Nietzsche: amor fati!It’sNietzsche time!FriedrichNietzsche (pictured) didn’t have many love affairs
Nietzsche: amor fati!It’sNietzsche time!FriedrichNietzsche (pictured) didn’t have many love affairs in his life but he did have at least one: ‘amor fati’ (‘love of fate’).‘Myformula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wantsnothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity … Iwant to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things;then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. Amor fati: letthat be my love henceforth!’ (Ecce Homo and The Gay Science)Jokesaside, there is some great philosophy in amor fati. Nietzsche looked to itas a means to achieve self-unity—a rare achievement amongst humans. How doesone reach it?‘Glance into the world just as thoughtime were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.’ (KritischeStudienausgabe)Wemust covet eternal recurrence to overcome ‘ressentiment’. This is astate in which one assigns blame for their weaknesses on external causes andfeels envy and inferiority with respect to others. But one can free themselves fromthis torture by accepting fate’s unity: be willing to live the same life througheternity.Soembrace your drives, Nietzsche implores; sublimate and harness them in aconcerted way. A weak will lacks order; a strong will is coordinative.‘The multitude and disgregation ofimpulses and the lack of any systematic order among them results in a ‘weakwill’; their coordination under a single predominant impulse results in a'strong’ will: in the first case it is the oscillation and lack of gravity; inthe latter, the precision and clarity of direct.’ (Kritische Studienausgabe) Ressentiment stiflesus; we become weak. Conversely, to love fate—to fully wish life backeternally—is to affirm one’s life: to overcome, with valour, the struggle ressentimentbring. What if a demon were to creep after youone night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, “This life which you livemust be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain andjoy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. Theeternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of thedust!” Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon?Or would you answer, “Never have I heard anything more divine”?’ (The Gay Science) -- source link
#philosophy#nietzsche#amor fati#eternity#psychology#ressentiment#existentialism#nihilism#philosophy memes#philosophyblr#philoblr