Have a very Nietzsche New Year’s
The month of December comes with reflection. Often times, this reflection on the positive aspects of our year, but more often, the approach of New Year’s Day crystallizes a belief we’ve held in our palms as we wait for the right moment to release it, make it concrete, and re-evaluate our lives based on it: This year had problems, and something has to change.
We watch the new year approach. We plan, we hope, we pray, and we believe with divine conviction that the world will be different for us next year, that something fundamentally will shift in the gears that turn our disappointing days into nights and our solemn nights back into day. New Year’s day runs towards us, increasing in speed and moment, until, in a grand climax marked by our clocks turning to midnight, it screams at us with a resounding “Yes!”, an affirmation that the coming 365 days will present us a life categorically different and, in some abstract judgment, better. In this second, it does not matter what our resolutions are, nor whether we plan to keep them or not. All that matters is that we have entered a new era.
And then, in the wake of this divine tidal wave of affirmation, life remains completely the same. The Earth revolves around the Sun once more. The clock continues to tick without regard for our wishes, counting down the seconds until the next year’s grandiose celebration. And the laws of the universe have not changed.
Nietzsche’s New Year
The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s struggles were well documented.
He was constantly rejected and eventually abandoned by the woman of his affection for years on end. He had intense health problems resulting in chronic pain. He was manipulated by his antisemitic sister while living a materially poor life. And he was pained so greatly by the suffering of others that, upon seeing a horse being beaten on the streets in Turin, he suffered a permanent mental collapse as he threw his body around the horse to protect it.
“I only need to expose myself to the sight of some genuine distress, and I am lost.”
It is without a doubt that the external world greatly troubled Nietzsche, and in the end became a trouble too great to overcome. But, it is also true that often times moments of the greatest insight come in the depths of despair. Whereas we may look back on our years and remark that “this year had problems, and something has to change”, Nietzsche chose to put his darkest moments to the pen in search of revelation.
In 1881, the philosopher was facing an existential moment of depression. The constantly transforming Nietzsche was transforming ever more. As he wrote his famous, vulnerable text entitled The Gay Science, Nietzsche approached the pivot available at New Year’s in a fascinating manner. At the beginning of the year 1882, he wrote:
For the New Year — I still live, I still think; I must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. To-day everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favorite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year, — a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: — I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!
An elegant concept. Nietzsche’s “Amor Fati”, the “love of fate” as it translates, describes a stoic approach to the world in which we only worry about what we can control.
Amor Fati in 2019
As we enter 2019, the world is filled with seemingly insurmountable conflict. Political strife, inequality, violence, and technology that makes us seem utterly powerless all surround us. Perhaps employing a Nietzschean mindfulness now will make us understand that a number of these things are out of our control. That’s not to say we shouldn’t battle to do everything that we can to fix these issues, but instead we should not allow it to destroy our own peace of mind. Let us accept that which our environment presents to us, and in turn respond in the manner which makes us most satisfied and proud with ourselves. However, immersing our own self-worth in the twisted outcomes of a largely backwards world is futile. While Nietzsche ultimately couldn’t employ the stoic philosophy that he attempted to in his resolution, the philosophical urge to become more stoic dates all the way back to the Roman Empire. Learning from these writers may be the only way to stay sane on an increasingly insane global landscape.
New Year’s resolutions make us feel as if we have been afforded a special chance to bend the universe, and our own minds, to our will. Suddenly, we will have more hours in the day. Or, we’ll have more energy to start waking up an hour earlier or to exercise more. Maybe our bodies will react differently next time we see food that we know we shouldn’t eat, but in the past have chosen to so many times anyway.
While resolutions can be a decent reminder for us to do something, there’s a reason that we fail our resolutions so often. It’s because they are the wrong resolutions. It is up to us to change how we react to the world. Once we accept that which is not in our control, we can be empowered to focus on that which we do control.
Although we might not be able to wake up earlier or find more time to exercise, we can grow more mindful of ourselves, be more conscious and deliberate in our relationships, and worry less about the things we fail to do. We can concede that not everything will be perfect, and in doing so become less upset with the world around us. Most importantly, instead of trying to control the world, we can be in better control of ourselves. This is a resolution that I would like to strive for.
