Fati Love: A Beautiful Reconciliation With Our Nature

Fate is one of the flames that is most stirred in the romantic context. The idea that everything is written very well with the ideal of a better half, of finding that person who, supposedly, fits perfectly with our ways. A soul that does not suffer with our edges, because in it we find enough space so that they are not a danger to the bond. In the same way, amor fati alludes to destiny and has its origin in the Stoic school.

Thus, the journey that amor fati proposes us begins in approximately 300 BC, when Zenon de Citio founded the Stoic school. In its fundamental lines we can identify a vital perspective very opposite to the modern Western one.

If at that time it was a true revolution against artificiality and pseudo material needs based on ambition, today the Stoics would throw their hands at their heads because of the number of objects that do not let us see the sun or because of the importance of the image, of the façade, when in many cases the internal state is bleak. Efforts that we channel outward, rather than inward.

Within the Greek conception of nature, the Stoics are within the so-called cosmological determinism. For them

Face to face in front of our nature

In the words of Nietzsche, this love appears more defined sense: ” m i formula to express the greatness in man is reduced to the desire that anything is different about what is or has been; not in the past, not in the future, not in eternity. I’m not just talking about supporting what is necessary, but about not hiding it or even loving it more than anything else . “

A love that is a vaccine against splitting or dissociation. A defense for the acceptance of our own condition and not just a starting point. This is not the place where a path would begin that would end in a state called happiness; rather it is the place where we could be happy.

Thus, with this love he anticipates what positive psychology has become so fashionable afterwards. Today we know that much of the dissatisfaction we feel comes from internal battles against monsters that we cannot win, because they do not directly bleed. We cut off one head and another appears. Definitely, our battle is not against anger, sadness, envy or anxiety, because in well-being there are moments for anger, sadness or anxiety. In our future, written or unwritten, they will be.

Fati love invites us to renounce the language of struggle. Change it for a discourse of acceptance, in which the most bellicose verbs are banished from the discourse. It would not be about fighting or opposing events, but rather looking for the best way to adapt. Neither circumstances nor emotions would be our enemies; the fact that they are dynamic does not give them a soul or a will. The world would not be against us … and neither would fate.

So where is our freedom?

There is a phrase in popular language that says that when we get married we do not go blind. A girl or a boy, being in love and loving another person, can seem handsome to us. Assuming this has a lot to do with love fati. Why? Because, following the thread of deterministic cosmology, this would be beyond our control. We would do wrong to try to deny or dissociate that attraction that the other can generate us, despite having a partner.

However, we could control that passion. Yes, we could govern the impulse and assess what it is that we really want: to get closer to the person who has caught our attention or to pass by. Determinism can be fulfilled at the macroscopic level, we have a nature (some passions, inclinations and also destiny would put us in front of certain events), but we also have a will.

Following Zeno himself, we are obligated / determined to be free. Hence, love fati, is, to a large extent, a choice, above external conditioning factors -for example, what others do- or external -our own tendencies or predispositions-.

Thus, the consequence of amor fati – the love of becoming, as for becoming is; love of nature, as nature is – it is not resignation, but adaptation. An adaptation that we would achieve by using our intelligence to elevate the decision above the conditioning factors and passions – instincts, internal inclinations.

The fact that our freedom is conditional or limited would not make it less valuable. In this sense, appreciating events over which we will have no control would reconcile us to our own nature, because that is preciously – or at least in part – our own nature.