Nietzsche, the Stoics, and the Aztecs On The Art of Life
When Fragility Is Strength
My grandfather was a retired medical doctor. A few years back, he went into his local clinic to see why his throat was persistently sore. After many tests, and some biopsies, the results showed that he had cancer. In fact, it had metastasized to such an extent that nothing could be done.
The diagnostic exams also revealed that his cancer hadn’t yet spread to any vital part of his body. So he was stuck. Neither would he die quickly, nor was there any way to alleviate his pain.
How would you respond to that news? Was it just bad luck? Did it happen for a reason? Or was it a sort of mixture?
Taken respectively, those responses are the ones that three different philosophical outlooks provide:
- bad luck — the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche,
- happened for a reason — the Greek and Roman tradition of Stoicism, which began around 300 BCE,
- a sort of mixture — the Aztecs in ancient Mexico during the 14th -16th centuries.
I want to convince you that the Aztec view is the (most) right one — that’s my philosophical thesis. It’s also, ultimately, the path my grandfather chose.
