It only works if you work it. I am not. I try, but only sometimes. Other times I decide I can't live

[GreenPartyVoter]

with the tension and climb back into my hamster wheel running from eating to trying to fix it to eating to trying to fix it, and telling myself outrageous lies to justify it all. I’m sick and tired but not enough, apparently. It’s hard to admit you are powerless if you insist your crazy schemes will somehow work out _this_ time. Or that you “got away with it,” meaning maybe you didn’t get caught, lose your job or a relationship or your health, or gain weight. Or that you can go halfway. Kinda sorta work it, but on your terms, eg I still get to eat what, how, and when I want to. And why I want to. That’s the most important W here. What gets me is that I have known this stuff for almost 35 years. Still not turning it over for keeps. Still waiting to be willing instead of wanting to be willing. Still on an express train to a very dark place, and I keep buying the tickets to stay on it.

Thanks for letting me get that out. Tomorrow is a new day, again.

[Newest Reality]

1. Amor Fati

Amor fati (lit. "love of fate&quot is a Latin phrase that may be translated as "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is 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.[1]

Amor fati is often associated with what Friedrich Nietzsche called "eternal recurrence", the idea that, over an infinite period of time, everything recurs infinitely. From this he developed a desire to be willing to live exactly the same life over and over for all eternity ("...long for nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal”).[2]

The concept of amor fati has been linked to Epictetus.[3] It has also been linked to the writings of Marcus Aurelius,[4] who did not use the words (he wrote in Greek, not Latin).[5] However, it found its most explicit expression in Nietzsche, who made love of fate central to his philosophy. In "Why I Am So Clever" Ecce Homo, section 10, he writes:[6]

"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—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it."

The phrase is used elsewhere in Nietzsche's writings and is representative of the general outlook on life that he articulates in section 276 of The Gay Science:

"I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who makes things beautiful. 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: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer."

Nietzsche in this context refers to the "Yes-sayer", not in a political or social sense, but as a person who is capable of uncompromising acceptance of reality per se.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_fati

[KT2000]

2. I don't know the issue

or substance but what you said is familiar to me. Smoking and trying so many times to quit but the tension drove me nuts. Then, I was informed there is a good possibility I would lose my leg - the driving leg. Nothing would help if I continued to smoke. I will wear the patches for the rest of my life but no more smokes. Not perfect but it works. Everyone needs an assist.

A couple friends are going through the benzo withdrawal with no assist other than facebook support groups. It is a struggle.

[KT2000]

3. Here you go -