Author: Dinah Kolka is a graduate of Edinburgh Napier University with a BA(Hons) in English Literature with a rich background in both creative writing and journalism. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Salisbury Review and The Mallard, and she was published in the Scottish Book Trust’s 2018 anthology Rebel. In 2023, she self-published her own collection of short stories under the title The Search and Other Stories.

The concept of rebirth has dominated philosophy, theology, and literature for centuries. Nietzsche’s concept of the eternal recurrence, the re-invention of oneself in Sartre or even the religious re-awakening of Kierkegaard are all central to the themes of this rebirth or self-creation. With the bell striking at midnight on New Year’s Day, we all strive to reinvent ourselves, be born anew, and become someone we always wished to be. No matter the struggles of days past, we find ourselves waking up the next day, unburdened again, ready to try. And the New Year is a significant day – for it wipes the mistakes and errors of the previous year and allows us to reinvent ourselves into a better version altogether. We create long lists of resolutions, to lose weight, to be kinder, to take up that language, to read that book. And even if we fail once more, there is always another year. And it is in that reinvention that the secret lays – no matter how many failings we have had, the new year always reintroduces the opportunity for trying again. Despite the mercilessness of the time passing, we find ourselves hopeful once again, hoping that what we wish to do will stick this time. The point of this article is to explore various ways in which one can find himself reborn, and different paths to self-renewal that we could consider as individuals. I decided to take Nietzsche, Sartre, and Kierkegaard as my guiding light.

 Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence and the Will to Power

‘What, if some day or night, a demon were to sneak after you into your 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 every sigh . . . must 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 over and over and you with it, a mere grain of dust.” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science)

The essential tenet of Nietzschean philosophy is the concept of eternal recurrence – the concept that everything that has happened, will happen into eternity. The question that remains is – if your life were to repeat over and over would you rejoice or would you weep? This in itself can be used for the purposes of self-improvement, if you wouldn’t want to repeat your life as you’re living it, why would you live that way in the first place?

The universe and our lives are in a constant flux of movement. We find ourselves continuously repeating the same life. This was highlighted by Ilona Jappinen, who brings into focus the fragmentation of the self within the eternal recurrence, the self is continuously changing and improving upon itself, and this dynamic element allows us to continuously re-invent ourselves:

‘In Zarathustra, the self appears increasingly as transformations, dissolutions and re-formations of forces. Although it may look like a ‘bag’ of wholeness and unity, the autonomous self is operationally a transitory victory of will over dissolution’

The self is not stagnant or linear – the self is dynamic, continuously transforming and dissolving. As such, the self has a great potential for rebirth and change – it is a constant repetition of movement, as the universe spirals over and over, so do we, continuously changing as the cycles of life pass us by – birth, death, seasons, harvest, et cetera. The everyday requires us to accept the time passing, but Nietzsche offers us a way out of this – through continual reinvention as a way to achieve perfection. In essence, Nietzsche offers us an antidote to the everyday. We can discard the repetition of our mistakes, and instead, use it to our advantage to embrace the will to power.

The cycles can serve a positive function – through the eternal repetition and an opportunity for reinvention, but they can also present multiple negatives – the cyclical nature of mistakes prevents us from ever truly self-fulfilling as we return to our mistakes and sins like a pig returning to its pigsty. So to counter this – we can ensure that change is permanent by applying a linear approach.

“The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.”

One must continuously challenge misfortune in order to renew oneself. A man needs to harness his impulses, not to subdue them, but to employ them to aid him with creating himself.

Kaufman suggests:

 ‘A man with strong impulses might be evil because he had not yet learned to sublimate his impulses, but if he should ever acquire self-control, he might achieve greatness. In that sense, there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine just men—if the latter are just only because they are too feeble ever to have sinned.’

It is precisely within the impulses that the potential for self-mastery lies. The strong impulses, once overcome, allow a man to truly harness his potential and thus, overcome himself.

This self-mastery, both physical and mental, allows one to fulfil one’s potential and improve upon oneself and thus overcome oneself. The importance of attaining the physical and mental ideal would serve as the essential step to becoming greater than oneself.

Overall, Nietzsche’s concept of rebirth is dynamic, and ever-changing, offering us a way to rise above the everyday and improve ourselves, using the eternal recurrence as the key motivator.

Sartre’s Existential Rebirth: Freedom and Self-Creation

Another way of recreating oneself is to accept that one must create a purpose. It’s one thing to better yourself in a truly Nietzschean manner, it’s another if you don’t know where the purpose lies.

Most of us are familiar with Sartre’s concept of ‘existence preceding essence’. First, we are born, we come to exist, and then we forge our own essence or purpose. This highly individualistic philosophy offers a way out for those who struggle to find meaning or faith in a meaningless society – simply find one.

“I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.”

It’s this radical freedom that throws us into the world that offers us an opportunity for rebirth – one can start brand new as there is nothing a priori. This rejection frees us and enables us to find a path forward and forge a way for ourselves. Anything we can choose to decide with life becomes our purpose. It is a heavy weight – we are born with the responsibility for ourselves and our choices, but this can also bring a great source of satisfaction.

Cambridge Companion to Sartre clarifies this further:

‘We can, at a level we consider morally significant, determine ourselves “from the inside,” without being fully influenced by alien forces (external or internal). We are, within bounds, authors of our own life histories and moral being, because we contribute through our own actions, choices, or intentions to the making of what, qua moral agents, we are.”

