Eternal Return

From Wikipedia ....where else????

Eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to do so, in the same form an infinite number of times. The concept has roots in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics. It figured prominently in the philosophies of Heraclitus of Ephesus and of Anaximander. With the decline of antiquity and the spread of Christianity, the concept fell into disuse.

It is a purely physical concept, involving no "reincarnation," but the return of beings in the same bodies. Time is viewed as being not linear but cyclical.
The basic premise is that the universe is limited in extent and contains a finite amount of matter, while time is viewed as being infinite. The universe has no starting or ending state, while the matter comprising it is constantly changing its state. The number of possible changes is finite, and so sooner or later the same state will recur.

And in this sense, I say, the world was before the Creation, and at an end before it had a beginning; and thus was I dead before I was alive, though my grave be England, my dying place was Paradise, and Eve miscarried of me before she conceived of Cain. (Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici of 1643:
Part 1:59)

History repeats itself ???


I think so , no matter what we keep drawing the same situations to ourselves, I’ve seen it happen with friends , I’ve seen it happen with myself …it’s like life is one cycle of the same event, maybe different characters ,different places, different times but same event nonetheless. I’d say Rattssss!!!…. How can I not get away from the past…maybe it involves some major reconfiguring of the brain… but even that doesn’t seem to work… maybe our lives are karmically designed to suck…

I don’t know but I cant think of any other reasonable explanation right now … ponder over Nietzsche in the meanwhile

The Greatest Burden.
What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence-and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!"- Wouldst thou not throw thyself down and gnash thy teeth, and curse the demon that so spake? Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear anything so divine! "If that thought acquired power over thee as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity! Or, how wouldst thou have to become favorably inclined to thyself and to life, so as to long for nothing more ardently than for this last eternal sanctioning and sealing?

Looking up reviews and summaries on the internet , it seems that the intent of the passage is that one must live one's best life, do only things which one wouldn’t mind repeating over and over again, a very effective decision method I’d say… but what if you’re bad at making decisions ???