Amor Fati: How to Embrace Reality, from Epictetus to Nietzsche

Possibly my favorite concept in the history of philosophy is Amor Fati. It has an almost magical, sacred quality for me. Amor fati is the attitude of radical acceptance and embrace of what is.
This notion appears in Stoicism, the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, and throughout Eastern philosophy. And mastering this mindset is what I believe to be the ultimate key to deep happiness - maybe even enlightenment.
- Access the transcript and art used in the video: designingthemind.org/blog/amor-fati
- The Book of Self-Mastery (free paperback): designingthemind.org/free-paperback
- Become Who You Are: designingthemind.org/become-who-you-are
- Join the community of psychitects: designingthemind.org

[@Fred_IgniteMindShift]

Ryan - Fred Brown here. This is also my favorite concept in philosophy and has giving me a lot of strength as I’ve had different challenges with my health or other things in life. It takes a while to grasp I believe but once this becomes a permanent mindset it’s extremely powerful. Great video.

[@DesigningtheMind]

Hello my friend! I totally agree - it has carried me through some tough times, and I think I’ve internalized it pretty deeply now. It’s hard to have a bad day when you’ve got this principle in your toolkit.

[@cromtuiseagain]

It is what it is (positive)

[@mattchristopherson9925]

I love this concept of director/protagonist of the life that we live. The greatest thinkers seem to come to this same mindset, even Shakespeare, wrote "nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." It takes practice, it's so easy to fall into a victim, "why me?" mindset, one where we are constantly wishing that things had turned out differently. There is true power in accepting life as it unfolds....though even me using the word "accepting" here betrays my bias, the term is amor fati, "Love fate ", not merely to accept it. Thanks for sharing, I am really looking forward to reading your new book and greatly appreciate the content you create. Cheers.

[@DesigningtheMind]

I think there’s a lot of power in approaching your life like an artist - if you get good at finding the beauty in situations, pain no longer compounds into suffering.

[@artsmatter2]

I've often wondered if Nietzsche would have felt differently about amor fati if he would have known that he would spend the last 10 years of his life mentally deranged. Such a sorry fate for a brilliant mind. How is it possible to love this?

[@DesigningtheMind]

Though it's always hard to know for sure how Nietzsche would feel about something, I would feel pretty confident the answer would be yes (if he somehow became lucid again and reflected back on his period of madness). It was his lifelong sickness and suffering that led him to develop this concept in the first place. He said "The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has produced all the elevations of humanity so far?" and often credited his struggles for his brilliance.

[@artsmatter2]

Why do is sense the influence of Christianity in that quote? @@DesigningtheMind

[@DesigningtheMind]

Hard to say if it's because of Nietzsche's exposure to Christianity or because both schools of thought picked up on some important insights that modern culture may have forgotten. @@artsmatter2

[@artsmatter2]

@@DesigningtheMind I am going to suggest that the suffering referred to in the above quote is the suffering that comes from the resistance to the will to power. The kind of suffering that is overcome by the will through struggle. It is not the suffering of the slave, who is unable to exert their will and so embraces suffering as a virtue.

[@adrianlee8876]

Anarko🏴‍☠️