How i found love

I found love
(illuminated) on a
bathroom wall, during
a blackout in Leh.

clouds i see, gods gone soft

the clouds
i see
mystifying the mosaic of
designer balconies
mean
the gods
gone soft
in blessing these working-class
storeys aloft

still life

if it makes
sense
is it still
life
?

all things are in love, for all joy wants - eternity!

Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love;

If you ever wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: "You please me, happiness, instant, moment!", then you wanted everything to return!

You wanted everything anew, everything eternal, everything chained, entwined together, everything in love, O that is how you loved the world.

You everlasting men, loved it eternally, and for all time: and you say even to woe: "Go, but return!" For all joy wants - eternity!

- Nietzsche (1969: 331-2)

Groundhog Day

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 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 untterably 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 feverishly than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

- Nietzsche (1974: 273-4), The Gay Science