Descending into the Wieliczka Salt Mine, I am enveloped by cold walls and salt-heavy air. Diffuse light blurs my vision deep within the earth. Disoriented, I wonder: was it fate that led me here?
In the darkness, echoes of pickaxes and the pulse of seven centuries of miners linger throughout the caverns—pulling me into the past, shaping not just salt, but a legacy of strength and artistry.
Though the mine is now quiet, the struggle and spirit of its miners remain—needed far beyond these walls: strength when challenges seem insurmountable; artistry when life demands beauty from hardship.
Guided by their memory, I descend further into the underground—sweat stinging my eyes, tasting the very mineral harvested: bitter, preserving, eternal.
Philosophers would recognize this descent into shadow—striking against resistance to unearth truth that slices rather than soothes.
Perhaps the miner and the thinker are kin? Both pursue truth beneath surfaces, each digging for the elemental. What is philosophy if not mining? I glance at my modern, soft hands, and the ancient artwork lining the walls seems to chuckle in reply.
Back above ground, laughter breaks the spell. Eyes on me—motionless, I stare into my cup of coffee.
Emptiness reflected back—a twinge of sadness with the last swig. Once it’s gone, I am left with emptiness, embarrassed by the thought… has the best part of my day already vanished?
Ahead of me, reality. Where is the pressure, the struggle—the discomfort to ignite my spirit?
“Another coffee, you poor boy?” My muse feigns concern, catching my mood instantly. Her laughter is as quick as her wit. The weight of the miner’s life crosses her mind as well.
Tracing her finger around her cup as she reflects on the trivialities of modern life, she turns and looks out onto Rynek Glówny—the main market square in Old Town Kraków—and absorbs the scene.
It’s beautiful. The people are beautiful. Compared to our ancestors, we have it so good. Above ground, discomfort is fleeting; below, it shaped destinies.
And here I am, stuck in another moment in time where life swings us one way and then another… making it challenging to determine just where the modern soul should swing the pickaxe next.
The occasional feeling of bliss is an ecstasy that lasts mere seconds before another crisis takes its place.
And we do what we’ve always done: roll the boulder up the hill, watch it roll back down, over and over again within this hazy state of mind… a state which keeps the soul quiet, locked away.
Without passion, there can be no joy; and without joy, happiness is only illusion.
Emerging from shadows, the mine offers no illusions—no riches await the miners at the tunnel’s end. No great honor to sanctify the aching shoulders, only work, stone, salt, breath. Yet it’s within this very bareness I find the greatest inspiration.
Nietzsche wrote of amor fati, the love of one’s fate:
“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 . . . but love it.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is, written in 1888
Like Nietzsche’s ideal, the miner loves fate through sweat and necessity.
It’s the words, whispers felt throughout these caverns—ones the miner enacts with every descent: to welcome what cannot be escaped, to taste the sharp salt crystals of necessity and labor and say, yes, this is life.
Accept life precisely as it is, the sting of salt on their lips… and loving it all for precisely that reason.
Above ground, we create the deception that suffering can be avoided, failing to recognize that such pain is never wasted. It is the crucible in which character and purpose are forged.
Difficulty is an art—balanced between setback and progress, a dance of limitations and the will to overcome.
For the miners, comfort was not a right, but a reward earned by endurance. Suffering was not an aberration—it was the backdrop against which meaning took shape.
Meaning kept them searching. Always seeking the next thing, they lived vertically, plunging into depths… transforming hardship into beauty.
Above ground, I stretch my legs and get comfortable, taking in the beauty around me.
Here, the air is open and fluid—the scents of autumn carry across the market. Laughter from children matches the ease of conversations around me. I smile.
“It’s funny, up here, life unfolds horizontally,” I say. “People running around, holding loved ones, arguing politics—the freedom to move…” I pause. This horizontal world stands in stark contrast to the underground world of the mine, where I strangely felt at home.
She glances at me and adds, “We are surrounded by everything we need, but it feels fragile—a sense of happiness that lacks the depth of joy. Life’s disruptions shake the illusion, keeping us from noticing just how fragile the ground beneath us has become.”
The rhythm of life is fast up here, scattered across distractions and desires—pulled outward by sunlight, technology, and noise.
I fiddle with a piece of salt I picked up at the mine, and she teases, “Still thinking of the mines, I see.”
She sits up, looks me square in the eyes, and says, “Down there, I’d last ten minutes before declaring myself a delicate surface dweller and requesting a spa. No modern soul is meant for such a life…”
Admiring her wit, I reply, “Above ground, distress is an inconvenience—you’re unhappy if your coffee’s lukewarm… below, it was existence itself.”
I lean forward. “Below, suffering was the spark for meaning—and sometimes elation.” I pause, turning the salt in my hand. “Maybe what we really lack is the courage to descend, to carve something beautiful from our own depths… even if it means breaking a sweat.”
I pass her the rough piece of salt—a tangible reminder of what beauty can be carved from below.
She raises an eyebrow. “You say ‘sweat’ like it’s poetic…” and while playing with the salt, she adds with a smile, “But I do understand, in the modern world we often forget that true insight must be paid for—in effort, in experience, in soul.”
