought experiment as a test to tell if you are living your life authentically. And can help you to determine the things in life you may want to adjust.

           If you lived this life repeatedly, would you not want to remain healthy? I believe this provides direction for making healthier choices. Do we have to know at what age we become sick and die to act today to offset this? I believe I would want to minimize my years sick, and increase the quality of my life through exercise and diet. I would treat every action about my life with great care to take the best possible care of myself. This would fill my years with dignity and happiness rather than despair and hopelessness. John Kaag shared the same view in his book Hiking with Nietzsche. He says that this thought experiment encouraged him to take better care of himself.

           If you had to relieve the same life again, would you not take steps to reduce your needless suffering? And make efforts to live a life free from regrets and guilt? Imagine watching your life happen over and over, the same mistakes haunting you. Watching them come, feeling the agony of knowing the result, and living with it endlessly through all of time. This would be like creating your own personal Hell through your choices. Maybe someone who knows they would be trapped in this loop would take caution to not lie, cheat and steal. If you could pretend for a moment when tempted to do something wrong that this would repeat forever, would you not pause and reconsider? Knowing that the guilt/pain you cause would repeat itself over and over again forever? Would you care to cease procrastination on those things which are good for you? Imagine living this life and reliving all of the same inaction eternally. Sitting and wishing you had taken action sooner, or pushed for that leap of faith.

I pose another question, is living this day once any less important than living it thousands of times? Knowing you only get today once in your life; how would you structure it? Would you spend more time with your family? Would you choose to spend time with that person you hate? And why let the malicious people of this earth steal your joy for even a second when your time is limited. I would protect my sanity by living a virtuous life protected from ill intent. Looking to the Stoic’s, I would practice amor fati or love of one's faith. By fully embracing the tides of life one enriches their days. Envision the good and the bad as merely logs on the fire and love the moments others lose by their emotions. Focus only on what is within your control to effect and press hard to create the best life possible within those parameters. Why sentence yourself tk an eternity of torment when we could take action to reduce suffering and find meaning.

Why waste another evening scrolling endlessly on your phone when the entire world is passing you by just outside. Seeking comfort and distraction only serves you in the moment, but would be imprisonment if you lived the same day throughout all of eternity. Spending your precious seconds here on earth wasting away, taking no action and gaining no value. Press on from these comforts and create a life worth living thousands of times. Find that hobby you watch others enjoy on your screens and make an effort to seek out that experience in real life. Would the thousandth version of you not thank you for this? As Camus would push us to accomplish, we must set out to create our own purpose in this absurd world. What would add meaning to your life in a universe void of inherent meaning? In a life set to repeat by the will of a demon, it would be of the utmost importance to create this meaning to live an authentic and enjoyable life.

So why not chase happiness with this life and make this the greatest priority? The times in my life which brought the most value, are some of the hardest moments in my life. The birth of my son is a prime example. Every life I am willed to live by this experiment would be void of meaning without him. As many out there know, the creation of life isn’t the easiest time of anyone's life. There are sleepless nights, a recovering wife, and the fresh nerves of a new parent. But the decision to do this is one of the only reasons I think I would benefit from a recurring life. Getting to relive the moments of him being young would be valuable enough to me to repeat any suffering I’ve endured to this point.

Conclusion:

           I hope this thought experiment lingers with you and leads you to lead life more deliberately. I challenge you to sit with this idea as Nietzsche did and see what other values you can uncover. If time looped endlessly, what moments would you want to be trapped with? And if you enjoyed this, feel free to bookmark this discussion so you may revisit it at a later date. There are more discussions like this on the horizon so please subscribe for more episodes.