A sense of tragedy

Nietzsche juxtaposed the capacity to view life in tragic terms against Tolstoyian pity.   To view life in terms of what it is, which is to say to view it as oftentimes violent, generally arbitrary, wild and hair-raising and difficult, is respectful to the participants in life.  Such a perspective allows them to view themselves as heros rather than as victims.   The constrasting attitude does not even permit the possibility that anybody could be anything other than broken up by life.   There is no learning from disaster.  There is no transcendence or value placed on innovation during an emergency.  Instead, life is viewed as having fallen short of some impossible level of perfection.

But this second approach is very negative, because it is akin to throwing a tantrum just because all things were not perfect.  It's an infantile reaction that doesn't want to learn from life's imperfections, or to see anything glorious or pleasing in events that didn't work out all that well. It shows a lack of mental capacity, in that one reveals an inability to focus on perplexing matters in a prolonged way.  One turns one's head away from life and shrugs when one offers, instead of one's grasp of the situation, one's pity.

Christianity offers its pity, but not its understanding. A mature attitude to life requires more than this.