Amor Fati

The valedictorian

I’ve seen over 30 graduations in my career—30 valedictorian speeches. Only a couple stuck. This is one of them.

The usual

It was time for the valedictorian speech. Ryder Wesson was introduced as a graduate, as a student with a 98.11 GPA, and as a member of the championship football team he played on. He did not look like a teenager. He was much more filled out than the rest of the teens who sat on the stage. He had a chiseled jaw and a mustache. Yes, he had a mustache—a full and admirable mustache. He appeared as a man next to them. Yet, there he was standing at the podium about to address his peers.

He introduced himself, greeted parents, fellow students, teachers, and guests. It was an opening that was the usual valedictorian fare.

The not-so-usual

He informed us that he’d only been at the school for two years and when he first arrived he was nervous—the typical jitters of starting at a new school. He joked about rumors of how the student body thought he was the new assistant football coach. Then there were rumors he was a substitute teacher and lastly, gossip that he may be an undercover cop. I get it—the mustache.

He explained that starting somewhere new was scary so he did what any typical 16-year-old boy would do, and that was to read philosophy to try and resolve his feelings (insert laugh–we did). See? Not so usual.

Attentive and learning

I was fully engaged. I never cast judgment on appearance but I was curious about what this kid could tell us. And then the learning began.

Amor Fati

Ryder said that all his reading landed him on the concept of Amor Fati to help him cope with the change in his life. And since he and his graduating class were at the beginning of a lot of change he concluded this theory that helped him when he changed schools could be helpful to the graduates in this time of transition.

“Darling boy,” I thought. “It’s the concept for me also!”

Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and of course Nietzsche

Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius define the phrase amor fati as having a love of fate or a love of one’s fate. A resolute enthusiastic acceptance of everything that has happened in one’s life. Or it can be used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one’s life, including suffering and loss as good or at the very least necessary. As the boy talked—it was at this point that I scrambled for a pen and scratched the words amor fati onto the program so I wouldn’t forget. How did I end up at a Ted Talk?

Nietzsche said “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less, conceal it but love it.”

I was holding my breath. I exhaled quietly. “Yes. This. This certain acceptance for the blessings in whatever way they appear” I thought.

The student becomes the teacher.

As an educator, I stay open to the idea that students are also teachers sometimes and they have taught me. It’s definitely not a one-way street of learning. Honestly, I never know where profound learning will occur. Even daily lessons are important but this—Amor Fati felt big. In that moment I felt like someone was whispering in my ear reminding me to be in love with my fate—that all that I have experienced, good, bad, and challenging was and is necessary. And all that I will experience exciting, scary and new is necessary. It’s all necessary. It’s my fate. And I am in love with it. After all, it has led me right here, nodding, forehead creased, eyes small at the focus of (Oh my God! My face! Too much focus Ang!) of the words of a teen. My life is my own. My fate is my own. Authentic and mine. No one else’s and I embrace it.

Side note

This young man is the only one in his graduating class who is taking a year to travel and explore the world, not committing to a post-secondary experience or a job. I feel this is Ryder living authentically. And I am also reminded to do so—to live authentically. Nothing wrong with the occasional prompt.

Are you in love with your fate?

As always, thanks for reading Lovelies