Virtú and Fortuna

In his discussion of fate, it seems Machiavelli thought that Fortuna dominates at least half our lives, while in the remaining half or a little less, human strength and competence (virtù) attempts to counteract it. He imagined fate as a goddess, capricious and fickle, or as a river, which could flood at any moment.

Machiavelli—active in the politics of the Florentine Republic and known to succeeding generations for his political writings as the ultimate realist—was also a poet of rich and varied rhetorical flourishes. He left behind numerous poems, plays, and allegories. In his writings, extending across a wide range of literary forms, the theme of Fortuna and the word virtù—translated variously as competence, virtue, ability, skill, valor, grit, or backbone, and vigor, impulse, or momentum (only a sampling of the more than twenty possible renderings)—appear, and when in addition to these, the necessary, the essential, perhaps even desperate word necessita appears, a unique feeling of exaltation is communicated. Virtù di necessita—in other words, Machiavelli suggests that only the “skill displayed in times of emergency” can successfully compete with fate.

It is said that when comparing fate to a river, Machiavelli meant the Arno, which often brought floods to Florence. In his position as secretary of the government of Florence, he worked with Leonardo da Vinci, who had been hired as a military architect and attempted to realize a grandiose plan to change the natural course of the river. But the plan, initiated five hundred years ago, was plagued by misfortune—disasters both natural and man-made: it was a major failure.

Hiraide, Takashi. The Guest Cat (pp. 19-20). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Quite an interesting excerpt from a fiction book about cats, right?

Amor fati

Let’s talk about Stoic philosophy and fate.

In (Roman) Stoic philosophy (eg. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), fate is under the control of the gods, and neither good or bad. In fact, a Stoic sage would embrace fate as indifferent, no matter if it’s the Nile bringing the flood for a new harvest or Arno bringing flood and destruction.

But of course, under Stoic philosophy, the only true good is the intelligent use of impressions (our thoughts and emotions). Not harvests, health, wealth, family, or anything else really. That’s .. well, not very practical for the rest of us, regular people.

Still, there’s something about amor fati, the loving or embracing of fate, that we can take from Stoic philosophy and apply into our own regular lives.

A common anecdote told in Stoicism, apparently dating to Cleanthes back in Classical/Athenian Stoicism, is that we’re like a dog tied to a cart: we can either walk alongside it, or be dragged by it.

We are the dog, you and I. Or maybe we’re just the dog’s tail being wagged, unable to wag the dog or change the cart’s direction.

So how to embrace this uh.. wagging? Let’s start with something we all claim to do (but really don’t):

Embracing reason.

Wishing the truth to be false

It sounds foolish when put this way, “to wish the truth to be false,” but in fact we do this ALL the time.

Part of it is the myriad biases we have (e.g. confirmation bias), part is our psychology make-up (e.g. ego / id), part is our evolutionary adaptation (or mal-adaptation) (e.g. heuristics), part is how our beliefs work (e.g. stories being more compelling than data, people more compelling than facts).

In short, we humans are bad at wanting what’s true to be actually true. We keep wishing what’s true to be false instead.

We must not forget Feynman’s first principle:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.

Feynman, Richard P. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (p. 343). (Kindle Edition.)

If not fooling ourselves is hard for scientists practicing science, a rather rigorous activity when done correctly, imagine how challenging it is for you and I to not fool ourselves on our day-to-day.

So, the first mantra is easy:

“I embrace what’s true to be true.”

That doesn’t mean you’re happy about it or that you resign yourself to not changing things. This is just about accepting reality and reason.

That’s it. Sounds like a tautology but, because we’re humans, that’s actually rather challenging.

But wishing the truth to be true will get you out of a lot of trouble, help prevent you from fooling yourself, and will be the first step towards embracing fate.. not to mention probably making you slightly happier.

A large part of our frustrations, in fact, just come from us wishing what’s true to not be true, after all. Wishing what is true to not be true is actually almost the precise definition of the word frustration (and of being unreasonable).

But that’s not all for embracing fate. Another part is just having clear values.

Mindless pursuit of stuff

We generally suck at focusing on what really matters.

On one breath we say “My family is the most important thing in my life,” and then we spend all this time on social media. We say we “I value my health,” but treat our health poorly either by eating junk or not exercising.

But by far the most likely misalignment is our fascination with stuff. While “I don’t need much to be happy” and “Happiness is in the simple things” resonate, our actions often say otherwise.

Embracing fate while pursuing stuff is very, very hard. Placing your happiness on an infinite supply of externals will virtually guarantee a constant state of dissatisfaction.

While I don’t know what The Minimalists (Ryan Nicodemus and Josh Fields) are up to now, their 2011 Minimalism book is very good, and talks about values worth pursuing: health, relationships, passions, growth, and contribution.

For all intents and purposes, this is a book of advice. As minimalists, we start with the material possessions, and then, once we’ve cleared the excess, we move beyond the stuff to the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passions, growth, and contribution. These Five Values are the fundaments of living a meaningful life. 

Millburn, Joshua Fields; Nicodemus, Ryan. Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life (pp. 5-6). (Function). Kindle Edition.

For a real Stoic, all these values are indifferent, neither good nor bad, but for regular people like us they are worth pursuing. Focusing on these values can help us get away from the typical hamster wheels of modern life: toxic work environments, consumerism, social media, news, .. and the internet at large.

Now, unlike for a Stoic, a focus on health, relationships, passions, growth, and contribution is still a focus on externals, so you will be frustrated when things don’t go your way. But you’ll be generally less frustrated and lead a happier life out of the hamster wheel of modern life’s hedonic adaptation.

So, the second mantra is:

“I know what’s really valuable for me.”

Be it your family, your passions, your health, whatever it is, clarity of your values will help you handle the sting of the day-to-day things not going your way.

Just like the saying “the only real emergency is a medical emergency,” clarity of values gives us perspective when things go wrong.

So long as your values are clear and protected, your life is going well.

Do your thing

We focused mostly on fortuna (fate) and I didn’t talk about virtú (competence), but this mindset and these mantras will help us embrace fate and focus on what matters: our actions.

”I embrace what’s true to be true” helps us avoid fooling ourselves. It’s not about not wanting to change things, but about accepting that current reality is, well, real.

”I know what’s really valuable for me” helps us gain perspective when things don’t go our way. While we’re involved in many things, only a few core things like family, health, and so on are things we really value.

Armed with these two mantras, we can focus on what is under our control, our actions, while embracing that fate will do what it does.

So here’s a last mantra for focusing on virtú:

“Do your thing, and let fate be fate.”

This puts the locus of control back where it belongs: in you.

The way to change reality is through your actions, so while it seems intuitive that you’re changing reality directly, in practice you’re only changing your actions, and then fate continues running, now in a slightly different direction given how you just acted.

This mindset change is that of wanting the fruits of the tree by sowing: You act by planting the seed, and then fate takes care of growing (or not) a beautiful tree. That’s quite a metaphor for life.

So remember the planting seeds metaphor when thinking about virtú and fortuna and, when you find yourself anxious about how things will turn out, remember:

Do your thing, ..

.. and let fate be fate.