On indecision and doing what we want
When Nietzche articulated his idea about eternal recurrence he was simultaneously illuminating a hope we hold for our understanding of our own lives and condemning us to one of our greatest fears. On the one hand there is the possibility of complete knowledge, an appreciation of life’s lack of direction and the freedom from fear that comes when a certain kind of pressure about the future is lifted from our shoulders. On the other, and at the kernel of the word recurrence, is the realisation that somehow nothing can ever be achieved and nothing can ever be different. Eternal recurrence is a metaphor for reality, with all its force, pervading our present and ensuring that we are stuck in a perpetual moment.
The idea is a hard one to grasp (indeed I don’t believe I have) but its importance seems to lie in the way it makes us think about time. I think the insight can be usefully applied to the concept of direction and desire in the undertaking of our lives. When anyone acts, they are faced with the question ‘why?’ and this answerable underscores all of our behaviour. For many (including myself) a trade off exists between behaviour that answers to immediate needs and desires and that which contributes to some kind of long term plan. This is doing what I want; the true imperative guiding my actions.
Unfortunately, the two ends are often at conflict. I am driven by the desire to pursue a particular life plan and to simultaneously meet the needs presented by the present. This is superficially an easy equation to master and is often framed; ‘short term loss for long term gain’ or vice versa. However, the reality of our future is more complex than this dictum would have us believe. Our actions can only ever be guided by factors available in the present. This includes not only dispassionate analysis of how best to behave according to our beliefs and ambitions but also short term decision making; whim, the ever present handmaiden of desire. In short, the trade off is based on a false dichotomy.
Live for the moment runs an oft-quoted maxim, designed to free us of the burden of our future. The point of this is to highlight the importance of our present to us. It is based on the teaching that the future does not yet exist and is therefore not worth worrying about. Take care of doing what you want to now, find happiness by acting in the way that you consider best at any given moment. There is no watershed point by which you will be able to look back and assess yourself so you should behave as if now is the only point you can experience. This is a sentiment often associated with hedonism as it appears to throw the long term plan out of the window and open the gates to whim.
But the future does exist, it is present in everyone’s experience of now as part of the mixture of guiding imperatives. Living for the moment is inclusive of the yet-to-occur and to suggest that you can successfully banish the future is to ignore the past, our experience of which tells us that time does unveil itself in an apparently contingent way. ‘You might get hit by a bus tomorrow’ cannot count as a reason to live as if that were certainly the case. If I were going to get hit by a bus tomorrow, I certainly wouldn’t go to work this evening. I will go to work this evening, because I want to go away next summer and have time to develop my life in the way that I find most tasteful to me.
But that the future exists is not, unfortunately, any truth of its fixity. Everyday the future travels with me and regulates my actions, making me earn money, apply for more satisfactory jobs. But it is an elusive beast, and morphs and changes. In some ways my future exists to me like a hair in my peripheral vision; whenever I move my head to focus on it, it moves too. One day my future looks one way and the other day it can be entirely different. On days when I desire a particular career plan I am guided by the knowledge of what needs to be done. Other days this career plan changes and I need to think again about how best to conduct myself. Yet other occasions arise when the future, regardless of its content, is weaker in influence than conflicting concerns like hunger or loneliness.
Everything I do is hinged on such fragile motives and can be reasoned away by the slightest twist of fortune. How can I enjoy the experience of control over my life? How can I set to directing myself where I want when I can barely decide what needs to be done and when I am stuck between the moment and the continuing onslaught of unpredictable time and experience?
When Nietzche articulated his idea about eternal recurrence he was simultaneously illuminating a hope we hold for our understanding of our own lives and condemning us to one of our greatest fears. On the one hand there is the possibility of complete knowledge, an appreciation of life’s lack of direction and the freedom from fear that comes when a certain kind of pressure about the future is lifted from our shoulders. On the other, and at the kernel of the word recurrence, is the realisation that somehow nothing can ever be achieved and nothing can ever be different. Eternal recurrence is a metaphor for reality, with all its force, pervading our present and ensuring that we are stuck in a perpetual moment.
