Nietzsche's Eternal Return: The Weight of Existence

Nietzsche and the Eternal Return

Once God is dead, what is the thickness, the weight, and the sensible world? What is the point of life if everything is temporary? Friedrich Nietzsche seeks to resolve these questions through another enigma: the eternal return of the identical. Nietzsche called this "my deepest thought," and no doubt it is. As complex and strange as the enigma of eternal recurrence is, it can hardly be explained; it is a concept that Nietzsche contemplated until his descent into madness.

The Myth of Progress and Nihilism

Earlier, in the heyday of Christianity, it was believed that God was the source of time and that time returned to Him: time was secure for eternity. The immanent, the sensitive, and the perishable were only a way station to the true reality of eternity. The Enlightenment critique of the Godhead did not end this duality but continued it on another level. It is understood that the present does not exist except in the light of a bright future of peace and harmony. It is the myth of progress, which requires sacrificing the present for the sake of the future. This is the meaning of history in the works of Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Comte...

Schopenhauer and the Negation of Life

Arthur Schopenhauer took a step beyond the death of God by claiming that the will that moves the world is nothing but destruction and pain, and that the individual can claim nothing higher than to give up being; the Kantian hope for a happy ending to history earned him nothing but sarcasm. In short, Christianity, the Enlightenment, and Schopenhauer—each in their own way—are only examples of nihilism: the negation of life.

Affirming Life Through Repetition

In this situation, Nietzsche's bid is to raise a puzzle that defeats the devaluation of the immanence of life and expresses the full affirmation of existence, regarding both the pleasing and joyous as well as the frightening or the painfully tearing. The idea of eternal recurrence can be understood as the expression of the highest demands of life: life is fleeting—birth, life, and death—and there is nothing in it that is permanent. But can we recover the notion of permanence if we make the very moment last forever? Not because it never runs out, but because it is repeated endlessly.

The Heaviest Burden of Existence

In a way, and although it may seem paradoxical, Nietzsche achieved an Absolute life with this thesis. However, it is not easy to affirm the infinite repetition of this chaotic world ruled by the will to power. We are assailed by doubt: do we love existence enough to want to repeat endlessly the Jewish Holocaust or Hiroshima... That is why Nietzsche called the thought of the eternal return "the heaviest burden." Milan Kundera summarizes all these ideas about the eternal return in the famous beginning of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being: