Eternal Recurrence

I have this theory that every person has a sort of essential act they’re doomed to repeat until they die. A single deed that serves as a metaphor for everything they are. Like Sisyphus eternally pushing a boulder up a hill but, in my version, that act holds some intrinsic part of Sisyphus himself. Even if he could extricate himself from the myth, if he left the boulder at the bottom of the hill and just kept walking until he couldn’t see it anymore, the truest part of him would still be pushing a boulder up a hill in everything he did. He could travel thousands of miles from that first hill. He could find a wife and a new job and have children, and each would simply be a new boulder to be pushed up a new hill. He would always find himself back at the bottom of it, because his inability to make real progress would follow him anywhere he went.

For my mother, it was throwing away her cigarette stash in her latest attempt at quitting. Each time, she’d be manically happy for the first week, talking about how her appetite was back and her chronic cough was finally subsiding. But soon enough her hands would start shaking again, and before I knew it I’d find her huddled over a lighter on the front porch when I left for school in the morning. She’d be defeated for a few days, then she’d start the whole process over like it was the first time.

My whole childhood, I watched her quit smoking in everything she did. Every new boyfriend was finally the one who would treat her right, every new town she dragged me to was the one we’d find a real home in, over and over again. Her faith in the power of a fresh start was unflagging. It defined her. She died telling me how excited she was to move to a nicer hospital room the next day, that she’d really be able to get better there.

For me, when I was little, I would play with power cords while telling myself “no” out loud. I knew what I was doing was dangerous and wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Thankfully, I grew out of the actual habit, but that characteristic combination of self-awareness and self-destruction in equal parts never left me. In my petty theft phase in high school, in my hard-partying phase in college, in every decision I made, I was still that same toddler clutching wires in her hands, feeling “no” so viscerally but unable to act on anything but “yes.” To this day, it’s what I most associate with myself.

So I (unconsciously, at least) already knew what I’d do, as I surreptitiously tried to unstick my legs from the leather chair in my office on that sweltering June afternoon. 

The boy sitting across from me brushed an over-long blonde curl out of his face. “I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me, Professor Taylor. I was so excited when I saw your posting for this summer.”

“Call me Kate,” I said reflexively as I paged through the folder of cover letters on my desk. “And you’re…Joey Barden? Just finished your sophomore year?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

I looked up from the papers, meeting his eager blue eyes. There was something that almost broke my heart about him, still going by Joey at twenty years old, with a haphazard smattering of freckles across his nose and unruly blonde hair sticking up at every angle. He was one of those men (was he a man yet?) who was very easy to imagine as a little boy. He kicked his feet under my desk, like he was so excited to be interviewing for an underpaid research assistant position that he could hardly contain himself.

“So, Joey, what drew you to my research?” I asked because it felt like the natural next question.

“Well, I’m a huge Nietzsche fan, so obviously your work is right up my alley. Your last paper on self-realization honestly blew my mind.”

“That’s…nice to hear, thank you. And it’s funny you say that—I’m actually expanding on some past work I did on Nietzsche this summer. That’s what I would need your help with. Or, whoever I hire, I mean.”

Probably best not to let the interviewee know he’s the only person who even responded to the job posting. 

“That’s so awesome, Professor. I’d love to help with that.”

“Kate,” I reminded him.

“Right, Kate, sorry. I’d work for free, if that makes any difference. That’s how much I want to work with you. You know, I read that paper you co-wrote with Todd Greyson way back, the famous one? It was assigned in this random freshman seminar, but it changed my life. It’s really why I went for the philosophy major in the first place.”

I kept my face carefully neutral. “Yes, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on that over the years. Anyways—”

“I—sorry. Can I just ask, what was it like to work with Todd Greyson? I have all his books. I actually met him at a book signing on campus last year and we had this trippy conversation about solipsism…probably the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me. Was it amazing?”

“It was…” I cleared my throat. “Well, I was just his grad student, you know. We weren’t exactly colleagues.”

“No, right, but was he brilliant?”

I suddenly wished I had someone, anyone else to interview for this job. Unless I could get this book going without an assistant? The thought of doing my own citations made me physically recoil, and I formed my face into what I hoped was a smile.

“Definitely brilliant. So, anyways, I’m starting a book about eternal recurrence this summer. I take it you’re familiar with the concept, if you know Nietzsche so well.”

“Yeah, I think so. Hey, that’s what your paper with Todd Greyson was about, right?”

I almost rolled my eyes at the way he kept calling him by his full name, as if he was some kind of rockstar. Although Todd probably was the closest thing the philosophy world had to a rockstar, and not just in terms of name recognition. The leather jackets, the tattoos, the endless roster of co-eds he paraded around (and they seemed to get younger every time I saw him)...all of it would make a frat boy treat a middle-aged academic like Mick Jagger. 

“No,” I said a little too loudly, making Joey raise his eyebrows.

I took a breath and started again. “That is what the paper was about, you’re right. But Todd’s very literal reading of it isn’t workable in the real world, is it? This idea that time literally repeats on a loop…that you and I will find ourselves having exactly this conversation, over and over again, until the end of time…it’s just not very practical. And Todd presupposed reincarnation, which got him into all kinds of messes conceptually. I want to take the essence of this idea of time being kind of a circle and turn it into something that’s more than just a hypothetical concept. A workable model.”

“Wow, that sounds really cool. How much have you written so far?”

