The ego is caught in a petty, material, non-mystical world, which seems similar to some kind of gray hell. Nietzsche talked about the Dionysian and the Apollonian influences on the Greek theater. The Dionysian was the wild dark depths, which in Christianity has become an evil, terrible place, called hell and governed by the fallen angel Lucifer. The great heights were connected with Apollo, which in Christianity had become a small, remote and petty God. Humankind stands there like some jolly ass, waiting for something and striving to understand a meaningless world.
Nothing really happens, and everything just repeats itself in a non-sensical manner.
In a way we have returned to the eternal cycle. But since there is no understanding or feeling of the spiritual, this is a hell, eternally repeating itself. And again, the only way out is death and oblivion. I see that psychological evolution has distilled the human I, from the bowels of time and unconsciousness. This ego seems not to know how to handle it.