Amor Fati

“Those who receive the bare theories immediately want to spew them, as an upset stomach does its food. First digest your theories and you won’t throw them up. Otherwise they will be raw, spoiled, and not nourishing. After you’ve digested them, show us the changes in your reasoned choices, just like the shoulders of gymnasts display their diet and training, and as the craft of artisans show in what they’ve learned.”

— EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.21.1–3

You would be damn surprised what a measly 23 grams in your pocket can do to your mental state of mind at random times, like on Tuesdays at 9:17AM. I have been walking around with a challenge coin in my pocket for a little while now. I am firmly aware that there are “different strokes for different folks” and so in a lot of ways a challenge coin seems absolutely ridiculous to some people. For others, like myself, they are monumental in their depth and meaning.

I have read a lot of what I suppose would be classified “self-help books” over the years, but now that age is starting to catch up with me, it is becoming more and more vividly clear to me that this is precisely all I did was read them. There were times when some of the books had more impact than others, but nothing ever seems to stick for too long. But if we are awarding points for impact: Gary John Bishops Unfuckyourself series was absolutely phenomenal, but then there is Four Thousand Weeks. A violent slap in the face to what is really going on in all of our lives. The rest of them all seem to say the same thing different ways. Nobody embraces that better than Mark Manson. Anyways, it seems the common threads across these “self-help” gurus are all threads that can be applied in realms outside of yourself, and be applied to life in general. I’m of course just a blue-collar taxpayer who doesn’t really know what the fuck I’m talking about, but be that as it may, this is what inadvertently lead me to start reading about stoicism.

Amor Fati is the idea of “loving your fate”. There is a adage from Marcus Aurelius attached to the idea that goes “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of anything that is thrown into it.” It (among other things) is an sentiment that urges us to take whatever it is life might throw at us and use it as fuel to burn our other passions. It is something that requires discipline and self-control. These are things I can be very hellbent on achieving but then at the slightly whim I’m back to the old ways of resentment and self-sabotage. Ridiculous. When I’m on break at work, I’ll take out the coin and sort of feel the intricate patterns and meditate on the fact that this is only the fuel that I need to pursue what I like doing when I’m not in this place. Don’t be mad about being here, be glad and fucking grateful that you are. For it is the act of doing so that allows us the freedom to do as we please.

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Disclaimer: No spelling/grammar checks. I typed this post in Obsidian, pasted it here and clicked ‘Publish’. Header image by DALL-E