It is in Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, The Gay Science, where he first presents the idea in writing of the Eternal Return, also known as the eternal recurrence. And it is this concept which is essential in understanding the book I have chosen, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by the same author. To have a devil whisper in your ear and tell you that this life that you’ve lived has already occurred an infinite number of times and will occur another infinite number of times. That is; eternal recurrence is the idea that time does not move in a linear fashion, but instead, it cycles. Every sequence of events happens in the exact same fashion and there is absolutely zero change. The idea doesn’t quite sink in until you think of it a little more, but Nietzsche was always certain of his answer. It was the reason why he proposed the thought experiment in the first place. In a bit of a romantic view, up until his death, Nietzsche believed firmly that to live meant great suffering, but that a human was meant to want to live not despite, but because of that suffering. It was his belief in the joy of life that he wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and it will be the book that I will be referencing the most in this essay to prove my own argument and belief that aligns with this interpretation of Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence. In the story, Zarathustra descends from the mountains of his abode to teach humans of his wisdom. He begins in a town where he preaches of the Übermensch, but the townspeople only laughed at him. The only person who listened to Zarathustra was a ropewalker who soon later fell to his demise, and whose corpse he carried into the woods and buried. It was at this point that Zarathustra realized he needed not preach to townspeople, but instead, he needed companions to whom he could impart his wisdom to. He eventually encounters disciples that he teaches all he knows until one day he declares that he must leave them. Zarathustra explains that they must learn to grow on their own and that once they have forgotten him that is when they will meet again. After much strife (and eventual disappointment with his disciples in their inability to realize his teachings) Zarathustra can eventually understand new things and even figure out his reason for existence. Which he mentions here in LVII. “The Convalescent”: “I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things…”. He continually goes through a cycle of being afflicted with troubles and overcoming them until finally the reader arrives at the conclusion of the story where Zarathustra is fully aware of the cycle of time and sings a song that encompasses his philosophy and rejoices. This is how the chapter LXXIX. “The Drunken Song” goes: “‘My friends, all of you,’ said the ugliest man. ‘what think ye? For the sake of this day—I am for the first time content to have lived mine entire life. And that I testify so much is still not enough for me. It is worthwhile living on the earth: one day, one festival with Zarathustra, hath taught me to love the earth. ‘Was that—life?’ will I say unto death. ‘Well! Once more!’” So says the ugliest man, one of Zarathustra’s comrades, who turns out to be one of the people that Zarathustra meets and considers his true companions. And it is after this declaration that Zarathustra sings his song. He sings of the things he loves of the world, of woe, and of love, and how “joy is deeper still than grief can be.” He sings of how everything is interconnected and that to want to be happy—to experience a moment of happiness—once again is to love the world and to love all eternity “For joys all want—eternity!” This chapter describes Zarathustra’s belief in the eternal recurrence and the importance of both joy and woe as one being and his relief in finally being able to reach humans and touch their hearts and minds with his wisdom. His song is also one of success for he is no longer alone in his journey, and he has at least in this life (as he already has and will again) obtained his goal. Zarathustra achieved this not by ignoring the difficulty of his journey. He did not feel relief at the end of his story because all his troubles were over. After all, they weren't. If he was to live his life again that meant experiencing all the same frustrations and misery for the many years that he endured. In theory, there should be no purpose in this, and absolutely no reason that Zarathustra was overjoyed at this prospect. And yet, Nietzsche was clear on his stance that it was necessary to want to experience the strife you've already dealt with, presently and in the past, and what you will deal with in order to be truly, incandescently happy. Another one of Nietzche's works, On the Genealogy of Morals, proves that Nietzsche did not believe in meaningless suffering (saying that is the only thing we cannot live with) as he writes explicitly on the subject. So, how does this relate to Nietzsche's belief in embracing every filthy and despairing aspect of our lives? It has everything to do with it. We must make of living what we will. It is entirely by our will that we decide our lives. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any suffering, in contrast, it is inconceivable to avoid, but it is our place to apply meaning to it. And in applying meaning we generate a cause and only then can we live as we wish—happily. If we truly want to be, that is. Then, to live your life recurringly while being aware of your existence and the reason for it. In that way, wouldn’t you assume that maybe it could be possible? To love every part of your life and to do it all over again? Even if it seems that by Nietzsche proposing the idea of the eternal recurrence in the first place, it suggests that life and human existence are such a terrible thing that it would take nearly everything in effort to love it. I’m of the mind that it is nearly impossible to actually wish to relive the worst moments of your life. To really truly want and expect your life to begin anew and experience the exact same sequence of events. Anyone can look back on their past or towards their potential future and feel as if despite their troubles they would still like to live their life and find their purpose, but no one wants to go through those times again. And yet this is exactly what Nietzsche believes is the epitome of what we should strive to desire for the entirety of our lives even if there seems little prospect of desiring it. I believe that Nietzsche meant for us to consider Zarathustra’s journey and decide for ourselves that we wholeheartedly wish to live our lives again and yes, the despair too, because that is precisely what makes the happy moments of our lives significant. If we have not experienced what it means to be uncertain or unhappy, if we do not know how terrible it is to be human and how awful our existence and suffering in and of itself can be, then how can we recognize and appreciate true happiness? It seems that the core of Nietzsche’s philosophy is simply continuing to live and striving to accept what it means to be human so that we may love life.

The dream version of myself will surely be content doing whatever she is doing wherever she may end up, of this, I can be certain I will make come true.

If I could have everyone in the world read one book it would be the certain masterpiece that is Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. Rather than a classic or otherwise famous novel, I chose a book only relatively known within an online community of foreign online novel readers because of how incredibly compelling its story and messages are. The story encompasses a new specific genre that is typically very cliched and without much substance as the same types of characters and plotlines are regurgitated over and over again. It's usually a mix of certain tropes such as an apocalypse where the Earth has now been overtaken by a sort of game setting with game mechanics such as skills and leveling, etc., and the main character becomes an overpowered individual who saves the world. In this case, how could a novel like this possibly be worth reading if not for trivial passing enjoyment? Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint completes one thing very well in the beginning of the story and that is masking itself as simply any other story. This could be written off as simply lazy writing, or that the author became better over time if it wasn't done on purpose. By the end of a very long story (for it's over a million words) slowly the author has revealed their true purpose in writing this story and why they chose this genre to write. The main character in this novel is reincarnated into his favorite story where the main character was someone who lived the apocalypse and lived the same life thousands of times over for every time he failed to save his world. The characters are forced to experience painful circumstances and choices for the hope of a happy ending where their world isn't destroyed. This is so poignant because the author is really trying to write that our own daily lives resemble this apocalypse and that we must continue living no matter how difficult it is because there is a chance that we can be happy. They wrote for this genre also because they wished to express that "garbage" stories hold value as well if the reader places value in them. There is no such thing as being worthless. Just how there is no worthless life if we call it our own. There are many such little things the author conveys that make this story the one I'd choose.