Amor fati: a beautiful reconciliation with our nature

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Why want the ugly? What would happen if we came to love what we hate? Today we want to talk about a reconciliation or the magical thread that unites the thought of the Stoics with the nihilism of Nietzsche.

Destiny is one of the flames that moves the most in the romantic context. The idea that everything is written fits very well with the ideal of the better half, of finding that person who, supposedly, fits perfectly with our ways. A soul that does not suffer from our edges, because in it we find enough space so that they are not a danger to the bond. Likewise, amor fati alludes to destiny and has its origins in the Stoic school.

So, The journey that amor fati proposes to us begins approximately 300 BC, when Zenon of Citium founded the Stoic school.. In its fundamental lines we can identify a vital perspective very opposite to the modern Western one.

If at that time it represented an authentic revolution against artificiality and material pseudo-needs based on ambition, today the Stoics would throw their hands up at the number of objects that do not allow us to see the sun or the importance of the image, of the façade, when in many cases the internal state is desolate. Efforts that we channel outwards, instead of inwards.

Within the Greek conception of nature, the Stoics are within the so-called cosmological determinism. For them, Regardless of whether or not we know the causes of a certain event or event, it could not have occurred any other way.. Thus, the past or past state would determine or fix the future or future state. From this law, nothing and no one could escape. So where would our freedom be? We will respond to this later.

A large part of that peace that some religious people seem to transmit emanates from amor fati. Loving the future in some way implies the love of life, its folds and contradictions.

Face to face in front of our nature

In the words of Nietzsche, this love appears defined with more meaning: “mhe formula to express greatness in man is reduced to the desire that nothing be different from what is or has been; neither in the past, nor in the future nor in eternity. I am not only talking about enduring what is necessary, but also about not hiding it or even loving it more than enough.“.

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A love that is a vaccine against splitting or dissociation. A defense for the acceptance of our own condition and not just a starting point. This is not the place where a path that would end in a state called happiness would begin; rather it is the place where we could be happy.

Thus, with this love he tells us what positive psychology has become so fashionable since. Today we know how good Part of the dissatisfaction we feel comes from internal battles against monsters that we cannot win, because they do not bleed directly.. We cut off one head and another appears. Our battle is definitely not against anger, sadness, envy or anxiety, because in well-being there are times for anger, sadness or anxiety. In our future, written or unwritten, they will be.

Amor fati invites us to renounce the language of struggle. Change it to an acceptance speech, in which the most bellicose verbs are banished from the speech. It would not be about fighting or opposing events, but rather about finding the best way to adapt. Neither circumstances nor emotions would be our enemies; The fact that they are dynamic does not give them a soul or a will. The world would not be against us… and neither would destiny.

Is there anything more pernicious or stupid than taking blame for actions, processes and results that do not depend on us? Is there anything less intelligent than making catastrophic future predictions knowing that our actions in many cases align so that these predictions end up coming true?

So where is our freedom?

There is a phrase in popular language that says that when we date we do not go blind.. A girl or a boy, being in love and loving another person, may seem handsome to us. Assuming this has a lot to do with amor fati. Because? Because, following the thread of deterministic cosmology, this would be beyond our control. We would be wrong to try to deny or dissociate that attraction that the other can generate in us, despite having a partner.

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However, we could control that passion. Yes, we could control the impulse and assess what we really want: to approach the person who has caught our attention or to pass by.. Determinism can be fulfilled at a macroscopic level, we have a nature (some passions, some inclinations and also destiny would put us in front of certain events), but we also have a will.

Following Zeno himself, we are bound/determined to be free. Hence, amor fati is, to a large extent, a choice, above external conditions – for example, what others do – or external conditions – our own tendencies or predispositions.

So, the consequence of amor fati – the love of becoming, as far as becoming is; the love of nature, as nature is- is not resignation, but adaptation. An adaptation that we would achieve by using our intelligence to elevate the decision above the conditions and passions – instincts, internal inclinations -.

The fact that our freedom is conditioned or limited would not make it less valuable. In this sense, appreciating events over which we will have no control would reconcile us with our own nature, because that is preciously – or at least in part – our own nature.

For Nietzsche, man became superman through repetition. Repetition enabled compression. Once this understanding was reached, love for nature, for the future, for the laws that govern what we do not control, was inevitable.