The evil demon steals into your room at night and asks your reaction - yes
or no - to the thought of the eternal return. The demon is essentially
offering you a lens through which to view your evaluative process. It's an
existometer. It brackets your consciousness with the weight of the thought
- can you bear it? Will you say yes to each of these moments? How long can
you continue to affirm your existence as the full implications of the
thought of the eternal return are illuminated before you? Will you shake
with repulsion? Will you cower in horror before the thought?
And as you move through life the thought conditions your choices and how
you derive from life in all its moments (this starlight, this spider, etc)
the juice you need to act.
This (a poor description at best) is what Nietzche called his highest
thought, not some cosmological mumbo jumbo.
--- from list nietzsche@lists.village.virginia.edu ---