....and will happen again....

Eternal Return

The image in which the universe/time returns to re-enact exactly the same course of events in an endlessly repeating cycles is common to many religions and was a theme of much Greek thought, including that of the Pythagoreans and Stoics. The recurrence is thought of in terms of events that cycle in a common-sense, linear time, but the possibility of time itself cycling was also considered. The contradiction that in that case the ‘later’ events would be numerically identical with the earlier, so that everything happens only once after all, was noticed by Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil of Aristotle. A doctrine of recurrence was held by Plotinus and Origen.

The notion of endless recurrence was embraced by Nietzsche in 1882, and is explored in the notebooks making up The Will to Power. It is less interesting whether Nietzsche thought the cycle was scientifically probable, but rather provides a thought exercise for living the successful life: if we succeed in giving the right style to our actions we can joyously affirm their return, but otherwise we cannot.

Nietzsche calls the idea "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is the "heaviest weight" ("das schwerste Gewicht") imaginable. The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life:

"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' ... 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.' "