“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Where I live, this month is trending as unseasonably cool and wet. Great for ducks, I suppose. The rest of us could use some warm, sunny days. But so it goes.
That phrase, “So it goes”, is rather sticky. It’s a Kurt Vonnegut nugget that stays with you if you’ve ever read Slaughterhouse-Five because it’s repeated so often throughout the book that it hammers home in the memory bank. I’ve read it at three distinct phases of my life just to see what changes as I’ve changed. From the abundant horror of Dresden comes a fatalism born of experiencing it. One may ask, why? Just don’t expect an answer.
“Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?” “Yes.” Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it. “Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
To write a book that someone would be inclined to read a few times over, instead of simply reaching for the next book on the pile? That’s notable. To write a book well enough that people are drawing quotes from it generations after it was written? That’s timeless. Surely something to aspire to in our own writing.
But I digress. So it goes, in the context of the book, is a fatalistic acceptance of death. That’s not exactly how I used it in the opening paragraph of this scattered blog post, but it applies in one key way: Amor fati (love of fate). Or if you prefer a playful tune with a somber message, Que Sera, Sera (whatever will be, will be, with a nod to Doris Day). Whatever method we choose to understand the message, we ought to learn to embrace it in our own lives. Sure, we have agency, but within the context of everything out of our control that life throws at us.
We will all have our rainy days. If we are blessed, we will also have our share of sunny days full of warmth and comfort. We must build a life that mitigates the impact of our worst days while maximizing the potential derived from our best. Whatever will be, will be, but we may apply leverage as appropriate. There’s just no telling which plot line in our story leads to greatness.
So Nietzsche, Vonnegut and Doris Day all met in a blog post… proving once again that anything is possible if we just let our creative selves run free now and then. We ought to have more agency in our lives, even as we accept that some things are out of our control. So long as we don’t sell ourselves short on what we can in fact control. Some paths are dead ends, some lead to the highest summit. And so it goes.
