So, what is greatness?
I've heard numerous answers to this question and countless examples of people who are considered great. I've even heard that the man shown below was great.
This man is Adolf Hitler. He is responsible for the mass murder of millions of people during the Second World War. How could this man be considered great? What is greatness then?
Nietzsche provides a direct answer to this question. Nietzsche's formula for greatness in a human being is Amor Fati. Nietzsche claims that their are four ways to deal with hardship: (1) bearing it, (2) concealing it, (3) dreaming it would vanish, and (4) Amor Fati. Greatness comes when one practices this philosophy. So, what is this Amor Fati? Nietzsche tells us that this is the act of loving all facticity. We should love every aspect of our lives and every situation in which we find ourselves. What? This sounds absurd! Nietzsche tells that we can benefit out of hardship if we learned to cultivate difficulty and engender something good from its ugly roots. In other words, we can't change reality, but we can change the manner in which we see and interpret it.
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