The Eternal Return in

Groundhog Day

The Eternal Return is for Nietzsche the weightiest thought. In Nietzsche's mind the Eternal Return was a horrifying thought, almost paralyzing. Here is a selection from The Gay Science:

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.

Eternal recurrence is Nietzsche’s idea that we’ve lived the exact life we are living now an infinite number of times in the past, and will do so an infinite number of times in the future. If we’ve enjoyed a particularly eventful and pleasurable life, this might sound like the greatest of tidings. If not, eternal recurrence may strike us as a curse.

In Groundhog Day, Murray’s character, Phil Connors, finds that no matter what he does, every morning he wakes up at the same time, in the same bed, in the same hotel, in the same small American town, on the same day (February 2nd, “Groundhog Day”). In the subsequent twenty-four hours he is free to do anything he likes, but knows he’s condemned to start the whole day again as soon as that day has run its course. Even when he wants to die, he can’t. In a sense he has achieved immortality.

In Nietzsche’s conception of eternal recurrence, the individual, crucially, has no memory of his previous lives. In Groundhog Day, Connors most certainly does. But he’s the only one. All the others with whom he shares his eternal recurrence are in the Nietzschean position of having no recollection of their past existences. Connors’ plight is in this sense much more horrific than theirs. He’s not dealing with a hypothetical notion of eternal recurrence: he is conscious of it, and living it whether he likes it or not. So whereas in Nietzsche’s scheme every reborn world is an exact replica of the previous, in Groundhog Dayeach is an imperfect copy,

Groundhog Day also brings to mind the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, in which the eponymous anti-hero defies the gods and is punished by being sentenced to push a huge rock up a steep hill in the certain knowledge that as soon as he has succeeded, the rock will roll back down and he must start the process again. Like Murray’s character, Sisyphus cannot die, even though he might long for death as the only means to escape his personal Hell.

Like Camus’ Sisyphus, Connors comes to fully accept his fate. Ironically, it is precisely then that he’s liberated from it. Like Sisyphus, he is happy (Camus : “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”). Indeed, Connors’ position is arguably better than Sisyphus’s. Camus says that there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. But for Connors, rather than scorn, it is love which liberates him.

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- Let me ask you guys a question. What if there were no tomorrow? 
- No tomorrow? That would mean there would be no consequences. There would be no hangovers. We could do whatever we wanted!

- That's true. We could do whatever we want.

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What would you do if there was no tomorrow? What actions would you take? What would be the foundation of your principles?

Ø Would you eat whatever you want, without any cholesterol problems, like Phil?