Amor Fati

Nietzsche says: "Our old flaws never truly vanish; the moment you grow weary, the very flaws you thought you had conquered float right back to the surface." Nietzsche despised any notion of an epic triumph over the self, or the idea that a human being could at a single moment declare their old self dead and a new one born. Thus, his idea of the complete human is not one who has transcended their nature, but one who has tested their fate-in all its good and evil-to the point of enduring its dizzying repetition in an unending Eternal Recurrence, ultimately coming to love it because they have befriended every iteration and manifestation of who they are. I tell my friend that we do not change in the way self-help culture preaches-like a rocket in perpetual ascent, discarding its old, broken lower stages as it climbs, leaving only its glowing nosecone to bask in full momentum after attaining its absolute form: a speeding arrow unhindered by anything. The self is an endless negotiation among our fears, our shadows, and our light. Everything that manifests to us from the world fuels an eternal inner conversation, ongoing since time immemorial. Whatever we reveal to the world at any given moment is simply the output of whichever voice dominated that conversation in that precise instance. This concept of negotiation is devoid of finality, forcing the self into humility when it realizes that guarding its flaws is a lifelong duty, offering its peace is a lifelong duty, and that whatever goes wrong is often nothing more than our own negligence in leaving one of our old monsters' cages unlocked. It reminds us that every beauty we offer is not hardwired into our DNA; like any flower, it requires care to bloom, and at times must face the anxiety of wilting. That is why my favorite definition of love is the companionship of someone who makes that internal dialogue quieter-someone who sharpens my senses to inspect my inner cages and guard my monsters with care; someone who guides me back to my roses, tipping the scales of negotiation toward who I long to be rather than who I fear becoming. It is when their presence cultivates within me that exquisite blend of a vigilant guard and a dreaming gardener who never neglects his blooms. This makes love, at its core, a longing for that inner peace, eager for what your heart becomes in the presence of the beloved. From this perspective, the Eternal Recurrence seems like a hell for anyone trapped by their monsters, and a paradise for anyone who has found love; everything you live will be doubled. All the good stored within the self will return, and all the evil will return. There is no waste in Nietzsche’s philosophy, nor any artificial boundaries we can construct to liberate ourselves from our old burdens and recreate ourselves anew. This brings us to the famous "Joel" dilemma from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Joel wished for a new self, free from the unbearable pain of his breakup. Yet he spent the rest of the story fighting for an eternal return to his past life, because he had experienced love there once. Even if his life was a prolonged hell, experiencing it all over again made that hell bearable, so long as he got to see his beloved again. That moment when Joel realized his memory was everything, and that his true self was the most beautiful and painful thing that had ever happened to him-without fragmentation-showed that the Eternal Recurrence requires nothing more than a beloved face to tame the hell of returning to our old monsters. It is the moment we make peace with all that came before, accepting that the self cannot be severed, nor does it yield to our demands for rebirth and forgetting. Nietzsche calls this, with a tenderness uncommon to his philosophy: Amor Fati Love of fate-or put simply, To love your days because you are a mosaic woven from them: from their beauty, and from their ruin.