Animals dream and probably day-dream but most of the time, assuming they haven't been made neurotic by contact with humans, they are awake, the world appears before them and becomes the center stage of their lives. Humans live in an opposite manner. The center stage is their social fantasies while they flittingly and mechanically check in and act upon the world around them. By "social fantasies" I mean almost the whole of their thinking activity, mental conversation and imaginings. It's a low-level entertaining world. "Will my boss like my work?" "Will I get the girl?" "Does my hair look beautiful?" As Fritz Perls pointed out, it's mostly rehearsing and includes a wide variety of self-torture games. Perls invited us to live in the "here and now". Similarly Ancient Eastern wisdom is full of hopes and techniques for quieting the mind, for enlightenment, satori and awakening. But we are all still plagued by man's 40,000 year old project of avoiding personal death through the participation in social dreams, projects, plans, legends, good and evils.
A belief in Eternal Recurrence implies giving up social fantasies as the vital part of your life. You still deal with the social fantasy-world, playing social games to get enough food, but it's not important or exciting but silly and laughable. Awareness of the world around you is the one you prefer, the one that makes you alive.
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