Nietzsche

I don't know much about philosophy. It is one of those subjects I've never studied. I guess the closest I've come to reading about philosophy is my Calvin and Hobbes comic books that I love to read.

It's an interesting subject though and I've started to slowly read more about it. Yesterday I came across two references to a German philosopher of the 19th century - Friedrich Nietzsche. He, at the end of the 19th century, had announced the "twilight of the Gods", said the article in Times of India. Religion had become irrelevant. Replaced no doubt by the ravages of materialism and consumerism.

The second reference was in Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". I came across Bob Corbett's notes on the book - which I will read in full after I finish the novel. He says,

"Milan Kundera opens the novel with a discourse on Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence. He rejects any view of the recurrence as being real or metaphysical. It is metaphorical he assures us. In a world of objective meaninglessness one must fall into nihilism unless one acts as if one's acts recur eternally, thus giving our acts "weight," the weight of those choices we make, as though recurring eternally, living forever. Kundera rejects Nietzsche's optimism and in compelling detail and poignancy he give us the story of the painful love affair of Tomas and Tereza, condemned by fate and choice to live together, yet never ceasing to cause each other enormous pain and suffering. "

What I understand is that Kundera said that living in cycles is a myth. There is no reincarnation. There is only the present. Nietzsche on the other hand was more optimistic (?).

I'll write more when I understand more. It is interesting though. The novel is also very interesting.