Acceptance and resignation

"It is of capital importance to understand this distinction between acceptation and resignation. To accept, really to accept a situation, is to think and feel with the whole of one's being that, even if one had the faculty of modifying it, one would not do it, and would have no reason to do it."

--Hubert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought (1955)

I came across this passage in Benoit's book (which has been slow, rich reading for me) last week, and it has stuck with me. It reminded me Nietzsche's concept of eternal return (or eternal recurrence), which, to me, is one of the most striking thoughts (or thought experiments, if you prefer) I have encountered. It illustrates so well the value of philosophy for living one's life better.

To start, here is a succinct formulation of the concept of eternal return--aphorism 341 from The Gay Science (1882), translated by Walter Kaufman:

“The greatest weight.— 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—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!”

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.” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”

It is arresting. One may choose to ignore the thought experiment, but if one chooses to engage with it, an immediate reappraisal of one's life seems inevitable, if only for a minute or two. What if you had to live your entire life over, into everlasting time, every single moment the same? Would this prospect cause you anguish, or has there been a moment in your life, just one moment, that would make the whole thing worth living again and again and again? And not just worth living again, but that you would want, as Nietzsche emphasizes, nothing more than to do this living over and over.

It is interesting to add in a nuance that Benoit mentions--the idea of being able to choose this fate ("even if one had the faculty of modifying it"). In other words, if you were given a choice to change any aspect of your life as a whole, would you?

I imagine that some people would immediately answer yes, and some would immediately answer no. But others would probably take a moment to think, and perhaps arrive at the answer: the only thing I would change is my desire to change anything. In other words, I would venture to say that most people, from children to adults, have aspects of the life that they have lived thus far, that they would like to change. And I would go further to say that most people would not change many other aspects of their life thus far. In other words, there lies an ambivalence within the person as to the prospect of complete acceptance (as Benoit says, "with the whole of one's being"). Nietzsche's concept confronts this ambivalence directly by removing the prospect of choice. In other words, he does not acknowledge of the possibility of being able to modify one's life situation. His question is not, as I phrased it above, "if you were given a choice to change any aspect of your life as a whole, would you?" This option is taken off the table, and the questioned person is left with the starkness of the demon's statement: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more."

What then? For Nietszche asks us if we will accept, or, better, embrace, the demon's pronouncement, or gnash our teeth in despair. This further step of embracing is important--it is reflected in the reply, "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." For embracing goes beyond acceptance. It implies, as in the physical act of embracing, a whole-bodied experience (again, Benoit's "whole-being"). When I embrace someone fully, no part of me is holding back. 

Further food for thought: earlier in The Gay Science, Nietzsche offers a preliminary response to his own thought experiment (he would later explore the theme in greater detail in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885):

For the new year.— I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought; hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year—what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer. (aphorism 276)