Understanding Nietzsche's "amor fati"

IMO, it more closely is defined as 'love of one's fate', whether good or bad.
It is as it is?
What will be, will be?
I could be missing it. Nietzsche was a mental conundrum to me.

I'd like to suggest that 'amor fati', could be crudely described as a psychological technique aimed at reducing stress, minimising self-consciousness and relieving neurotic symptoms generally. Within the code of Alcoholics Anonymous I believe that advice is given to 'hand over your problems to Jesus.' Is this not a similar tactic?

Nietzsche's 'amor-fati' is an attitude to life. While it is similar to "everything happens for a reason", Nietzsche would say that even if there is no reason, the lover of fate would love it anyway. Because sometime's in life things do happen for no reason at all. But if it's a part of life then the lover of fate would love it.

It's Nietzsche's way of saying that life is innocent. It is devoid of any responsibility to the individual. There's no one to blame for things such as an earthquake. Because that's just life. It's an incredibly difficult concept, because amor fati means that we should love even that which we would want to change. It really means not wishing anything we different. A complete acceptance of life.

Hope this helps.

I agree with Victoria!
amor fati is expressed as that fate is a necessity we have to accept it, so we might as well love it. Accept and love life as it happens to you, it's fate.

Django, I doubt that Nietsche would have given any advice as to hand over your problems to Jesus. Nietsche was an atheist . Even though his father was a Lutheran minister and he was raised religious, once he learned through his philosophical studies and reading Schoppenhauer, he became an avid atheist.

Calamity Jane, You are absolutely right to say that Nietzsche would hardly advise anyone to literally 'hand their problems to Jesus' but that is not what I was suggesting. My point was that advocating 'amor fati' could be a psychological tactic to 'get in line' with events rather than be in conflict with them (not far from the idea of the Tao).
I think this accounts for some of the success of A.A. techniques.
I understand the Jesus figure to be a totem or a placebo working in the way an icon gets effect; feed the icon with your attentions/adoration/energy and it will appear to be proactive.

Interesting, Django!
I am not familiar with the AA techniques, but your suggestion of seeing Jesus as a totem/placebo to play by the rules (according to the bible), kind of backfired in today's society.
The most religious are also the most controverse and anti-Christian so to speak.

I just know some bad quotes by Nietsche.
You have to beat your wife 3 times a day, even you don't yourself why.

Because she already knows why.


Or another one.When you ever go to a woman , don"t forget the lash!

You're making that up. Show a source for those "quotes."

I think he or she is talking about Joe Nietsche, the guy who works in the deli.

I know , I should have wrote - quotations-,sorry! It must be difficult to read my bunch of junk.
Firstly I use a mobile with a small screen. I can't see mistakes at once for my excuses.

You are lucky not to read on germans communities. Even you would understand German. 60% there aren't able to write one line without mistakes.

Therefore I know how annoying to read that confusing words.

60% of unable Germans....A problem of reckless education and stupid parents, not a fact of stupid pupils.

And it doesn't bother me to point out my wrong words.

Also I think I 'm not to long intetested in joining here because of my mobile. It leads to get boring and couriousity will abate , when I have finished reading your bunches ...

Bear with me a couple of days.

FBM - Tekla is right to point out that N. sometimes comes up with some worrying statements but we know that he was a passionate guy, often contradictory and inconsistent and liable to be inflammatory. It's not fair to pull out a couple of apparently sexist statements without providing the context and without noting that he saw his job, not to tell anybody what to think but to get the reader to think for her or himself.

Sorry if I sounded harsh, Tekla. I sympathize with the language barrier. It's just that those were some pretty shocking statements, and although I'm not a scholar of Nietzsche, I did read him in university and I sure don't recall anything like that.

That's true, Nietzsche could come up with some pretty hyperbolic aphorisms. Context would help immensely here.

In order to get a grasp of 'amor fati' it's clear that we must have an understanding of what N. means by 'fate'. Given his resistance to transcendental explanations, we should, imo, avoid thinking that we should be beholden to some 'tide of history'.
Writing about fate, N. repeatedly mentions 'necessity'. I guess this to mean that things happen because that's the way things are. Is that a tautology? Help!

The more I read about N. with regards to free will vs determinism debate, the less clear his stance becomes. On the one hand, he rejects hard determinism, but on the other he says that man is mechanistic. The will to power should not be conflated with free will; it is for N., in my reading, compatible with mundane Nature. I acquiesce to anyone with a deeper background in the man.

NIETZSCHE


My good friend Fred
I'm sad you're dead
You would have been great to know
We could talk about things
Like angel's wings
And playing the p n o.

It's surely bad
That you went mad
And shut down the way they say
If we'd talked perhaps
Over a glass of schnapps
Things might not have happened that way.

We would've chatted for days
About the very strange ways
That life turns this way and that
And how Lou Salome
Who didn't even know me
To Freud just tipped her hat.

Old Wagner gets lynched
For tunes he pinched
The church gets pickled in brine
You'll play us a song
And then it's not long
Before a guitar lets me play mine.

We'd then get to dancing
And laughing and prancing
And maybe crying a bit
Remembering your sister
Could it be that you missed her?
I'd tell you she wasn't worth it.

Nobody knows
Why you turned up your toes
What was it that rained on your party?
Was it disease
Or painful unease?
And where was your amore fati?

We'll never know
If you just say 'No!'
But I'm glad you left us your songs
It wasn't just rumours
That made you posthumous
It's where your life belongs.