This past weekend at a retreat, I was guided by my friend and coach Derek Haswell through a visualization experience where I would meet my “future self”.
Thank you for sharing this. Its timing couldn’t have been more ideal given my relationship with and experience of emotional pain in the last ~week. This perspective offers relief - much needed. As always, gratitude for your insightful and heartfelt shares. 🙏🏼❤️
whoa....i feel like i've been circling a similar idea - loving the suffering - for the last few weeks since listening to this episode of Philosophize This about Nietzsche and a philosopher named Simon Critchley -- https://feeds.megaphone.fm/QCD6036500916
Here's a lil quote:
“Life isn't something you're always renouncing and at war with. No, to Nietzsche, you just say yes to it. You affirm that which is necessary, Amor Fati,”
The basic idea, as far as I can tell, is that western thought since Aristotle has been implicitly about renouncing life - suffering is bad and i am bad for making it such that I suffer (all of which leads us to pain and self hate etc). But another way of approaching things is 'life affirming' which just sorta means saying yes to everything? Not in a cheap way but more in a like, 'ah the babies are crying? yes they are crying! This is life and they are crying!!" rather than what I often do which is "ah the babies are crying that's annoying i hate it it makes me suffer i hate suffering i hate myself" etc.
idk. I've started reading critchley's book about greek tragedy and it's fascinating to realize how much of our belief system rests on an implicit acceptance of the objective, moral good which, given we can't attain it, makes us feel bad and evil and suffer.
idk i havent drank enough coffee yet so this might not make sense good day David
This just sent me down an amor fati rabbit hole. Feels very aligned. I wonder how much of this is innate and how much is cultural. Is it possible to retrain ourselves to truly accept, and even love, that which we call suffering?
Your under-caffeinated comments are always treasured here Alex
oh man i very much amor amor fati. i. had it written out on a notecard by my computer back when i believed in things and knew how to write.
yes they talk in the pod about times in history when this was not the case!! Here's a pull quote:
“despite our history of being dominated by mostly people that come from this renunciative tradition, there are a couple of places we can look throughout history if we want to get some insight into what it was like to be a person that was not so captured by Socratic and Christian ideals.
One is going to be the people that lived during the time of the Renaissance. The other, the one we're going to focus on today, is going to be what he thought was maybe the greatest culture that ever existed, and that is the Greek societies that lived before the corruption of Socrates came along. In other words, pre-Socratic Greek culture.
He has a telling line from his book The Twilight of the Idols, he says, quote, my recreation, my predilection, my cure after all Platonism has always been thucydides, end quote. What he means is thucydides was a Greek historian from these very pre-Socratic Greek societies we're talking about. Nietzsche is a big fan of his work.
He's a fan of him because unlike other historians of his time, and most people after the influence of Plato and Socrates, thucydides doesn't tell the story of human history from a place where he's constantly trying to moralize about it, or attributing value to the events that happened. Just as a point of contrast here, for example, Herodotus, another famous Greek historian, he'd tell the story of the Persian War, for example, and it was common, even expected at the time, for him to describe the stuff that went on as though it happened because of some divine retribution. You know, he'd say, this is the pride of the Persians, that the hubris of them, that led to them getting beaten in this particular battle.
Nietzsche respects the fact that thucydides didn't do any of this. Instead, he focuses on the power dynamics of the time, pragmatic moves that are made by cultures. And he doesn't shy away from talking about the harsh reality of what it was to be someone that's caught up in the macro-level political events that were brutal.”
Very, very powerful and insightful reflection David!! Thank you so much for sharing. At a different level, I can say something shifted in me too while reading this. It reminded me of a friend's philosophy towards pain, which she describes as "strangers we have a lifetime to befriend". I now feel a step closer to understanding it!
Wow. It’s not often I get to see the inner dialogue that’s happening from this exercise. Powerful stuff…
We should ask AI to turn it into a movie. Really bring it to life (=
Thank you for sharing this. Its timing couldn’t have been more ideal given my relationship with and experience of emotional pain in the last ~week. This perspective offers relief - much needed. As always, gratitude for your insightful and heartfelt shares. 🙏🏼❤️
<3 sending love brother
whoa....i feel like i've been circling a similar idea - loving the suffering - for the last few weeks since listening to this episode of Philosophize This about Nietzsche and a philosopher named Simon Critchley -- https://feeds.megaphone.fm/QCD6036500916
Here's a lil quote:
“Life isn't something you're always renouncing and at war with. No, to Nietzsche, you just say yes to it. You affirm that which is necessary, Amor Fati,”
The basic idea, as far as I can tell, is that western thought since Aristotle has been implicitly about renouncing life - suffering is bad and i am bad for making it such that I suffer (all of which leads us to pain and self hate etc). But another way of approaching things is 'life affirming' which just sorta means saying yes to everything? Not in a cheap way but more in a like, 'ah the babies are crying? yes they are crying! This is life and they are crying!!" rather than what I often do which is "ah the babies are crying that's annoying i hate it it makes me suffer i hate suffering i hate myself" etc.
idk. I've started reading critchley's book about greek tragedy and it's fascinating to realize how much of our belief system rests on an implicit acceptance of the objective, moral good which, given we can't attain it, makes us feel bad and evil and suffer.
idk i havent drank enough coffee yet so this might not make sense good day David
This just sent me down an amor fati rabbit hole. Feels very aligned. I wonder how much of this is innate and how much is cultural. Is it possible to retrain ourselves to truly accept, and even love, that which we call suffering?
Your under-caffeinated comments are always treasured here Alex
oh man i very much amor amor fati. i. had it written out on a notecard by my computer back when i believed in things and knew how to write.
yes they talk in the pod about times in history when this was not the case!! Here's a pull quote:
“despite our history of being dominated by mostly people that come from this renunciative tradition, there are a couple of places we can look throughout history if we want to get some insight into what it was like to be a person that was not so captured by Socratic and Christian ideals.
One is going to be the people that lived during the time of the Renaissance. The other, the one we're going to focus on today, is going to be what he thought was maybe the greatest culture that ever existed, and that is the Greek societies that lived before the corruption of Socrates came along. In other words, pre-Socratic Greek culture.
He has a telling line from his book The Twilight of the Idols, he says, quote, my recreation, my predilection, my cure after all Platonism has always been thucydides, end quote. What he means is thucydides was a Greek historian from these very pre-Socratic Greek societies we're talking about. Nietzsche is a big fan of his work.
He's a fan of him because unlike other historians of his time, and most people after the influence of Plato and Socrates, thucydides doesn't tell the story of human history from a place where he's constantly trying to moralize about it, or attributing value to the events that happened. Just as a point of contrast here, for example, Herodotus, another famous Greek historian, he'd tell the story of the Persian War, for example, and it was common, even expected at the time, for him to describe the stuff that went on as though it happened because of some divine retribution. You know, he'd say, this is the pride of the Persians, that the hubris of them, that led to them getting beaten in this particular battle.
Nietzsche respects the fact that thucydides didn't do any of this. Instead, he focuses on the power dynamics of the time, pragmatic moves that are made by cultures. And he doesn't shy away from talking about the harsh reality of what it was to be someone that's caught up in the macro-level political events that were brutal.”
Very, very powerful and insightful reflection David!! Thank you so much for sharing. At a different level, I can say something shifted in me too while reading this. It reminded me of a friend's philosophy towards pain, which she describes as "strangers we have a lifetime to befriend". I now feel a step closer to understanding it!
This is really beautiful. Thanks for your honesty and openness in sharing. May you always feel your strength enough to feel your pain wholeheartedly.