The idea is a hard one to grasp (indeed I don’t believe I have) but its importance seems to lie in the way it makes us think about time. I think the insight can be usefully applied to the concept of direction and desire in the undertaking of our lives. When anyone acts, they are faced with the question ‘why?’ and this answerable underscores all of our behaviour. For many (including myself) a trade off exists between behaviour that answers to immediate needs and desires and that which contributes to some kind of long term plan. This is doing what I want; the true imperative guiding my actions.
Unfortunately, the two ends are often at conflict. I am driven by the desire to pursue a particular life plan and to simultaneously meet the needs presented by the present. This is superficially an easy equation to master and is often framed; ‘short term loss for long term gain’ or vice versa. However, the reality of our future is more complex than this dictum would have us believe. Our actions can only ever be guided by factors available in the present. This includes not only dispassionate analysis of how best to behave according to our beliefs and ambitions but also short term decision making; whim, the ever present handmaiden of desire. In short, the trade off is based on a false dichotomy.
Live for the moment runs an oft-quoted maxim, designed to free us of the burden of our future. The point of this is to highlight the importance of our present to us. It is based on the teaching that the future does not yet exist and is therefore not worth worrying about. Take care of doing what you want to now, find happiness by acting in the way that you consider best at any given moment. There is no watershed point by which you will be able to look back and assess yourself so you should behave as if now is the only point you can experience. This is a sentiment often associated with hedonism as it appears to throw the long term plan out of the window and open the gates to whim.
But the future does exist, it is present in everyone’s experience of now as part of the mixture of guiding imperatives. Living for the moment is inclusive of the yet-to-occur and to suggest that you can successfully banish the future is to ignore the past, our experience of which tells us that time does unveil itself in an apparently contingent way. ‘You might get hit by a bus tomorrow’ cannot count as a reason to live as if that were certainly the case. If I were going to get hit by a bus tomorrow, I certainly wouldn’t go to work this evening. I will go to work this evening, because I want to go away next summer and have time to develop my life in the way that I find most tasteful to me.
But that the future exists is not, unfortunately, any truth of its fixity. Everyday the future travels with me and regulates my actions, making me earn money, apply for more satisfactory jobs. But it is an elusive beast, and morphs and changes. In some ways my future exists to me like a hair in my peripheral vision; whenever I move my head to focus on it, it moves too. One day my future looks one way and the other day it can be entirely different. On days when I desire a particular career plan I am guided by the knowledge of what needs to be done. Other days this career plan changes and I need to think again about how best to conduct myself. Yet other occasions arise when the future, regardless of its content, is weaker in influence than conflicting concerns like hunger or loneliness.
Everything I do is hinged on such fragile motives and can be reasoned away by the slightest twist of fortune. How can I enjoy the experience of control over my life? How can I set to directing myself where I want when I can barely decide what needs to be done and when I am stuck between the moment and the continuing onslaught of unpredictable time and experience?
posted by huwtube at 11:30 am
1 Comments:
Hmmm. A deep one, Huw. I need to mull this over a bit. I'd never thought of eternal recurrence in quite that way and had always envisioned it as being a more generalised anti-progress in society comment - in that all the sins of the past which one hopes the world has escaped are destined to come back to us again and again. Blame that on the strong history/politics emphasis of my studies for the past six or more years.
In a more personal sense, eternal recurrence seems to suggest (to me) that one's own decisions are essentially meaningless because the circumstances in which they arose will come around again - in essence given three choices, three different (but somehow similar) people get three bites at the cherry. Not sure if that's much of a comfort to each one who - presumably - can only choose path A, B, or C, though.
As for indecision, it's a bitch. I know the feeling well. I've written a blogbit about it which needs polishing up because it's not a fair articulation of everything I feel about it yet. (I don't often have to/want to do that). It'll be around sometime soon, I hope.
Good luck navigating the maze of choice...
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