I floated this idea around at a party recently and thought I’d see if anyone else has any takes on it.
Regret, in very simple and action-oriented terms, is an event or happening that we wish with all our might that we could travel through time in order to go back and change. Something we always think about doing differently, of wishing for different historic circumstances. Regret is such a negative thing, something you never really get over–learn from and grow from–but can never really come to terms with. If you do it sort of ceases to be regret at all.
So what is the opposite? Why do we not have a term for the positive? In the same context, the opposite of reget is something that you have done that you would never want to go back and change for any reason–something that makes us thankful that time travel is an impossibility. These are the things that you have done that you will never lose. The things that, even after we die, nobody can ever say we didn’t do. It could be a place you traveled, a chance meeting, a kiss, anything.
I want a term that represents these things that nothing can take away from us. The things that we can never have again, but that will never leave our minds, bodies, or souls. These things will exist in some relam of history forever.
don’t be rhetorical that’s just an excuse for stupidity unless you just like to piss people off are you wrong some one say something or are you not wrong now that’s a question for the ages.
As for your question jps0201 I think no matter what happens you or someone else can benefit. For the things you do wrong you can better someone else’s life by teaching them what not to do. To make terms with your past is to pass on what you have learned.
I said something similar on a post about the after life you live on through how and who you influence. So listen to others and take the best advice possible and give the best advice possible.
actually, you weren’t totally wrong… maybe a quibble about the translation but the concept behind the ‘eternal recurrence’ fits quite well actually… how to get past regret? you live you life as if you had to repeat your actions over and over…
Joyful Wisdom, book 4, sec 341.
[Compare Nietzsche’s note: Fall 1881 11 [143]]
The greatest weight.— What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in 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? —
Twilight of the Idols, book 11, sec 5
The psychology of the orgiastic as an overflowing feeling of life and strength, where even pain still has the effect of a stimulus, gave me the key to the concept of tragic feeling, which had been misunderstood both by Aristotle and, quite especially, by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything about the pessimism of the Hellenes, in Schopenhauer’s sense, that it may, on the contrary, be considered its decisive repudiation and counter-verdict [Gegen-Instanz]. Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems, the will to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in order to get rid of terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a dangerous affect by its vehement discharge—Aristotle understood it that way—: but in order to be oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity—that joy which also includes joy in destroying … And herewith I again touch that point from which I once went forth—the “Birth of Tragedy” was my first revaluation of all values: herewith I again stand on the soil out of which my intention, my ability grows—I, the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus—I, the teacher of the eternal recurrence …
amor fati, or love of fate relates more to actions that are beyond ones control and how one reacts to them…
I couldn’t think of any one term but “contentment”, based on your description of the word. I suppose when we feel contented towards things past and present, we can say there is nothing that we want to change about them, we leave things as they are or as they were.
May I take the liberty of recommending ‘The Strange Life Ivan Osokin’ by P.D. Ouspensky. It’s pertinent but I won’t give the story away.
Hi She,
Quoting Nietzsche is never a mistake on these boards as it brings out so many learned posts!
A thought on regret. I don’t think that nostalgia would be a polar opposite to regret as nostalgia is so often tinged with regret. My take would be the Buddhist notion of ‘right action’. I can’t see that there could be any regret in right action.
Cheers,
‘Right action’ - I’ve just realised that this view attracts a Kantian/consequentialist debate - Aaaah the pitfalls of philosophy.
