Blink:

Recently I experienced a surreal happenstance which reminded me of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s exploration of the concept of “Amor Fati’ – a Latin phrase for “love of fate.” When I examine fate, I realized it has been an essential part of my personal journey.

Read On:

Nietzsche’s philosophy re: fate was about the big picture (a.k.a.“life”). It has been a chain of events (my personal “Amor Fati” narrative) which has me living in Cannes and placed me in position to experience the surreal happenstance. Happenstance is a chance situation, especially a coincidence producing a positive result. I am a very restless/active person. Based on my history, happenstances occur frequently when I go out into the world, thus is a smaller sub-component of the big picture “Amor Fati.”

A great story!! I live in a neighborhood east of Centre Ville Cannes. Several times a week I travel across the city to a great coffee brunch restaurant Café Crème located in the Canopy Hilton for my flat whites. I have my own favorite barista who occasionally charges me. Last week I walked in the front door, a guy stood up and greeted me “Jim Matorin!” I absolutely had no clue who he was. Then he identified himself. He was a former friend, business associate at the Quaker Oats Company. We had not seen or kept in touch with each for thirty years, thus my senior moment not recognizing him. He and his wife were passing through Cannes staying at the hotel to go to some local museums for the day, as they were driving from Italy to Barcelona on holiday. As a marketing geek, all I could think about was what were the probabilies of this happenstance? I thought I was just heading out for my regular cups of flat whites. We ended up having a memorable dinner/evening, caught up and planned to pick up where we left off thirty years ago.

Epilogue:

1. One topic we explored at dinner was how some people have come into our life for a reason – “Amor Fati.”
2. My friend is Mac Brand. Click on his LI profile to learn what he has accomplished the last thirty years which includes getting two books published: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mac-brand-8ab6599/