There’s a cute little coffee shop in Asheville, NC. It’s situated on a fast-moving, five-lane road just outside the city. To help customers know the shop’s schedule without having to pull off the busy road, they keep four big, wooden letters hanging on the building. When they are open for business, the letters spell “O P E N.” When they are closed, the same letters spell “N O P E.”
Open or Nope. That is always the choice in every moment. And that is amor fati, Latin for love your fate.
I’ve contemplated the concept of amor fati for a long while now, ever since I read Friedrich Nietzsche’s thoughts on it in Ecco Homo. He wrote, "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."
I have come to love my fate, at least in theory. In practice, I must practice. I’m grateful for the years of misery that were born out of confusion. I’m grateful for all the custom-made crises I’ve created, which all resemble each other in theme and emotion. They have been perfectly suited to show me what I need to see. What I need to see is how fear enslaves me in Nope. I have been amazed at how I can sleep-walk in misery for days before I even realize I am sleep-walking in misery for days. And I’m grateful that eventually, I see.
To open, you must examine everything that closes. And everything that closes is fear. If you sense any constriction, resistance, regret or worry in your body, emotions, or thoughts, be aware. Be aware and either choose to let it go and open or choose to hold it tight. But don’t choose to ignore it, if possible. Study yourself.
Here’s a story to illustrate the point. I had finished an extensive and satisfying writing project and was wallowing in that uncomfortable gap of directionless panic over what to write next. This day, I found myself worrying that I have nothing left to say and would never write again. The delusions of the artiste!
I planned to sit down and write about amor fati, because I had been stuck on the concept. All roads kept leading me back to this article, which had haunted me for months. Amor Fati. Love your fate. Be a “yes-sayer.” It means everything, but the expression of what it means eluded me. I kept adding more words and notes, and my efforts got messier with each attempt. I have walked for miles in quiet contemplation, repeating the words over and over: Amor Fati. But still, nada.
Then I was distracted by a phone call from Emmy, a dear friend who wanted to take a long walk. It was perfect, we hadn’t talked in a long while and it was a beautiful morning, so I said yes. I mean, I wasn’t getting anywhere on the article or my thoughts anyway. I abandoned my writing eagerly.
We were shooting the bull about a bunch of things, including our creative challenges, and having our usual laughs. Emmy started to complain about some neighbors who arrive every summer. She can’t stand them. They are back and annoying her, creating a cloud over her experience. She told me these neighbors walk the neighborhood wearing mosquito netting over their heads, so that made us laugh. Ridiculous to picture, and hysterical that it annoys her so much.
She continued to tell me about how they are of opposite political views than she, and how they are insulting and ignorant and she can’t stand seeing them or even knowing they are there. One day some neighbors went out to lunch. Emmy wanted to leave a nice tip, so she started pulling out extra one-dollar bills to put down. The despised woman made a crack about whether my friend was pulling out her “Jewish bank-roll”. Awful woman added, “Or is that your stripper earnings?” Between those ignorant comments and general history, Emmy became furious. After a while of her venting and me validating, she sarcastically asked, “Don’t you have any advice, O sage one?” Since she asked….
I told her the same thing I always tell her. I told her the same thing I always tell myself.
This situation with the neighbor is an opportunity to open. “What the hell does that mean?” she asked. I explained, “When you are in reactive mode, you have no control over yourself. Negative responses are activated, without your consent or awareness. And you become a helpless captive to your own negativity. You are now unhappy in your own home neighborhood, because of the existence of these people.”
“In order to open, you must examine what closes—not with judgement or resistance, but with the clinical eye of a scientist. By choosing to examine, you exert control over the situation. You can dive in and explore the fear or negativity involved in the reaction,” I shared.
“Or hatred,” she inserted, laughing.
“Yes, fear and hatred are the same thing, or close enough.”
I told her that these people are just storm clouds passing through her life. I asked her if she hates storm clouds. After a moment’s thought, she responded, “Yes. Yes, I do.” And then some more uproarious laughter. I proposed that she might shift her perspective to one of gratitude to these neighbors, for giving her the opportunity to examine her closed, reactive, and subjugated response. The storm clouds and the sunshine are all a required part of life. Ups and downs, challenges and ease, it’s all life.
She wasn’t having any of it, at least not quite yet. She claims she wants to write counter-point pieces to all my philosophizing, and she’s already keeping a list of arguments! She cracks me up.
Okay, so the point of this story is that this conversation increased my own understanding of amor fati. In saying yes to a walk with her, in contemplating her every-day-on-planet-earth kind of challenge, I returned home and sat down to write for the first time in 9 days.
Amor Fati is not a remote and abstract ideology. It is an active and compelling approach to each moment of life on planet earth. Each moment offers choices and options for yes-saying.
And if all you have is Nope, there lies opportunity. Allow it to be because it is. But face it.
There are times when wise guidance tells you No, and that must be acknowledged and honored. But if it is fear that shapes the No, then pay attention. I recently turned down a yoga teaching gig, because of facts, not fear, and I feel great about it. Being a yes-sayer means saying yes to life, not to every request that comes your way. Removing fear from the equation allows you to assume control over your life, and make decisions that serve your best interests.
Open is fearless, compassionate, generous, abundant, authentic, and powerful. Nope is scared, mean, greedy, needy, fake, and weak.
Open is the condition necessary to receive the blessings you give yourself. Every moment is an opportunity if you are only aware in it.
When I was a teen, I would wander the streets crying in pain. And yet I knew then with utter certainty that life’s suffering would ultimately benefit me. I didn’t know what that meant, but somehow I knew it. It took decades of internal attention and self-study to actualize the Wisdom of a young old soul.
Amor Fati. Love your fate. Your fate makes sense because you make sense. Your fate can only lead to one perfect moment: this one.
In The Gay Science, Nietzsche described his New Year’s resolution, “…I want 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: 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."
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