Just in time for Christmas, there was a snow storm a few days ago. Despite the propitious timing many people were no doubt looking askance at the weather, with some combination of disgust and annoyance. Around midday, it was snowing quite heavily, and I was preparing to go shopping. I was talking on the phone with my girlfriend, and she teased me about how I was probably looking forward to going out into the snow. Admittedly, I didn’t have to drive or work outside — I was simply walking to my various destinations. It was true though that I was relishing the prospect of venturing out into the storm.

Nietzsche proposed the concept of amor fati, a love of fate on the scale of a human life. This disposition is not a matter of mere acceptance but affirmation of one’s fate. The name amor fati itself implies affection. Not mere resilience in the face of hardship, it is an attitude of positive volition for these things to happen. Indeed, true amor fati is an embrace of your life’s choices and events with such whole-hearted conviction that you would be willing to have them repeated endlessly, in the cycle of eternal recurrence.

There is an old saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. The proper clothing and equipment allow you to exist and work comfortably and effectively in all types of weather. Weather that would be considered ‘bad’ is simply more challenging. This, however, is an ad hoc approach in which you prepare for and adapt to conditions as they present themselves. As a more modest analogue to amor fati, there can be amor tempestatis, a love of the weather. Here, you positively embrace all forms of weather, including ‘bad’ weather, and will for them to happen.

The storm is an especially compelling case. Frightening and difficult, it is also beautiful and immersive. It showcases the powers of nature and allows you to feel their force. There is also something paradoxically calming about entering a storm. A certain layer of resistance to it has been shed as you give yourself over to it. The danger of being of sucked into it involuntarily has disappeared. You are forced to focus on the moment, your surroundings, and the priority task at hand. The storm offers a narrative that can give you a coherent direction in that moment, and there is happiness that comes from endorsing that. Amor tempestate.