What Fools We Mortals Be

This book is a meditation on folly with a running commentary on Nietzsche; as such, it is a rethinking of amor fati, his love of fate. Its premise is that life justifies life—if we only learn to listen to its voice. It is also a rethinking of Nietzsche’s will to power but framed in terms less sinister and less open to misinterpretation. Yet, like the will to power, this book is intended as an answer to nihilism and to the general discontent with life that now expresses itself in what can only be described as self‑destructive politics. And who is to say—perhaps an understanding of nihilism gives us some power over it.

Folly is the thread that ties the book together, but the inquiry ranges across culture and the philosophical traditions on which cultures are built. It is written for those who struggle to make sense of it all. A reader of this book is unlikely to walk away believing that the world he inhabits is wonderful, but if he accepts its message at all, he may come to appreciate how wondrous life is if only something is made of it.