Nietzsche's Eternal Return

Novel Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Over the course of the two year course, you will be looking at a range of literary and
philosophical concepts:

Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Think Think about the happiest moments of your life, also think about
the hardest moments of your life. You could not have the happy
ones without the sad - or could you? Write a 200 word entry on
the idea: would you keep all your happy memories if you had to
keep the sad ones as well?

In short yes. This because I do not think I truly would be able to

recognise the happy moments in my life without the sad ones.
Humans don't like life, we're creating happy and sad moments to
keep us entertained and to give ourselves meaning. I think if I got
rid of all my happy and sad memories I would just find smaller
moments to take their place. In addition, the happy and sad
moments of my life make me the person that I am today. Just in
the past couple of years, I have changed greatly as a person
through my relationships, my morals, my ethics and these are
mainly determined by the happy and sad moments in my life. This
links to Nietzsche’s opinion of good v bad, sad v happy - these
labels are necessary when communicating to others our emotions
but we should restrict our expression to either one or the other. As
this restricts expression and leaves us longing for the extreme
rather than recognising the small moments in our life that cannot
be explicitly happy or sad. Overall the world is not black or white,
it's rather shades of grey which vary person to person.

Consider What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you 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 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' ... 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.'
- The Gay Science, Fredrik
Nietzsche

Read As you read through The Unbearable Lightness of Being, look for
and annotate for moments that the characters experience positive
and negative moments. Kundera also refers to Nietzche and the
eternal return, so make notes of that as well.