Arthur Schopenhauer, a hoary, German guy that loved music and poodles, said, “The discovery of the truth is prevented more effectively…by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.” Later in the 19th century, taking his lead, another German man brought back the ‘eternal return’, lost for millennium in the dusty pages and walls left by the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Indian philosophy and ancient Egypt. The eternal return describes the cyclical nature of time, the repetition that occurs in life and, according to this author, a characteristic of the human condition: the burden of the knowledge that every friend, enemy, thought, choice, spicy taco…may circle around and revisit again.
Ethical ramifications aside, imagine this concept in its hyper overdrive reality and instead of the eternal return happening once or twice, we relive the same day over and over ad infinitum. The author suggests the thought of the recurrence would be “horrifying and paralyzing.” He says:
“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.’” (Gay Science)
So think, reader, for a second about this hyper realized eternal return and pick a random day—let’s say yesterday—if you knew you had to live yesterday everyday forever would you say, “Screw that!” or “Hell yeah!”?
On their heroic journey, both Jesus and Buddha had to undergo three temptations. Both were similarly tempted by power, status, and the fulfillment of societal obligation: the devil asked Jesus if he would like to rule all the kingdoms and Mara offered the Buddha to take her father’s place on the throne. What could be wrong with the ego titillating and dutiful work of being a respected leader of the community, possessing and controlling its assets, enjoying glam status and power and the ability to help your friends and family?
In Italo Calvino’s short story, A King Listens, the poor protagonist, after usurping someone else’s seat on the throne, cannot ever get off of his throne less someone immediately take his place. He has to sit there day after day with the burden of balancing a giant, heavy crown on his head that must not fall less someone else crown themselves. Day after day eternally reoccurs: the discomfort of the throne, the heaviness of the crown, and the threat of the paranoia inducing sounds echoing through the castle.
To more or less extent it’s always present, the temptation of the throne and crown, to be dutiful, have a high paying or status position at work, a gold tooth, a diamond, a convertible muscle car and all the status symbols that may never fulfill the endless hunger of the ego to represent itself as top doggy. Free will is subjugated by the matrix or zeitgeist or whatever like term blows up your skirt.
It becomes a habit to look at our lives from afar with a very general point of view of our own identity as defined by society—a successful dentist, a hot homemaker, a father who drives a BMW…all the while waiting for a holiday in the sun. To move in closer to time as it passes at specific moments through the present, focusing on what each moment brings to us (what was I doing at 2 pm yesterday, for instance), we see something very different: sitting in traffic, a strained interaction with a coworker, a cup of coffee, endlessly sitting at a desk, boredom, time wasted picking up messes, regretting, worrying, trying to hold up the crown…and, at the thought of the eternal return, we curse our demon saying, not only “Screw that!” but “How did I get myself into this?”
I am not suggesting that we should all quit our jobs, get a divorce and move into a Corona commercial. For most of us, living eternally in a hammock on the beach with a Corona in one hand and babe in the other might get boring after a few decades. This is why the eternal return is such a burden—it tries to force an awareness and evaluation of fulfillment and bliss on our own terms rather than society’s in both general and specific ways. On our eternally returning day, what time would we wake up, what would we eat, would we work and what kind of work, how much interaction with people would we have and what sort of interaction, what would we do for exercise…?
The second German author, whose name I will not mention, in the preface of one of his books describes the stages of man. When humans are born they are born as camels, ready to be loaded up and directed. Then, at some point in the desert they turn into a lion and the lion is faced with a dragon whose name is Thou Shalt (i.e. Thou Shalt Use a Treadmill). When the lion can sleigh the dragon, he can then turn into a child and grow up.
In Italo Calvino’s short story, the king can only listen and at first he is afraid of what he hears–plots against him, gossip and the nonsense of his own memories. He is a camel with the heavy weight of a crown wandering into the desert. Then he hears a blissful voice far off and he is able to escape the throne and follow this calling. The burden of the knowledge of the eternal return may have the ultimate reward: the true freedom that comes with the abandonment of our preconceived opinions, the divestment of our various unnecessary thrones and crowns when they are not ones that we genuinely love and then following the voice to a blissful place. Here in the blissful place, half hard effort and half Corona commercial or be it what you wish, when faced with the demon telling you you will live this life over and over, you will surely say, “Hell yeah! You’re the man and this is divine!”