Self-Bloggeration

In this episode, my blog will talk about itself. It will be like the snake eating itself. It will be like the Seinfeld episode when Kramer gets lost in NYC and ends up at 1st Ave and 1st St. It will be like that trick when someone turns around, wraps his arms around himself, and moves his head from side to side, and it looks like he’s making out with someone, but he’s, technically, only making out with himself. That’s what we’re shooting for this morning. (Oh how my standards have changed in four days!)

I’m quite happy with the way this has turned out. Honestly, I thought it would be a complete and utter failure. I gave it two days. It’s been twice that and I still have a head of steam. I think I can last at least two weeks now! Great success!

And think of the topics we have covered, you and me. We talked about love and sex, death, beauty’s place in the modern world, societal constraints on self-expression through language, and now you’re watching me make out with myself. I think that covers everything!

When asked a few weeks ago what I would change about my life, I said that I missed the intellectual exercise that school has always provided for me. This blog allows me to be teacher and student. It’s great. I don’t mean to say that the content is great. I mean to say that the function it performs in my life is great. It’s exactly what I needed.

Nietzsche says that the highest ideal for man is ‘the eternal recurrence of the same.’ That is, the best we can hope for is to live the kind of life that we would choose to will again over and over for all eternity. Think about it. How good must things be for you to want to do them repeatedly forever? But really, why should we settle for anything less?

The incredible thing about the Nietzschean idea is that it shifts our present focus from the past or the future to both at the same time. It is easy to lament the past. It’s easy to stay the course, feeling as though you’re tied to the past, no matter how unfulfilled it left you, to feel that somehow, our pasts give us identity, meaning, and sustenance. Conversely, it’s also easy to rest on one’s laurels. On the other hand, it’s equally easy to hope for the future without doing anything to effectuate it. All three of these positions are the enemy of change. With the Nietzschean principle, by focusing on the past and future simultaneously, one is motivated to change one’s past so as not to let it become one’s future. I feel like Dr. Phil saying this, but one does really possess the power of change. There’s nothing about your situation that you cannot change if you want to. And if you don’t change it, it will not only be your past, but it will also be your future.

I feel like I’m getting preachy, so I’m going to stop writing.