Amor fati is Latin for love your fate. Fate is an idea that has fallen out of favour in our modern era where atheism, agnosticism, and spiritualism have eaten into a sizable chunk of the religious, but the idea of fate seems to also be in contradiction the Liberal values of the West, especially in the USA, where the ideal is that you have the freedom to decide your fate.
So I've been trying to think of a modern take on this phrase, because I like it. I like what it signifies. I at first thought love your station or love your lot, but these ring dull to the ears. I don't know Latin, but if I can blindly guess the declension of a noun, I'd say amor tempi, love your time, seems to capture the concepts I like in amor fati while removing the hogwash of predestination.
I like love your time because it captures three core concepts that I find important in living simply.
The first is to love the time in which you live. Love the strife, friendships, politics, technology, etc that you have today. This is the world that you have been given. You haven't asked for it, but here it is, for all of us. I'd like to leave it a better place than I've found it, but I shall not hate it. I shall relish in it, for it is all we will have to work with. We don't get to restart our gameplay on another server, so enjoy the server you're on, and try to improve it by reporting bugs that you find. Be these injustices, trash, debt, w/e. Don't hate these things; accept them, and improve upon them, and enjoy the positivity that this brings to yourselves and others.
Secondly, and I'm sure this sub anticipated this, mindfulness. Take a moment to simply experience now. Nowness has proven to be incredibly elusive to experience. But try to take a moment to not be thinking about the past and to not be thinking about the future but to simply experience the world as it presents itself to your perception. Cast your consciousness out from your mind and into the world. The vastness of now is humbling, and it will calm and centre you, whether you're full and happy or pained and sad.
Thirdly, and very much in line with the values of this sub, is to love your time and not your things and fantasies. Take enjoyment in what you have, not in what you want. Long hours spent working year after year for the sake of satisfying corporate sales' quotas is time you will not get back. Will you sacrifice the time you love for trinkets and extravagance? If so, why? Do these reasons align with your values, your goals? If not, then why are you willing to sacrifice that which you love, your time here alive, for that which you do not?
So, love your time. Amor tempi (If someone has taken Latin, please let me know if this guess is correct or not!). I love my time, and I have spent my time writing this post. I hope you love this post as much as I love my time. I wish all you lovely people peace and love and full bellies, from this breath until your last.
Submitted January 04, 2019 at 10:44AM by lootingyourfridge http://bit.ly/2VwW0Jd
