It is the hour of death. You are informed by an utterly reliable source that you have exactly two options. You can either accept death and with it utter annihilation of the self, or you can repeat your life with every last detail the same. But if every last detail is to be the same, and you decide to sign up for another round on the wheel of becoming, you realize that you are signing up for an infinity of rounds.
So which will it be? Has your life been so valuable that you would be willing to repeat it, and indeed repeat it endlessly? Noch einmal? If you say yes, you are at the upper limit of life affirmation. For me, once is enough. Up or out! This life has point only as prelude. The wheel of samsara is the wheel of Ixion, and an eternity of re-turning is a shabby and indeed horrifying substitute for true eternity.
Nietzsche was a genuine instance of homo religiosus, but possessing as he did the bladed intellect of the skeptic, he could not bring himself to believe.
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