Existentialism!

Woo Hoo!

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Soren Kierkegaard describes being inauthentic as, “a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own ame, dares not to believe in himself, finds being himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like others”. In this, Kierkegaard is expressing those who try not to be themselves are the ones who are living inathentically. The ones who run away from their true selves. Being oneself is harder then just going with the crowd and following what others say. One way we trick ourselves into thinking we’re being authentic is by telling ourselves that we have to go along with the group, when we actually don’t. There is always someone willing to tell you what to do. It is important to have your own personal ideas. That is what living an authentic life is all about. Authenticity focuses on an individuals values and morals.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Another key idea existentialists discuss is the idea of authenticity. The common existential definition of authenticity is honesty. Being honest with yourself, about the kind of being that you are, and then actually living like that kind of being. The other hand, being inauthentic is the source of despair. Despair is not the same as depression. Despair is, according to existential ideas, sickness of the spirit and self. Simone de Beauvior and Jean-Paul Sartre use the phrase “Bad Faith” as a synonym for inauthenticity.

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Another way we cope with death is by organizing and having daily routines. Our schedules distract us from what is really, always there; our lives are limited. We are trying to flee the personal and subjective nature of time. Mortality means that one day, we’ll lose everything we’ve ever had and valued. It also means that our death is the reason why we place value on things in the first place. Without having an end to our lives, we wouldn’t have strong feelings about certain things because we wouldn’t lose it in the end. Because we have to cross the finish line, the trophy is that much more valuable.

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Honestly facing mortality is difficult and many existentialists believe that humans have come up with many different ways to avoid thinking about and to cope with their own death. First, we surround ourselves with images of death. One of the most popular movie genres is Horror, where they have movies filled with gruesome violence and gore. It is thought that surrounding ourselves with death offers people the opportunity for catharsis. It helps ease the idea of death and mortality if we see others going through it. Obviously, this sounds very morbid.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

The quote from one of my favorite movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, further expresses how important our lives are and they go by quickly. We should use our time wisely and live our lives to our own account because our lives are limited. I love this quote because it is expressing how we really need to value our time and make sure we are living in the present as opposed to worrying about the future or the past. I, personally, feel as though I spend a lot of my time worrying about what's going to happen in the future, especially with applying to college and all that. This quote resonates in that it's telling the audience to live in the “now” because all of a sudden, these moments are going to be gone. I am learning to appreciate everything in the present and trying not to focus too much on what is going to happen later on. I only have a short period of time to live my life and I want to ensure I don’t spend all of my time in the past or in the future and miss what I have right now.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Martin Heidegger believed that people should embrace their mortality. He said, “If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety and the pettiness of life - and only then I will be free to become myself”. In other words, Heidegger is saying that we should understand how valuable our time truly is and how by acknowledging it for what it is will free us to live our lives with deeper meaning. We need to be able to fully recognize the importance of time and how it dictates our lives. Time is limited, so we need to make the most of it. We can appreciate ou lives more by understanding our time is only a certain amount and it will eventtually end.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Soren Kierkegaard says in one of his essays, “the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die’’. This discusses that the things we are doing right now, are the things that we are willing to die for. He talks about how what we are doing in the present is so important because of how limited our time is. His ideas stressed the seriousness of our lives and how we should keep in mind that everything we do is bringing us closer to our death.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

The other thing that humans are anxious about is mortality. We are the only species that is aware of its death and it freaks us out. Time is intimately bound to our human experience in that, time is what guides our experiences and out lives. We all have a beginning and an end, and time is what conduct this period. Existential philoshiophers emphasize the importance of time and how we only have a limited amount of it, because our lives ultimately end in death.

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Albert Camus uses the Myth of Sisyphus to explain huans lives. A routine, where we do the same things over and over each day. Camus says in the end of his essay, “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a mans heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”. Sisyphus, though has to roll the boulder up the hill for eternity, has freedom. He has the freedom to choose what the boulder means to him. The gods can’t choose what the boulder means to him. Similar to humans, we have the freedom to change our attitudes about our mundane lives. We are always trying to reach for the meaning of our lives, but like Sisyphus, we can’t reach it. That doesn’t mean we should have negative attitudes about our lives. We are able to decide what our lives mean to us.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard explains that “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom”. He is describing a persons freedom being so broad that when one looks into their own freedom, its like looking into an abyss and it makes them dizzy. Our freedom in is infinite and when we come to terms with the infinite possibilities, it can make us dizzy. At any moment, we can do anything. There is an infinite number of choices we can make. When we make a choice, many times, we don’t know what is right and what is wrong. This idea is daunting because we don’t really realize how much freedom we actually have until you really think about it. For example, when you’re sit in in the cafeteria eating lunch at school, you have lot of choices. You can sit, and talk with your friends. You can continue to eat. You can do your homework that you forgot about. These are probably the most common things one would think of. However, you have to power to get up on the lunch table and start singing. Or you can run around the cafeteria screaming. There are more choices then we can even think of right now.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

Something that most existential philosophers agreed on is that we, humans, are always anxious. One major source of our anxiety is our freedom. We are the only species that knows we are free and our lives are contingent. We know that we are alive and free, so we can make our own conscious decisions. This freedom is both liberating and terrifying. We are able to shape our own lives through our free choice, but making choices is unavoidable. In every moment of our lives, we are making decisions. Whether they’re big or small, we are always choosing, and these choices will affect us; some more then others.

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Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, French existential thinkers, believed that for Humans, “existence is prior to essence”. In other words, humans exist first and then they are defined by what the become later. They argued that humans are not controlled by their biologial backgrounds and their environment, but rather what they choose to do with their lives. Humans have freedom to make decisions that help make them, them. Humans are like balls of unmolded clay when they first exist. Then, their choices help mold and shape them into who they are and who they become.

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With the weirdness of the world, we are tempted to see things ordinary and normal. This temptations takes us always form the reality of the obscurity of the world. We see the world as something wonderful and beautiful, even fullfilling, but we forget how strange everything really is. Our own versions of our wonderful world blinds us from the everyday oddities.

[helenpetersonphilosophy]

In existentialism, one of the main ideas describes the world as a much stranger place than people are willing to admit to themselves. Jean-Paul Sartre explains that the world is far weirder and more uncanny than we admit and there are moments when the logic that usually puts things together, in order for it to make sense, isn’t there. For example, the idea of Santa Claus. One must think about it literally for what it is. A fat intruder, in a red suit (of all colors), flying from house to house all around the planet on only one night each year. He rides in a sleigh that is pulled through the sky by nine deer, one of which has an illuminated nose. He enters each house through the chimney, and leaves mystery items under a chopped down tree that is covered in glass balls and tiny lights. The unsuspecting boxes sit until they are torn and ripped open by young children. The reality of the obese trespasser emerging from the fireplace is much more obsecure then we primarily think.