We sit with empty coffee cups, and she is lost in thought.
A light breeze sweeps in, and the glimmer in her eyes matches her words, “The miner’s world was smaller, fiercer…but it was real. They could not escape their hardship, so they made something holy from it. It’s admirable, and such drive is missing these days…”
I nod in agreement and wonder. “Have we lost this gift? The creative defiance the miners held?” Defiance, spoken so clearly in the miners’ artwork that captivates us.
Above, a rich patch of blue sky opens up and my favorite Czech phrase floats in my mind: ‘Modré z nebe’—literally, endless blue from the sky; an ocean of possibilities and dreams—but not for those below…
Our minds drift below, to centuries of families who never had this opportunity.
There’s no such view below, only the weight of destiny. The miner’s blue sky is the glimmer of resolve. A life embodying the myth of Sisyphus: the eternal burden—each dawn, the body returns to sink into the depths and confront what lies ahead.
Yet, there is beauty to be found here. Where some see futility, there is, in reality, raw, honest strength. There’s no resignation, no defiance, but affirmation—returning again and again—saying a quiet “Yes” to meaning.
True brilliance shines when one accepts their lot and pursues it with resolve.
Deep below the surface, miners could not escape their world’s darkness; thus, they took it upon themselves to make that darkness luminous.
Across 250 kilometers of hand-carved passages, they created chambers of wonder—none more magnificent than St. Kinga’s Chapel… I could spend a year here and never capture its full beauty.
Carved entirely from salt by generations of miners, it gleams like a hymn to this truth: when life gives no light, the soul must learn to carve its own.
I stand under a chandelier, delicately constructed by the very salt that stung their lives. Resting my hand against the wet, salty wall, I’m transported back in time—voices of laughter, along salt-polished floors, resonate; the grueling work passed from father to son became a form of artistry.
I reflect on how salt was Poland’s ‘white gold,’ yet miners earned little. Wrapped in belief and faith, they created richness through the artistry of calloused hands: cathedrals, sculptures, and carvings to bring an air of sacredness to fill their underground home.
Where despair would be expected, they built hope.
And salt itself—a fitting companion. It burns in wounds, yet it preserves flesh from decay. It’s harsh, and yet it brings forth savor. So too with existence: it cuts and it heals.
Nietzsche sought precisely this paradox—life’s bitterness as its sustenance, its sting as it brings forth the wonder of flavor. The miner lived this paradox.
The darkness. The sweat. The taste of salt on the lips, the ancient echoes vibrating as a pick pounds stone, accentuate my aches. My existence, human existence, is distilled down to the elemental here.
Life’s naked essence is all around me. Beyond illusions of comfort, I recognize the difficult miner’s life is no different from any other: the burden of necessity, along with raw hope, is what we have to achieve meaning in life.
Joy is revolutionary for its refusal to surrender humanity, for even in darkness, ancient echoes of laughter can be heard—and this is where meaning is borne.
The greatest moments I’ve experienced in life came through times of misery. There’s always the option to quit in defeat and return home to comfort… but inside, I know I can stretch myself further and create something of my own. Determine my own fate.
I leave my empty coffee cup on the table—a feeble effort towards amor fati.
Embrace life precisely as it is. Love it. Live it. “Can it really be so easy?” I laugh at the contradiction in my own words.
Adversity is a source of strength and creativity. Joy and suffering are deeply intertwined; if you embrace and love what you do, the friction becomes the fire, the inspiration behind finding meaning.
It’s about finding something to lift your spirit to a higher realm. Viktor Frankl says it well:
“Even in suffering, man can find meaning if he faces it with dignity.”
– Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946
The people I grew up admiring had this in spades, and their success was built upon this very foundation. Difficulties were the catalysts for growth.
There is an intimate relationship between strife and growth… between terror and triumph. Historically, great men and women were born of this central understanding: accepting the challenge and creating something special.
If suffering is viewed merely as a negative, the most important realization is missed, as Nietzsche often said:
“… the path to one’s own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one’s own hell”
– Nietzsche, The Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), 1882
Such friction is intrinsic to human success.
The surest way to become strong is to have no other choice but to be strong.
Refusing to face challenges is a refusal to be tested; to awaken inner strength. As absurd as it sounds, relish the journey through your own hell’s voluptuousness; in doing so, you honor yourself, humanity, and life itself.
Joy and Suffering—brothers and sisters, Yin and Yang—two cosmic rhythms that bind us all and create a meaningful life.
The essence of Amor fati—entrenched in my core, to take what fate has laid at my feet, and love every moment of this incredible life.
Each dawn I descend;
– Randall Collis, October 2025
each twilight I return—
not redeemed, not defeated,
but affirming the depths below:
Life tastes of salt,
and is worthy.
for my Wieliczka friends, Rafał and Joana
and Sidonia with her strong spirit of a miner
In every particle of salt, in every echo of hardship, meaning is carved—it burns in wounds, yet it preserves flesh from decay. And with this, we choose not only to endure fate, but to love it.
Global Sojourns: Photography & Philosophy 
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