In /Ecce/ /Homo/, Nietzsche wrote, “[my] formula for greatness in a human being is
/amor fati/: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in
the past, not in all eternity.
Not merely to endure that which happens of necessity, still less to dissemble it — all
idealism is untruthfulness in the face of necessity — but to /love/ it.”
So according to Nietzsche, the way you become great is by loving your fate.
And what does it mean to become great?
For Nietzsche, I think greatness means becoming nothing other than what you are.
Greatness is the fulfilment of your destiny.
It’s growing into your highest potential.
It’s the acorn becoming the oak tree.
See, the acorn contains the potential to become the mighty oak tree within it, but unless
it learns to overcome itself, it will not achieve that greatness.
And Nietzsche says the way to this greatness is /amor fati/.
But what’s the meaning of /amor fati/?
In English, it translates to “love of fate”, and there are two key words we have to understand:
love and fate.
Let’s start by analyzing the word fate.
What does it mean?
Fate is the necessary effect that follows from every cause.
It’s the outcome of every action.
It’s the way things must be.
It’s the reason why things are the way they are.
Now let’s move on to the second term: love.
What does it mean to love?
Love begins with acceptance.
When you accept something as it is, you can give it your total attention.
And when you give something your total attention, you see it as it is, not through the distorting
lens of what you think it should be.
And when you see something as it is, you understand it.
And when you understand something, you can help it remain as it is, or better yet, to
become fully what it is, which is to help it achieve its /own/ greatness.
So now let’s combine both of the terms.
What does it mean to love your fate?
It means accepting everything that happens to you as necessary.
And when you accept everything that happens to you as necessary, you can begin to learn
why, or how, it was necessary.
You can learn how the actions you did, or didn’t, take led to that outcome.
You can learn what causes led to that effect.
And when you learn the relationships between causes and their effects, you can allow or
prevent those effects from happening again.
And you might be wondering: how do I love my fate?
How do I learn to accept everything that happens as necessary?
But that’s the wrong question.
The question isn’t /how/ do you love your fate, but /why/ you don’t already.
And the reason you don’t love your fate is because you don’t accept it.
“My life shouldn’t be as it is,” you say, and you have an image—an ideal—in
your mind of how it should be.
And you measure your life against this ideal, and so you look at your past with regret,
shame, guilt, anger, and sorrow.
You look towards the future with fear.
You measure others against this ideal too, and the closer they are to it, the more you
look at them with envy and resentment.
You believe that the world is fundamentally flawed and shouldn’t be as it is.
It should be constructed in a way that suits you better.
Maybe you believe you should be stronger, richer, more beautiful, or happier than you
are.
Maybe you believe you should have more than you currently have and others should have
less than they do now.
And so you mistrust Fate: the one who gives you what you have rather than what you believe
you deserve—the one who gives you suffering.
And what happens when you mistrust Fate?
You stop seeing the necessity of things.
And when you stop seeing the necessity of things, you stop learning the relationship
between causes and their effects.
And when you stop seeing the relationship between causes and their effects, you become
delusional.
Your rejection of Fate is also a rejection of Truth, and so when you reject Fate, you
yourself become false.
You become something you aren’t, and so you lose your greatness.
That concludes my exploration of Nietzsche’s teaching in /Ecce Homo/.
As always, this is just my opinion and understanding of Nietzsche’s teaching, not advice.
Feel free to use this information however you like, and if you have a different take
on the his words, I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments.
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And if you’re looking for another video to watch after this one, I recommend watching
my video “Nietzsche - Don’t Let Your Darkness Consume You”.
I’ll put a link to it in the description below and in the top right
of the screen right now.