A short experimental montage dedicated to exploring the idea of "eternal recurrence" (ewige Wiederkunft) and the affirmation of life put forth most notably by 19th century thinker Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Such an experimental philosophy as I live anticipates experimentally even the possibilities of the most fundamental nihilism; but this does not mean that it must halt at a negation, a No, a will to negation. It wants rather to cross over to the opposite of this -- to a Dionysian affirmation of the world as it is, without subtraction, exception, or selection -- it wants the eternal circulation: --the same things, the same logic and illogic of entanglements. The highest state a philosopher can attain: to stand in a Dionysian relationship to existence -- my formula for this is amor fati (love of fate)." The Will to Power - § 1041

A frightening and terrifying burden for anyone navigating the seas of fate but for Nietzsche a total and complete avouchment for life. A willingness to participate in perpetual return, to accept life's horrors and joys in turn without shrinking and without succumbing to the escapist tendencies of idealism, and to assert one's total passion of his or her fate marks, for Nietzsche, the strength of the individual. And if one can swallow the understanding then that knowledge as a "thing in itself" is illusory, herein lies the tool to overcoming even individuality and thus a step towards a revaluation of all values, and in turn cultivation of new ones.

"an urge to unity, a reaching out beyond personality, the everyday, society, reality, across the abyss of transitoriness: a passionate-painful overflowing into darker, fuller, more floating states; an ecstatic affirmation of the total character of life as that which remains the same, just as powerful, just as blissful, through all change; the great pantheistic sharing of joy and sorrow that sanctifies and calls good even the most terrible and questionable qualities of life; the eternal will to procreation, to fruitfulness, to recurrence; the feeling of the necessary unity of creation and destruction."
The Will to Power - § 1050 (translation Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale)

The footage in this film was shot using a Panasonic SDR-H258 (SDR-H200) digital camcorder and edited using Adobe Premiere Elements 4. This project was created over a period of two months in early 2008 with scenes captured in East China and the Republic of Korea. "Haibin Lu" means "Seaside Drive" in Chinese.

Special thanks to Muph, Missing Link, Amperror, and Seafran for both the music and the inspiration for the soundtrack. LISTEN TO IT LOUD!