In this week's installment we consider the Will to Power and an essential human drive that posits our seeking out suffering as a signal of resistance to our will.  We also consider season 1 episode 5 of Forever Knight, 'Dance by the Pale Moon Light" about a stripper who seduces men to lie, steal, and kill for her.  Can Nick exert his own will to keep from falling into corruption?  How did Janette seduce Nick into becoming vampire 800 years ago?  

Tune in gentle listeners...

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Sources for this episode include:

F. Nietzsche, (1886( Beyond Good and Evil

F. Nietzsche, (1882) The Gay Science 

F. Nietzsche, (1883-5) Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Arthur Schopenhauer, (1819) World as Will and Representation

Bernard Reginster, (2006) The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism 

CW/TW: Mentions and discussion of suicide in this episode. 

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Can Nick come to terms with the death of his former lover, who takes her own life?  How can we live authentically in a world of frustration and anguish?  Where does Janette get her hats from?  

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Notes: no central text, just some general existentialism, including bits and pieces from:  

Sartre, Being and Nothingness (1943)

Camus, various works.  

*Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation (1859)

*Heidegger, Being and Time (1927)

*Yes, I know Schopenhauer and Heidegger were not Existentialists (and even Camus rejected the term).  

I mention that we can describe Existentialism as a philosophy of "No Excuses"  this is also the title of a series of lectures given by the late Dr. Robert Solomon available on The Great Courses.com about Existentialism.  I'm not sponsored by that company, but I do recommend this course, it's a fantastic survey of important Existentialist ideas and readings.  

Episode 3 of Still Dreaming: An Instinct of the Heart.  We watch the next episode of Forever Knight, "For I have Sinned"  

What can Kierkegaard tell us about hope and faith?  Does Nick even want to be human if it's possible?  Where does Natalie stand in the spectrum between faith and science?  Why did the writers of this episode forget that Nick was IN THE CRUSADES?  Why is Schanke such a sexy beast?  Wait, what?

Tune in, gentle listeners...

[The sound quality is better on this one, although I did breath into the mic a couple of times, sorry. ]

Our existential wandering through Forever Knight continues with part two of the 1992 pilot.

Camus writes, "hope is disastrous for humans inasmuch as it leads them to minimize the value of this life except as preparation for a life beyond."  Nick Knight's hope for salvation is precisely what damns him.  His current quest for mortality is deference, a way of not negotiating the present, not accepting his current state.  He pushes his Sisyphean rock up the hill angrily, already hating it for falling down the other side.  

Can Nick overcome his existential dilemma?  Can Schanke figure out anything?  What is going on with LaCroix's haircut?  

Tune in, gentle listeners, as we explore these eternal questions in our Forever Knight.

There's a series of murders in Toronto, and Nick Knight is a detective on the case, but his colleagues don't know that he's actually an 800-year-old vampire.  Nick laments his status an immortal bloodsucker and hopes to someday reclaim his humanity.  But can he, if he continues to be shackled to the past?  Can understanding Nick's plight through the lens of the existentialist idea of the absurd (as written about by Alber Camus) help us unravel both his struggle and our own quest for meaning?  Tune in, dear listener...

References:

Camus Albert, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

_____. Nuptials. (1938)

Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, (1940)

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