Amor fati, the love of fate
To be buried in coulds, shoulds and woulds is all too easy, but you already know that. As humans, we excel at worry and doubt, especially that of ourselves and the lives we live.
When I was a teen, I visited Grinnell College in Iowa, a place of great thought. At that time, I was dead set on studying philosophy when I went to university. (I have not become much more practical.) By the school’s grace, I sat in on phil class. The thinker at hand was the man you see above. I remember the young professor, glasses crooked and hair untidy, prodding a discussion that stuck with me. He spoke of narrative. Every choice we make becomes part of our life-narrative, our story.
One could agonize over these choices, what makes the best narrative, what should have been then or now. But Nietzsche has more to say: we must love everything that happens to us, and what we happen to. All is for the best. You are a process — and you’re getting better.
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.
Here’s to Yes.
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