frogandbanjo t1_jbqd0ft wrote
Reply to comment by fane1967 in The Eternal Return: Nietzsche’s Brilliant Thought Experiment Illustrating the Key to Existential Contentment by Raw_Spit
You must pair it with Nietzsche's general warning against contentment. Otherwise, yes, it quickly descends into a vat of weakness and risk aversion, where people say, "Well, sure, it's good enough that I'd just do it over and over, I guess, as opposed to any unknown alternative (including the void.)"
A more robust formulation would be: if you were going to have to repeat your life over and over, wouldn't you want it to be better in some way? If so, go make it happen already.
Granted, you can push back on the more robust version by attacking it in the exact same way as before: "Why risk it?"
I tend to think of it as a roundabout way of forcing people to realize that they're always settling. It at least serves to shatter the illusion that they're not.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments