(no subject)

[timelets]

There remains a troubling contradiction between the two messages which Nietzsche is preaching: on the one hand, in the doctrine of eternal recurrence, he requires us to choose what we are live and are willing to relive, given that this will be repeated unavoidably; on the other hand, he urges us to love the real, whatever the case, without picking and choosing, and above all without wishing anything to be other than it is. The doctrine of recurrence invites us to select to live only those instants that we would be willing to live with over and over again, in infinite recession – whereas the notion of amor fati, which says yes to destiny, makes no exceptions, but comprehends and accepts all of experience within the one perspective: namely, love of the real. How do we reconcile these two positions? By admitting, as far as is possible, that this embrace of destiny kicks in only after the application of the highly selective requirements of eternal recurrence: were we to live under the auspice of eternity, were we finally to discover ourselves in and through ‘the grand style’, everything that happens to us would be good.

Luc Ferry. “A Brief History of Thought.”