“Never have I felt happier with myself than in the sickest and most painful periods of my life.” ¹

Friedrich Nietzsche penned these words in his final book, Ecce Homo, just a few months before he went permanently insane. It’s a book that has divided readers over the decades since: is it the work of a madman, a narcissist, or a sincere human being?

I believe that Nietzsche knew subconsciously, if not consciously, that he didn’t have much time left. He used a final burst of energy to summarize and synthesize his ideas and beliefs as clearly as possible. “Have I been understood?” he writes in his final chapters more than once.

When I read Ecce Homo, I pay the same attention to Nietzsche’s words that I would to someone on their deathbed. I don’t agree with everything that he says, and some of it doesn’t even make sense. But it does contain one of the most profound and paradoxical ideas I’ve ever come across: Amor fati.

Translated from Latin as “love of fate,” here’s Nietzsche’s definition:

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it – all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary – but love it.” ²

It’s a daring, even audacious assertion. Does it apply to the rest of us, or is it a coping strategy for an extremely eccentric character like Nietzsche? It’s one thing to try to love our lives no matter how painful they are, but it’s a pretty dramatic claim to not wish they were any different.

What about others who lead lives of unbearable distress and deprivation – as bad as Nietzsche’s or worse?

“Love in Spite of Everything”

Less than 400 miles away from Nietzsche, in the town of Arles, France, another great mind was struggling with endless heartache and disappointment.

In a letter to his brother Theo, the painter Vincent Van Gogh wrote:

What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.

This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. ³

The parallels between Nietzche and Van Gogh’s life are striking. Both were social outcasts, rejected romantically, and had fraught relationships with their closest friends (Nietzsche with Wagner, Van Gogh with Gaugin). Despite this, they were both sensitive, tender-hearted, and longed for connection.

Both were poor most of their lives and went virtually unrecognized for their accomplishments while they lived. Van Gogh sold a single painting. Nietzche only published a few of his works, and they weren’t commercially successful — and to add insult to injury, his sister Elizabeth edited and appropriated them after he died so the Nazi party could use them for nationalist propaganda. ⁴

Could it be that a deep and driving sense of purpose, a dogged commitment to some higher work (writing, ideas, painting, or something else) helps one keep going much longer than they could otherwise?

Finally, both Van Gogh and Nietzsche suffered from terrible health issues. Nietzche struggled with seizures and migraines that were so bad he sometimes couldn’t even read or write. Van Gogh was likely bipolar and may have had other mental illnesses in addition that made him extremely anxious, remorseful, and hopeless. Both succumbed to their illnesses in the end, within less than two years of each other. ⁵ Only in the years since have they become recognized for their groundbreaking work.

Van Gogh was not a philosopher in the sense that Nietzsche was, and nowhere does he express a belief or idea as overt as amor fati. But his sentiment “love in spite of everything” strikes a similar chord.

Could it be that a deep and driving sense of purpose, a dogged commitment to some higher work (writing, ideas, painting, or something else) helps one keep going much longer than they could otherwise?

To anyone who points out that both Nietzsche and Van Gogh met tragic, premature ends I argue: Yes, but look how much they still did! And how much sooner they might have broken down if they weren’t so driven to create, to connect, to achieve. Nietzsche did some of his most prolific and important writing in the final months of his life, and Van Gogh was painting and perfecting his craft right up until the end.

It’s fair to say that Nietzsche and Van Gogh are only two among countless individuals who have led lives of pain and loss. No one would argue that theirs were not the worst-case examples, either. Sooner or later we all have to face the age-old problem, “Why is there so much pain and inequality in this world?”

Nietzsche is less interested in that question than he is in the question of what to do about it: Love your fate, and don’t seek for it it be any different. Or in the words of Van Gogh: “Love in spite of everything.”

Amor Fati and Regret

A part of me wonders if Nietzsche is being poetic when he talks about amor fati. It’s true we can’t change the past, but is it wrong to wish we could? (And is that Nietzsche’s intention?)

I think Nietzsche had a very practical side to him in that he saw regret and counterfactual thinking for what it was: counter to reality. While we can learn from our regrets, we can also easily go insane “what iffing” over the things we’ve done or haven’t done and the alternative ripple effects they would have had on our alternative realities.

Besides, how can we be sure that even the seemingly regrettable things in our lives don’t play a more positive role? Nietzsche hints at this when he says, “…even the blunders of life have their own meaning and value — the occasional side roads and wrong roads, the delays, “modesties,” seriousness wasted on tasks that are remote from the task.” ⁶

Amor fati isn’t so much about rejecting or ignoring our pain as it is about rejecting self-pity. If there is a positive way to look at things, to find any aspect we can feel lucky and grateful for, we should do so. Wanting things to be different when it’s impossible is a road to madness.

“Yes to One’s Own True Being”

“Loving one’s fate” is just one definition, one way of accepting and embracing reality. Different women and men over the years have found creative ways to articulate meaning and purpose, each one shaped by her or his character and experiences.

The theological writer Paul Tillich (who happened to be very familiar with Nietzsche and his writings) arrived at his own version of amor fati that I especially love and relate to:

The affirmation of one’s essential being in spite of desires and anxieties creates joy…it is the happiness of a soul which is “lifted above every circumstance.” Joy accompanies the self-affirmation of our essential being in spite of the inhibitions coming from the accidental elements in us. Joy is the emotional expression of the courageous Yes to one’s own true being. ⁷

Figuring out our true being — and embracing amor fati — is an ongoing process that requires courage and continual recommitment. We might feel pity for people like Nietzsche and Van Gogh until we realize this mindset made their lives more meaningful, bearable, and perhaps even happier than they would have been otherwise.

If that was the case for them, how much more would it be for us?

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Read Next: How to Become Who You Are →

1. Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Edited by Walter Kaufmann, Vintage, December 17, 1989.
2. Ecce Homo
3. Van Gogh, V. (1888). Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Arles, Sunday, 17 June 1888. Retrieved May 9, 2024, from https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let249/letter.html
4. I’m sure he would have rolled in his grave had he known. He spends much of Ecce Homo and elsewhere railing against German nationalism and anti-semitism.
5. Nietzche went permanently mad in early 1889; Van Gogh died, most likely of suicide, in the summer of 1890.
6. Ecce Homo
7. Tillich, P. (1952). The courage to be. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.