I woke up awfully early Thursday morning (5:50 am), head still pounding from the night before (red wine and brandy while watching 'Taken' at Schenley, followed by Irish poker), and caught the 6:30 bus to Pittsburgh's Airport. I boarded my flight and flew to Phoenix via Minneapolis to spend the weekend with Mara. Despite the weather (average temperature of 105) and the general nature of Tempe, Phoenix and Scottsdale we managed to have an excellent time. Spent much of the day indoors with air conditioning or out by the hotel's pool. Highlights included the Desert Botanical Gardens, which were great, though absolutely exhausting in the heat, the Four Peaks Brewery and Restaurant which had a pretty legit American IPA, and my first In 'N Out Burger experience (grilled cheese, animal style). We didn't venture into Phoenix, so I can't reflect on it, but Tempe and Scottsdale were pretty awful. Tempe is a town that is clearly not built with walking in mind. The blocks and streets are huge and there is basically nothing in the town. One street (Mill St.) has some bars and restaurants, but aside from that it's a pretty dead town. All residential and small offices. Scottsdale is more tourist friendly, but everything there is either a kitschy souvenir shop or a chain. The whole area doesn't seem to have any culture or identity of its own (though its certainly tried to adopt the Native American culture for the sake of commodifying it). Instead, it's a disorienting and faceless mess of things you could find anywhere else, all uncomfortably situated in an unbearable environment. Despite that, it was still fun and totally worth it. On Sunday I managed to catch the end of the Federer-Roddick match on TV and then was almost bumped from my plane (which actually would've been awesome, the airline would've had to pay me $500, basically refunding the cost of my tickets for the entire trip, and get me another flight that night). Instead I got into Pittsburgh at 6:40 and caught the bus home only to find that our internet troubles had returned.
On the bus back from the airport I found myself thinking about Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. Below I've posted one of main passages describing it.
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness
and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once
more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and
every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your
life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider
and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal
hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of
dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon
who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would
have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this
thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you.
The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more, and innumerable
times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed
would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than
this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
The obvious interpretation of this passage is that it is a sort of thought experiment, a test that we ought to subject all of our decisions and actions to. Nietzsche seems to be encouraging us to throw caution to the wind and live our lives in the most thrilling and pleasurable way possible. This jibes well with other sentiments of his. It occurred to me that this message is much the same to the one imparted by the phrase "you only live once." The parallel struck me as particularly odd. How can it be that believing you only live once and believing that your life recurs can lead to the same conclusion. Clearly in both instances you only have one life to live, (though in one of them you get to live it again and again), but it is still curious. What then leads to caution? I suppose a belief in rebirth or an afterlife may, but it is clear that not only religious people have an tendency to be inactive and careful. I think that caution may be a product of all of our social ties, to friends and family. None of us exist in a vacuum, and if we did, then it might make sense to take all the risks we wanted to do and do absolutely ridiculous things. In reality though, we feel that we have obligations to others, and these obligations tend to force us to avoid doing things that are too dangerous or outlandish.
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