Fighting against learned weakness in "Eternal Return"

Recently, I was rereading Milan Kundera 's The Unbearable Lightness of Life. I couldn't understand it when I was young, and I hope I can have some experience when I re-watch it with experience. At the beginning of the book, there is a concept full of mysterious thoughts - "Eternal Calamity Return" . This psychedelic concept was proposed by the famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and described in his book "The Gay Science", which he called "the heaviest burden" :

Session 341 (p. 194)
The heaviest weight. - What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence...'

原文<br class="smart">The heaviest burden—if some day or night a demon is about to steal your loneliest solitude and say to you, "What you are going through and what you have been going through. In a lifetime, you will live again, even countless times; nothing new will be added to this life, but every moment of pain, every moment of joy and every thought, sigh, and voice in your life The silent big things and the little things will come back to you again, so you will experience things again in the same order, in the same series of events..."

Nietzsche was describing the concept of a vast cosmic system in which all matter recycles and must reappear in the same way at some point in cosmic time. But today, we don't talk about this huge cosmic system. Today we talk about the "pseudo-eternal return" that we have experienced countless times in our lives.

Life and death, continuous wars, corrupt regimes, endless epidemics... In the face of the silent big and small events in life, at first we will try to change the unpleasant reality, think about changing the world, but find that Incapable of coping with:

In the face of the epidemic, we are doing our best to fight the epidemic. Cleaning, disinfection, wearing masks, social distancing, banning dine-in, closing customs... We spare no effort in these big and small matters. However, no matter how hard we try, it seems that the epidemic is far from over. As the saying goes, after a wave of failures, there is another wave. After Delta, there is Omicron, and recently there is a Deltacron. The epidemic has turned into a huge wave after another, rushing towards the powerless us. After several waves of epidemics, it has gradually become the "eternal return" in our lives, as if the epidemic will always strike humans in the same form, just like SARS and the Spanish flu. In the face of repeated epidemics in human history, we can't help but feel a little tired of fighting the epidemic and feel a little powerless.

In the face of war, we all know that humans always make the same mistakes. Whether it is World War I, World War II, or even modern warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine, we always fail to understand the need for those in power to wage war. We are against the war, but we are so powerless. We could be arrested for being anti-war, and banned for being anti-war. What are the consequences of antiwar protests, even in free countries? The indifference of those in power remains. We are anti-war, and have been anti-war from the past until now, and in the end, war keeps coming back in this "Return of Eternal Calamity". Is it the will of those in power, or is it fate? We are so powerless in the face of the wheel of fate and the indifference of those in power.

In the face of the regime, we stand united in the face of a totalitarian society. That year, we sat on a hunger strike in the square, raised our umbrellas, and put on our masks, but we still couldn't change the dictator's stubbornness. Dictators are reluctant to listen to popular opinions, and would rather suppress even those of us who believe in ourselves. Wherever there are protests, there will be repression, which has been repeated all the time. We marched, they ignored us; we resisted, they attacked the weak and weak people; we resisted, they captured our school... Until later, the suppression of all aspects made the people of this city and this country lose the capital to resist, and could only Obediently being cooked on the pot. Soaked in hot water, we, powerless, lost our courage and faith after repeated cycles.

In the "pseudo-eternal return" again and again, we gradually realize our insignificance. It is because we see ourselves as small that we become even smaller. We all have learned helplessness, accept our powerlessness, and stop doing something to change the world. We accept our own powerlessness and become even more powerless. It's not anyone's fault. Faced with the "return of eternity" in life, we become numb, weak, and powerless, and rightly so. Who can stand up after countless failures? Most of them are heroes, and ordinary people like us are rare.

As ordinary people, can't we resist the powerless cycle of reincarnation? no. I watched an episode recently, and there was a scene in it that really touched me. I won't say what drama this is, because it wasn't a meaningful movie, and it wasn't very good-looking. The scenario might look like this:

There is a zero-carbon village on the outskirts. As the name implies, the lifestyle of this zero-carbon village hopes to reduce carbon emissions and make life extremely simple. This village holds an experience camp every year to accept students from other places and let them realize the importance of zero carbon emission reduction. When a group of students was about to leave, one of them asked the head of the zero-carbon village why they could insist on holding the experience camp for so many years, and did not give up, even if the students could not take any zero-carbon concept with them in the end. The person in charge wore a straw hat and said:

"You ask me why I haven't given up on what I'm doing? I know what I do can't change the world, but it can change the way I see the world. You may think that one person can't change the world, but I want you to know, The world also cannot change someone like me."

At that moment, I cried as if it was a redemption for a powerless person. Yes, we are equally powerless. Stop and do what you can. Maybe it can't change the world at all, and it won't break the "eternal return" in life, but at least it can change our hearts and change the way we look at the world. "Return of Eternal Calamity" can shatter people's hopes, but as long as we are firm enough, this belief will continue to circulate.

In the end, I will send you a song about Eighty Three Days, and together we will maintain our faith in the return of eternal calamity and fight against learned powerlessness.

This is wisdom and water. Thank you for seeing you and you in the end. As long as there are readers, we will continue to write. Don't forget to clap/sponsor to show your support~ If you have any thoughts, you can leave a message below, and I will try my best to reply! See you in the next article!

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