There’s a scene in season one of HBO’s True Detective in which Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) lights a cigarette and explains how “Time is a flat circle.” The haunting monolog is a reference to Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Eternal Return, which suggests life is more cyclical than linear and everything is a vast loop of itself. The theory holds that if we’ve been there before, we’re certain to be there again. There’s nothing to be done about it.
While I’m not here to discuss television shows or 19th-century philosophy, the vicious cycle has quickly repeated itself for the Oklahoma City Thunder.