This post will attempt to resolve a problem that arises for me when I think about Nietzsche’s statement that “joy desires eternity”: how can desire be eternal without being insatiable? In other words, are temporal limits necessary for avoiding a restless life in which one is never able to enjoy the current moment, being pulled out of it by a future that is always pulling away? I eschew the answers of Heidegger and Nietzsche for the reasons I articulated earlier, but I still need to articulate how joy can desire eternity with proper fidelity to both the already and not yet of eschatology. In this project I find something promising in the mystical writings of Gregory of Nyssa, whose work I will take in…

+Read more