Posted on by markusoreallyus · 2 Comments

Up to zero 

Today is my own private New Year’s Day. Another year behind me. That’s 49 of them, now. And what is there to show for it? Have I made anything, learned anything, done anything that hasn’t been done a hundred thousand times or more by others? Does that even matter? Does anything?

How do we measure a life? Clearly it isn’t by the number of years lived. John Keats, Mozart, so many others who died young but achieved something extraordinary, something beyond themselves, proves longevity isn’t the best measure. But is that sort of achievement a useful measure? It is far too rare, and often comes with such great sacrifice. It’s too harsh to say that only a handful from every million lives is worthwhile.

I mentioned Nietzsche the other day, and I think maybe he provides a useful clue. Not that his life is one to emulate. The creeping madness that eventually consumed him isn’t something anyone would wish on themselves. And many of his ideas – such as the will to power, the übermensch, ‘God is dead’ – aren’t really applicable here, either. The idea I’m thinking of is his theory of eternal recurrence of the same.

In The Gay Science, Nietzsche asks us to imagine a devil or ‘evil genius’ appears to tell us that our lives will repeat eternally, exactly the same in every detail, including this moment in which we are told of it, and that it has already done so an infinite number of times. Would we pull our hair, gnash our teeth and cry out in horror at the thought of having to live through each moment again, without any ability to change any of it? Or would we, he later asks in Zarathustra, clap our hands and shout, ‘Again!’

Some philosophers have dismissed eternal recurrence as metaphysical nonsense, but I don’t think he meant for anyone to actually believe that the universe was on a continuous loop. Nietzsche often described himself as a psychologist, and I believe he intended eternal recurrence to be a sort of psychological test. How happy are you? If you were told that you had to repeat your life again and again without change, how would you react?

That’s a pretty difficult test for most of us. Life, as Nietzsche well knew (but rarely admitted), is filled with painful experiences, especially loss. No one wants to repeat those feelings, those moments. But there are also moments of joy, experiences we would not give up for anything. Such experiences almost invariably lead to loss, and yet, even with that knowledge, who among us would want to live without them? If the sum total of joy outweighs the pain of loss, perhaps having our lives repeat endlessly is worth it.

For me, that is the case, right now, at 49, working my way up to the next zero. I hope it will continue to be so.

Posted on by markusoreallyus · 1 Comment

New Year’s Day 

It’s quiet this morning. There is sunlight and blue sky, which is strange for winter in Vancouver. We are more accustomed to grey. Then again, we are also more accustomed to warmer days. There is new snow on ground, and on tree branches, and ice where the old snow had melted. It feels peculiarly Canadian.

I got a head start on resolutions this year, the main one being this blog, or rather, the discipline of writing every day, which the blog fascilitates. Writing is a strange discipline. In one sense, it’s the easiest thing in the world. Just talk to yourself and transcribe the conversation. In another sense, it’s incredibly difficult. It’s not just myself I’m talking to, after all, and no one wants to bore their audience. It’s also not really a conversation, which has multiple voices pushing in different directions, and which flows organically, like a river meandering through valleys, branching off into streams, and being fed by others. Writing is more like a canal system, being at once less natural and more purposeful than a river. If it branches off, that is by design.

In thinking about my own resolutions, I begin to wonder what, if anything, others have resolved. Many of us like to say we don’t make resolutions. When asked I used to answer that I was sticking to an old resolution not to make any – just as I like to say I gave up religion for lent. But most of us do make them, whether or not they are formally constructed as such. The start of a new year seems to lend itself to thinking of what or how we can do better this time around.

There are resolutions I’d like to make for some people that they might not make for themselves. For example:

I’d like Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones to collectively resolve to get back in the recording studio together. It’s been seven years, guys. It’s time.

I’d like to resolve on behalf of politicians (of every ideological stripe) that they begin to put the wellbeing of the people they represent ahead of corporate or other organizational interests. All of the people. Especially those who are struggling.

I’d like to resolve on behalf of businesses that they concentrate on making something more than profit.

I’d like to resolve on behalf of Lucasfilm that all future Star Wars movies be at least as good as Rogue One. (Which, by the way, was the best Star Wars film yet.)

Beyond that, I’d like to know what, if anything, you have resolved. Leave me a comment. Send me an email. You don’t have to get too personal (unless you’ve resolved to do so, of course).