Lethe aletheia

29 Apr, 2022

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“MYTH
BADMINTON. "One who has perfected himself in the twin arts of remembering and forgetting is in a position to play at battledore and shuttlecock with the whole of existence," says Soren Kierkegaard.”
1. Life framed as a game of badminton becomes simultaneously this serious thing and this trivial thing. The first evokes Nietzsche’s notion of eternal return, that we should live our lives as if we would have to repeat each and every day for eternity. But the best way to fulfill eternal return is precisely to treat it as a trivial thing, recognizing our cosmic insignificance, and thereby discarding (forgetting) the daily nuisances and details and minutiae and aim for self-transcendent, grander things.
2. Forgetting and remembering are critical skills to master - forgetting the details (and past wrongs, grievances, regrets, failures, etc) allows us to move on from inevitable tragedies, and allows us to see the global structure (seeing the forest instead of the trees). Remembering means to uncover (unhide) the truths we already hold within ourselves, if only we were wise enough and courageous enough to listen to our gut (soul, unconscious, mind-body, etc)

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