Sartre’s philosophy puts the burden of self-creation on us alone. We determine who we become. This can be quite a difficult concept to live with, but once one realises that we, in fact, can do whatever we wish to do – we can use this to our advantage and thus renew ourselves entirely, in a way that we choose to do – no outside forces can stop us as there are no forces that control our life.

This means that with each New Year, we can find our new purpose, we can go out to search for the meaning unburdened by any preconceived notions. The new year comes, and it wipes out everything else on its way.

There is so much beauty in this way of being – as it allows us to continuously explore. Life thus becomes something of a journey – each passing year brings us closer to what we were always meant to be.

Kierkegaard’s Rebirth through Faith: The Leap and the Individual

“If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.” (Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling)

Is there anything more apt just at the start of the year? When we are about to get up and go to the gym, we suddenly remember how many times we failed and that we might fail again – so we choose to never go in the first place. Isn’t this a great shame?

And this is where Kierkegaard offers us a way out – the paralysis of failure can be overcome by faith, a drastic sudden act of courage which would allow us to move forward. Where Sartre’s philosophy perhaps brings us closer to despair as it puts the entire responsibility on us, Kierkegaard chooses a route that is slightly easier. All we have to do is take a leap, we need to believe in something greater than oneself.

Kierkegaard is often contrasted with Camus’ philosophy of the absurd in the Myth of Sisyphus. Kierkegaard was known for the ‘eternal leap’. It might be slightly unfair to analyse Kierkegaard through the Camusian prism, but nevertheless, Camus claims that ‘a determined soul will always manage’ to accept the despair of being alive. In contrast, Kierkegaard does not believe that despair can ever be transcended – it requires a divine intervention.

“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”

Kierkegaard looked into the gaping mouth of the vapid life with no hope, no future, and the ‘wild ferment’ and realised that there must be an antidote to despair. And this is why he introduced the concept of ‘eternal leap’.

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard uses the Biblical story of Abraham to back his point. Abraham had to trust the divine that his son would not be sacrificed. His willingness to sacrifice his son is an act of absolute trust in god, complete faith far from the rationality of Sartre. The leap of faith is precisely a leap. When we leap over a cliff, we believe there is something that will ensure that we will not fall. It is a complete faith in something that may or may not be there. This is why Kierkegaard suggests leaping – we may never understand the divine, so in order to move beyond the despair, we must simply take a leap, thus embracing the paradox of finite and infinite.

Saying that, curiously, Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard suggests that the phrase ‘leap of faith’ in itself differs from the Kierkegaardian leap:

“Kierkegaard never uses any Danish equivalent of the English phrase “leap of faith,” a phrase that involves a circularity insofar as it seems to imply that the leap is made by faith.’ He does, however, clearly and often refer to the concept of a leap (Spring) and to the concept of a transition (Overgang) that is qualitative (qvalitativ) or, alternatively, a meta-basis eis allo genos (transition from one genus to another); moreover, he clearly and often refers to such a qualitative transition to religiousness and to faith in an eminent sense, namely, Christian religiousness.”

This leap offers us an opportunity to remove ourselves from the claws of despair into a whole new renewed person, an improved being thus reborn accepts the unknown within the universe. In Kierkegaard, this would be done through religious faith.

In this way, if we were to follow Kierkegaard’s doctrine, we’d abandon the hopeless self that is full of despair and start anew in a way that is truly authentic to us. It’s a sudden and profound shift that offers us newfound greatness that we wouldn’t be otherwise able to achieve.

The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard states:

“To ask in an infinitely interested way is to dare to be radically changed, to face a demand, our response to which (whatever it is) will necessarily change us radically – this is to take a real risk, to put oneself out over seventy thousand fathoms. One can take a risk, be threatened even if one does not know exactly what will be lost (or gained).”

There is an inherent risk involved with the leap, there is the belief that we would be radically changed, but this can be threatening as we will never know what lies ahead, unless we take the leap.

And where Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence keeps ringing true, Kierkegaard however, suggests to transcend the repetitive cycles and instead step into a completely whole new reality. With Kierkegaard’s thought, we are invited to transcend the cycles and start completely anew in a linear manner. At the start of the new year, we can take this leap of faith to start fresh. We can let go of failures and believe that renewal can happen. We need to surrender, accept the paradox of life and just leap. Who knows what can happen if we do?

So you may be already trying to give up on your New Year resolution but take inspiration from these thinkers to work out how to keep them this time. Look to Nietzsche to grapple with the concept of having to relieve your life over and over, and use your will to power to counter this. Use the power of your own will to find a way to remove the obstacles in front of you. Look to Sartre to remember that you can always forge your own purpose and destiny, as you don’t need anyone else for this. And if all else fails, remember Kierkegaard – just take the leap of faith.

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Sources

Jappinen, Ilona, ‘How Many Is ‘der Übermensch’? Autonomy, Self-Dispersion, and the Eternal Recurrence In Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, symplokē, Vol. 2, No. 2, Philosophy and Literature (Summer 1994), pp. 149-158

Howells, Christina. The Cambridge Companion to Sartre, edited by Christina Howells, 1–10. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Kaufmann, Walter, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, Fourth Edition,  Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 309 

Camus, Albert. 2000. The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. Penguin Modern Classics. London, England: Penguin Classics

Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813-1855. Fear and Trembling. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England : New York, N.Y., U.S.A. :Penguin Books ; Viking Penguin, 1985.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, 2013 Cambridge University Press

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Will to Power, 2003, Penguin Books

Sartre, J.-P. (2003). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.; 2nd ed.). Routledge.

Hannay, Alastair, and Gordon Daniel Marino, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. of Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.