“Oh, nothing yet. It’s just ideas rattling around in my head right now. But let me ask you: haven’t you found yourself back at the same junctures over and over again throughout your life? Constantly meeting the same people, making the same mistakes?”

Joey thought for a moment, leaning back in his chair. “Sure, maybe. I guess so.”

“Well, I think there’s a reason for that. And it’s not that time is literally repeating itself because that’s what the universe dictates, or whatever. No, it’s just basic human nature. We’re programmed to repeat certain actions over and over again, even actions that hurt us. You could get into the whole nature vs. nurture, ‘can people change’ nonsense, but people are really the same for their whole lives. At least where it matters. And if you combine that with the fact that, for centuries, we’ve existed within the same power structures and hierarchies…you have a perfect recipe for the same events repeating themselves throughout history, seemingly infinitely. Does that make any sense at all?”

He nodded several times. “That’s really interesting. Honestly, I loved your paper with Todd Greyson, but this is such a cool way of reconceptualizing things. Kind of a smaller-scale way of looking at it. It might take me a bit to get my head around it, but, yeah, I totally see what you’re getting at. And, again, I’d love to help out in any way I can.”

I knew I was supposed to ask about references and research experience, even if just to preserve the formality of the interview, but I saw no use in wasting either of our time.

“Ok, great. The job’s yours if you want it. I’ll warn you the pay’s not great, but I promise the work won’t be too bad.”

He grinned. “ I definitely want it! Thanks so much for the opportunity, Kate, you won’t regret it.”

“Sure. Can you get here at 9 tomorrow? I want to hit the ground running with this.”

“Absolutely! I’ll see you in the morning then?” He pulled his backpack off the ground and started to stand up.

“See you then.”

But, as he walked towards my door, I saw the rest of my day play before my eyes. As the harsh afternoon sunlight turned to the softer glow of evening, I’d sit here staring at my monitor until I realized I hadn’t eaten in ten hours. I’d pretend to be working, but I’d really be taking a fine-toothed comb back through all of it…that stupid paper, the long-dormant email threads, the twice-yearly “just checking in” texts. I had it down to a routine. I never quite knew what I was searching for, or if I thought I’d gain some new perspective on all of it, but it hadn’t stopped me from trying yet.

Joey touched his hand to the doorknob.

“Wait,” I said.

He turned around, still smiling.

“You could stay. If you’re not busy.”

“Oh, I…yeah. Yeah, I can totally stay.” He sat back down in the same chair.

“So, Joey,” I improvised, “I feel like we’ve talked so much about me. You’re halfway through college now—what do you think so far?”

With an admirable lack of hesitation, he launched into a winding monologue about “finding himself” and the “support system” he’d found in his fraternity. I caught maybe half of it, too busy focusing on how his lips moved. He had unusually full lips for a man, and I resisted the urge to reach out and touch them as he spoke.

I realized he’d stopped talking some time ago. “That sounds…well, that’s just great. Sounds like you made the transition well.”

As the afternoon wore on, I thought up more questions that could conceivably be part of a job interview, and he gave highly detailed answers that I hardly listened to. My eyes darted from his lips, to his tousled blonde hair. I wondered if his hair was soft or if he used those gels that made it feel crunchy and greasy. I hoped he didn’t. His arms strained against his pink striped polo shirt (a strange choice for a job interview)--had he mentioned being an athlete?

At some point (and I'd like to think it was organic, but it was hard to imagine how it could have been) the bottle of gin I kept hidden away in my desk drawer came out. Joey said it was very Mad Men that I kept gin in my desk, and I said I couldn't believe young people were still watching Mad Men. That started a whole conversation about TV, which turned into a conversation about movies, and then books, and then we landed on the couch on the other side of my office, taking the gin with us.

And then (and somehow this was organic, in spite of all the ways it shouldn't have been) those lips I'd been staring at all afternoon were on mine. I couldn't say who had initiated, but I could confirm that his curly hair was soft, like I'd hoped it was. Now sprawled out on the floor, I was halfway through unbuttoning my shirt when he lifted his head from mine and leaned back against the bottom of the couch.

"Sorry," he said, "This is...so great. But can I ask you something kind of weird? You don't have to answer if you don't want."

"Go for it."

"I feel like I can ask you now that we've--I mean, now that things aren't so formal. I heard a rumor once, that you and Todd Greyson were together when you were his grad student. I guess I'm just curious if it’s true?"

I laughed a little too loud. "God, people are still talking about that? You'd think something more interesting might have happened in ten years."

He kept looking at me expectantly.

"It's not really anyone's business, but...yes, more or less true." I saw his expression turn concerned. "No, don't blame him too much. The rules were different back then. Powerful men were taught to take advantage, and they only did what they saw demonstrated for them. There's a similar story for every senior professor on every faculty in the country. It wasn't like it is now."

This didn't seem to reassure him.

I continued, "And it wasn't like he forced me. Quite the opposite, actually. I was just so dazzled by him. I would have agreed to do anything that got me closer to him and all his brilliance. You know?"

We sat in silence for a moment, our arms still linked.

Finally, he said, "Yeah, that makes sense. And, hey, thanks for sharing that with me. Your honesty is really refreshing--you're so much more mature than girls my age. In a good way, obviously."

"Right," I whispered, "In a good way."

He put his body back over mine as I watched the tangled power cords under my desk.