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Amor fati

I wonder how many choices I’ve had to make over the years; I mean, who counts? Or perhaps who regrets what they’ve chosen? Not to be too Hamletic about it, but there’s the rub, eh? For once a choice is made and acted upon, who would bear the whips and scorns of time? Each choice may well be an existential one, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of…

Still, even the fact that there are choices is freeing, don’t you think? Whether we made the best choice is another matter; it opens the very real possibility of regretting the decision in retrospect; it may prompt a question about whether we should -or could- have known of the consequences before we selected it. Does the choice say something about us; something we were unwilling, or unable to consider before…? Retrospection is a cloudy mirror.

In the wake of coping with ill-advised decisions, it seemed evident to me that perhaps one should consult with trusted friends first, or at least take more time before any final commitment. Fortunately (well accidentally) I happened upon an essay that purported to tackle the problems of choice.[i]

‘Many of us spend a great deal of energy distracting ourselves from the anxiety-provoking conditions of our existence.’ But, apparently there are ways of breaking this barrage of choices into usable parts: ‘four universal categories: mortality (that our time is finite), existential isolation (that we are ultimately alone), freedom (that we bear responsibility for our lives), and meaninglessness (that we look for meaning in a world that continually presents itself to us as senseless).’

Of course with choice –any choice- some degree of regret is inevitable: ‘a path not taken, a parallel life unlived’ and yet, obviously, we are all eventually condemned to make choices. We all have to navigate a world of infinite possibilities, and find some way to make peace with paths not travelled. But a lot of anxiety stems from the realization that we can’t change the past, and that we have to live with the choice and maybe wonder if it means that we have forsaken who we think we really are; that out of a world of infinite possibilities, we have made a decision that was misaligned with our values, one that emerged from a state of distraction, or self-sabotage rather than thoughtful, conscious intent. Guilt has a habit of forcing detours from what should be a normally well-travelled road; and the sense of having behaved inauthentically and acted against our deeply held values or beliefs means we have to struggle to find the main road again… or can’t.

I suppose one of the problems about evaluating our decisions is that we are complex beings, and juggling choices just adds to the complexity. We never know whether we chose correctly until later -seldom before. I am reminded of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous contention that existence precedes essence. In other words we first exist, and then we create who we are through our choices, actions, and reflections.

But back to the essay I was reading: Life ‘is not constructed out of dramatic forks in the road, but rather from thousands of micro-choices that, taken together, build habits, relationships and trajectories. Every day we make choices that, if chosen consistently, bring us closer toward or further away from the things we care about and the lives we want to lead.’

‘Authenticity, for [another philosopher] Heidegger, is less about staying true to some kind of inner authentic self, and more about taking responsibility for our choices, and constructing ourselves through action. It’s about intentionally carving a path in life without losing ourselves in social norms and expectations or fleeing from our freedom. The authentic person, he writes, ‘chooses to choose’… We face choices not only in how we move forward in life, but also in how we appraise the past.’

Here’s where yet another philosopher I learned about I university, Friedrich Nietzsche, came in handy I think. Kleeman’s essay mentioned Nietzsche’s idea of amor fati  (which can be translated as ‘love of one’s fate’); amor fati represents a radical acceptance of all that is and has been. It ‘embraces a kind of narrative fatalism: that life has happened how it was meant to happen, how it was always going to unfold. Without denying our individual responsibility for its construction, it encourages us to accept the story of the past as our story, however undesirable its narrative arc might feel.’  

When I finished high school, innumerable years ago, the angst in my friends about whether or not they should apply to university seemed almost palpable. And if they decided to apply, their choice of courses might determine what they ended up doing when they finished. For some, it seemed an existential choice: what did they want to be their futures? Or even worse, perhaps, what if they didn’t even manage to graduate? What if they weren’t smart enough?

I’m not sure why I wasn’t as anxious as them; perhaps it occurred to me that I shouldn’t listen to their worries and just plod on as I had through high school… or maybe through Life. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect their concerns, but more that I didn’t share them.

My wife did, though, and after a few interpersonal issues, I remember her insisting that we both enroll in TM (Transcendental Meditation: a practice of silent meditation developed by the Indian born Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that was de rigeur in the 1970ies -especially after the Beatles and the Beach Boys tried it). Although I suspected the unique mantra we were each awarded in secret and promised never to disclose (maybe because we were each given the same one) was supposed to give us something other than our thoughts to dwell on, and although my wife promptly forgot hers and asked if she could borrow mine, I found the meditation helpful, and to this day, continue to practice it. And no, I never disclosed the mantra I was given…

I have no idea whether it was the TM, Sartre’s wisdom, the delightful idea of amor fati, or my later divorce that kept my regrets under control, but if nothing else, they all probably allowed me to process things more smoothly. Or perhaps I have so far had no significant regrets in my life because of my secret mantra.

I guess I’ll never know for sure, but my essence is still developing…

[i] https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-some-regrets-fade-while-others-persist-and-grow

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