The Gay Science.
What does that make you think about?
Maybe the first image that comes to mind is Freddie Mercury in a lab coat… you’re not wrong for thinking that–that’s what I first thought of…
The Gay Science–I would learn–is actually a book by Friedrich Nietzsche containing maxims, essays, poems and all sorts of other contemplations.
The title has arguably experienced the greatest change in understanding due to colloquialism than any other book.
Published in 1882, it was meant to be derived from a common German saying at the time which itself was based on a Provençal expression “gai saber” meaning the technical skill required to write poetry.
But regardless of connotations, it is easy to appreciate the power and scale of this book as well as the intent of the title.
In it, Nietzsche explains his notion of AMOR FATI; Latin for ‘a love of fate’. This was meant to invoke a sense of appreciation for one’s life as a whole. No matter the suffering, the pain, the chaos, the sorrow or the feeling of meaninglessness one may–at some point or another–be overwhelmed by, Amor Fati could enable them to appreciate the bigger picture of their life.
Nietzsche writes:
For the new year.
“I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. (translated literally from Latin, this means ‘I am, therefore I think: I think therefore I am’ he is half-quoting Descartes’ famous saying: ‘I think, therefore I am’) Today everybody permits themselves the expression of their wish and their dearest thought; hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year–what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth? I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful; a poet. Amor Fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer!”
Nietzsche is famous for being confusing. You may have felt this after reading his passage. To clarify, I shall provide a passage by Heinrich Heine, a writer who was a great influencer of Nietzsche
And she answered with a tender voice: “Let us be good friends.” But what I have told you here, dear reader, that is not an event of yesterday or the day before. . . . For time is infinite, but the things in time, the concrete bodies, are finite. They may indeed disperse into the smallest particles; but these particles, the atoms, have their determinate number, and the number of configurations that, all of themselves, are formed out of them is also determinate. Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations that have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract. repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again. . . . And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like me, and a woman will be born, just like Mary–only that it is to be hoped that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness–and in a better land they will meet and contemplate each other a long time; and finally the woman will give her hand to the man and say with a tender voice: “Let us be good friends.”
This passage is certainly more poetic and perhaps more illuminating. The underlying notion is the same as Nietzsche’s: This moment, the one you are inhaling and consuming, expelling and rejecting, impassioned and saddened by, is the most important moment of your life. The seconds in which you experience anything, no matter what it is, are more important than anything else. And that finally begs the question… why was this book about living life given a title that referred to the technical and artistic skill of writing poetry?
Think on that, my friend…
Cherish your life, O Examiner
And love your fate.
The Golden Scribe