Nietzsche spoke of “Amor fati” – the love of reality for itself. While I have many questions about the cogency of Nietzsche’s position, I find his concept rich. For me, coming to appreciate the value of the present-tense, with its sorrow or its joy, with its pleasure or its pain, is on some level, the highest act of worship. With the term “worship”, I am suggesting appreciation for the possibility of the Ultimate. The apparent fact of my existence is reason enough to consider the possibility of the Ultimate. The possibility of the Ultimate is reason enough to consider the necessity of worship.
Worship is cogent, perhaps necessary, whether the Ultimate exists (for me) or not. For in the absence of the Ultimate, worship becomes (at least) the foundation of gratitude. And gratitude is the foundation of well-being. I have never met a depressed person (and I know there are often legitimate reasons for depression) that was properly grateful. I somehow intuit that gratitude is an essential condition. Much of what is good in the human experience, even mercy, flows from this special state. And more, it may be gratitude, and only gratitude, that can preserve our sanity in the midst of horror.
