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On Tuesday 5 March, make YOLO your official religion in the New Zealand census, safe in the knowledge that you have sound philosophical reasons behind you.

YOLO is much more than just 2012’s most annoying new catchphrase, the bane of A&Es nationwide or the butt of such ruthless deconstruction as the YouTube video “You only YOLO once.” YOLO is a concept with a rich heritage, best exemplified by nineteenth-century German-ish thinker Friedrich Nietzsche.

If he were alive today, Nietzsche would probably be a blogger, a gamer, a heavy metal bassist, or one of those people who shoots up high schools. Back in the day, though, such wholesome diversions didn’t exist, so Nietzsche occupied himself by writing some of the best, weirdest and most twisted philosophy ever dreamt up.

Strictly speaking, Nietzsche doesn’t advocate YOLO, he advocates YOLAINOT: You Only Live An Infinite Number Of Times. His concept of the Eternal Recurrence states that your life, exactly as you lived it, will repeat itself forever. If you were an investment banker with five kids, you’ll be an investment banker with five kids over and over and over for the rest of eternity. If you were Charles Manson, you’ll be Charles Manson over and over until time stops. Nonetheless, this recurrence captures perfectly the spirit of YOLO.

Nietzsche loathed Christians, ascetics, weaklings and other members of the “herd.” If you inhibit your natural instincts, blunt your desires, and direct your energies inward to guilt and self-loathing, this shows you to have the mentality of a slave. Everybody has a “will to power,” and the aim of life is to embrace this will and live life on your own terms. Don’t pin your hopes on reward in the afterlife, because there isn’t one. Don’t buy into the herd’s bullshit, because it’s peddled by charlatans who hate life. The “nobles” who embrace the will to power are humanity’s true protagonists, hauling our species towards its superhuman ideal form, the terrible (and terribly misunderstood) Übermensch.

Nietzsche wasn’t exactly a physicist, and as a theory of the universe the eternal recurrence is demonstrably rubbish. Rather, the eternal recurrence is a test, a kind of self-diagnosis of your outlook on life: if your life were to endlessly repeat, would you feel dread and an overwhelming sense of waste? Or would you be amped about life, embrace the will to power, revel in the time you have, cast off your metaphysical illusions and do it all? Fight, fuck, love, learn, grow; create your own story, your own values, your own life.

Fuck it, man, YOLAINOT.