Nietzsche

Here I doubt that this will truly significantly change anyone’s perspective but in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which is a parody of the bible, Nietzsche, or rather “Zarathustra”, his fictional mouthpiece/prophet talks about a concept called the eternal recurrence of the same. From the liner notes:

“Every time he thinks about this concept, it’s as though a dark cloud passes over him. He becomes brooding and silent. He now confronts its implications. Life is Will to Power. Will to Power seeks to overcome obstacles. What is the greatest obstacle of all? To will the past. How is it possible to make my past life, past human history, a function of my willing in the present? Traditional theology suggests that not even God can willfully affect the past. To make human history meaningful, to redeem all the errors and suffering of the past, one must actively will it so. One who can do this accomplishes that which even the traditional omnipotent God seems incapable of doing.”

And twenty pages later:

“Here Zarathustra finally embraces the idea of eternal recurrence and suggests how it relates to the Overman. In the “enigma” part of the discourse, he converses with his nemesis, the spirit of gravity. This mole-dwarf suggest that time is a circle, with no beginning and no end. Zarathustra builds upon this idea by pointing out that if this is so, and if everything done in the present has a necessary effect on the future, then to will anything into the future is, ultimately, to redeem the past, since what we call “past” is really an extended “future”. Thus, human history is redeemed, insofar as one wills it. Yet, to actively will all the misery and suffering of the past requires a profound sense of responsibility. This is what the “vision” part of the discourse is about. Zarathustra says that he came upon a young shepherd, asleep, with a snake stuck in his throat, suffocating him. Zarathustra bid the man to bite off the head of the snake, which the man did. The snake is pity for humankind. The Overman can either suffocate because of it, or he can, through an act of will, get over it. The shepherd bit and spit out the head, and then laughed as no one ever laughed before. This act represent the ultimate self-overcoming, the essence of the Overman.”