What Existentialism Is And How It Can Help You

What is existentialism

This is a philosophical trend, which is based on the idea that people live in an incomprehensible universe, are doomed to constantly make a choice and be responsible for it. And they do not know what is right and what is wrong.

One of the first existentialists was the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard back in the 19th century. However, the real trend took shape in the first half of the 20th century. Two world wars, a crisis of traditions, the inability of existing theories to explain what was happening and the loss of faith in progress made the critical ideas of Nikolai Berdyaev, Karl Jaspers, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre popular. The last two existentialists even won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Both received recognition for their artistic creations, which were inextricably linked to the philosophy of existentialism.

Existentialism has become a significant phenomenon in Western culture. This philosophy strongly influenced the work of artists Alberto Giacometti and Jackson Pollock, as well as filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman. This concept still plays a significant role in the intellectual world.

What Existentialism Can Teach Modern Man

Although the direction has been around for many years, some ideas are still relevant today.

1. Continue to seek the meaning of life, even though the world is absurd

Existentialists came to the conclusion that the vast universe has no purpose, logic and meaning. A person has to create himself on his own in a world that is indifferent to him, where no one owes anything to anyone. Therefore, people are lonely, and even communication cannot get rid of this feeling. For the existentialists, being has become absurd.

So, Albert Camus compared A. Camus. The myth of Sisyphus. A rebellious human existence with the labor of the mythical king Sisyphus. The gods punished the ruler and doomed him to forever drag a huge stone up the mountain, from which he falls all the time, almost reaching the top.

People, like Sisyphus, are doomed to seek the meaning of life and not find it. Therefore, they can feel a sense of anxiety, abandonment and purposelessness of their stay - to experience the so-called existential crisis.

However, the absurdity of the world does not mean that one should stop looking for the meaning of life. Because without this search, according to the existentialists, it is impossible to live fully. If a person stops asking himself why he exists, being will begin to weigh him more and more, and he himself will plunge into an existential crisis.

2. Take responsibility for your choice

Existentialists assume that existence is in no way predetermined, and there is no universal path. Each individual chooses his own path, creates, or invents himself every day. In this sense, we are unique and do not resemble either animals or inanimate objects.

But freedom in existentialism is not a gift, but a heavy burden. She constantly demands to make a choice. According to Zh-P. Sartre. Being and nothing to Sartre, a person is “doomed to freedom”, since he must either be himself or constantly adapt to the environment.

And you must be responsible for any choice.

3. Be yourself

Sartre argued that only "the one who makes values exist so that they determine his actions" can be considered a person. Therefore, for existentialists, following duty and acting according to their real ideas and ideals are not the same thing.

For example, a truly free person will get up on an alarm clock not because of work, but because he himself decided to wake up at six in the morning, be responsible and go to the office every day.

Existentialists consider moral norms to be artificial, conditional, and sometimes completely false. Of course, this does not mean that you can do whatever you want, such as stealing or killing. The main thing is to soberly assess your own ideals and rules imposed by society and the world. So you can understand what you are really striving for and what is really important to you. This will help you to stop worrying and get rid of the loss of profits syndrome.

4. Remember that not only gender and appearance characterize a person

According to existentialists, we can and should pay more attention to the spiritual than to the material. After all, nationality, gender, skin color and class do not determine a person. This is just an interpretation of his image. Therefore, existentialists recommend abstracting from your "I" and from the world around you in order to look at yourself and others through the eyes of an impartial observer. This is the only way to see people as real.

5. Think critically

Existentialists doubted practically everything: morality, the cognizability of the world and man, the existence of higher powers. Of course, it is not necessary to repeat after philosophers, but the ability to think critically in an era when it is very difficult to distinguish truth from lies is extremely valuable.