Eternal Return (The Darkest Thought)

[IndicusMaximus]

I was surprised by this.... which makes it all the more horrifying and assuredly to be avoided...

Nietzsche called this idea I've been struggling with for a few years "the most burdensome thought"

The idea that the life you live right now will eternally recur in time and space. The idea that no matter what you do with your free will to prevent prophecy, even doing so will be an infinitely recurring event. This life will always happen.
Eternally you will be born, witness mostly shitty things, and then die, only to rediscover this horrifying thought in many recurring lives over and over again.

Maybe the LSD has perma-fucked me for eternity. I dunno. Nietzsche must've been experimenting with that shit as well because DAMN.... I hate when I find philosophers throughout the history of written literature who speak the same thoughts. Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a horrifying condition of humanity's realization of infinity.

I dunno. This is a subject which normally turns my stomach into a churning mess. I've sat with it long enough to where my stomach has gotten used to the idea.

Would you really want to repeat this life eternally? What would you do if you couldn't escape something as horribly burdensome as the thought that you will realize an eternally miserable state forever and you could do nothing about it?

I sometimes think that the only way to do escape is to commit suicide and be reborn as a baby again, perhaps the same life over and over again, but at least until that horrible day when you are convinced that doing drugs of any kind is a good idea.... at least until then, you will be free of that burden in you childhood innocence.

It's another , probably the darkest thought.

[IndicusMaximus]

There is another idea which horrifies me. If I was God incarnate, I would be the one responsible for the very first realization of this horrifying thought in ALL cycles of time because I as God, being the one and only Source of all consciousness, would be at the forefront of all consciousness. If this is an eternaly recurring thing, I could be everyone individually. Which means that, when I realize this, there is at any one point of consciousness in time, a highly likely scenario of potentially thousands or millions or an incalculable number of beings in the surrounding universe who were I realizing the whole deal in other runs of the exact same scenario Even though an infinite number of other combinations could occur, this will always be the case no matter who specifically is I, or no matter who it is that happens to realize it in the combination surrounding I. This being a horrifying and reality-shattering realization, it would be expected that many of those other I's who realize this would be quite angry with me for uttering any mention of the realization.

That would mean that, unwittingly, God damns God's self for eternity.

God is always Damned because he wasn't expecting to realize this, and once he does he punishes himself over and over again until out of desperation and utter exhaustion, whatever form of being God assumes at that time "goes to sleep" or forgets this horrifying truth.

But what are you to do when Eternally Damed, whether you forget or not?

Is there a higher way? A way to transcend what feels to be an existencial dead end?

[IndicusMaximus]

Another possibility is this:

Ever seen the movie, Jacob's Ladder?

If not, go watch it and I'll wrap the rest in a spoiler tag.

The basic synopsis of the movie is that Jacob is a Vietnam Vet who was unwittingly an army guinea pig in some government mind altering drug experiments, and they leave him suffering from horrible hallucinations of demons and living in a confusing split reality where all at once he's in Vietnam, a mailman 10some odd years later living with his girlfriend in an apartment, and living before the war with his previous family (I think some of whom were killed... that wasn't the clearest thing in the movie). The only problem is that he's finding people who are experiencing the exact same thing as he is, and the hallucinations are becoming more and more concrete and thus more confusing and horrifying.

Well underlying the whole movie is this subtle hint of a possible esoteric meaning of Christianity and the idea of the soul being saved from Hell. The idea I think is basically that in our current lives, we are people reliving the same life which is becoming increasingly more and more fractured because we've already died, and our true life has long passed. We are spirits wandering through our own decaying memories, which represents a descent into Hell.

There's a quote from the movie which I can probably almost recite from memory because it was so striking... okay not so accurately.... but basically he was going to a chiropractor who would always help him out of horrible jams and he could miraculously fix his back problems. Jacob was telling the chiropractor about his experiences, and the chiropractor said something along the line of "When you're seeing demons everywhere ripping your life away from you, they may actually be angels helping you to let go and move on. So don't worry."

It all ends with him being taken back to his home and family before the war, and he descends up an illuminated staircase with his dead son.... and it turns out that he never made it out of Vietnam. The experiment made everyone violently psychotic and the whole experimental group ended up killing each other, and his whole life after the war was just his life flashing before his eyes as he died on an army medical table.

I find it quite fascinating that I might already be dead, and this is just my life flashing before me in slow motion.... and that experience of deja vu and dread I occasionally have is because it's NOT infinity, but an infinite echo of a finite life already gone. That might be why nothing ever works out, why I can't truly find joy in anything or anyone.... because my time for joy and love for my life ended when I died, and now it's time to find a way to let go and move on.

That seems to be what St. John of the Cross talks about.... the mortification of the appetites. That may well be what the Bible is for..... a handbook for the recently deceased. Saving lost souls as they wander through their vacant memories, thinking and lusting and yearning over dead things...

[Egg]

Akashic records.

If time is a construct, everything you'll do has already been done. Don't worry about it, man.

If you've lived many lives, I'm sure you've had at least one where you were happy with what you've done.

[lkwalker]

Indy- solipsism is indeed the darkest of all possible thoughts. It's also the point of departure for all sentient beings and it's logically irrefutable. That's exactly what drove Nietzsche mad. It is the negation of the possibility of independent existence outside of yourself, the existential doubting of the other. In other words it is the nihilist imprisonment. Escape from this condition is in denial. Denial is only a bad thing for popular psychologists. What is required is a leap of faith in the existence of a reality beyond your senses. It is faith because it cannot be reasonably established. The refusal to make this leap, this first choice, leaves you in a very dangerous place. Don't be there. Exercise your free will even in the face of logical inconsistency. Read these words carefully and often and consider them a warning from a friend.

[Egg]

Indy- solipsism is indeed the darkest of all possible thoughts. It's also the point of departure for all sentient beings and it's logically irrefutable. That's exactly what drove Nietzsche mad. It is the negation of the possibility of independent existence outside of yourself, the existential doubting of the other. In other words it is the nihilist imprisonment. Escape from this condition is in denial. Denial is only a bad thing for popular psychologists. What is required is a leap of faith in the existence of a reality beyond your senses. It is faith because it cannot be reasonably established. The refusal to make this leap, this first choice, leaves you in a very dangerous place. Don't be there. Exercise your free will even in the face of logical inconsistency. Read these words carefully and often and consider them a warning from a friend.

That one line alone is worth a lot of meditation..

You're softening up, in a good way, lately, Walker. Hahahaha

[Egg]

Indiee, BE and I and everyone on this board may only be your thoughts (including this board) but you'd never learn about yourself without us.

Think of what Solomon did with the Gordion knot. Sometimes you just need to muscle through. Some puzzles are not made with a solution.

You're funny and smart, don't turn it inwards only. Use it.

[lkwalker]

A short family tree. Nihilism is the father of conceit and conceit is the brother of evil.

[MrPenny]

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a horrifying condition of humanity's realization of infinity.

No....three times is still a coincidence.....given the staggering numbers of humans that have been on this planet.

Lay off the hallucinogenics Indiee......

[Kat]

It was not straw that broke the camel's back, but his reaction to the suffering of a workhorse that drove your friend Herr N. mad.

Lay off Jacob's Ladder and look here instead.