DE Weekly: The Hurt Locker, Cereal, & the Burden of Choice
Jean-Paul Sartre made famous the Existentialist idea that, as humans, we are “condemned to be free.” By this, he meant that we did not choose to be alive, but once alive, we are responsible for the choices we make. Even not choosing to choose is a choice.
This level of absolute personal responsibility––what Sartre called our radical freedom––often leads us to anguish and dread. The overwhelming weight of being the one responsible for your choices is terrifying, on some level; in the end, we are the one true author of our life.
DE Weekly: Camus, Absurdism, & A Happy Death
When one thinks of existentialism, one of the first authors to come to mind is likely to be Albert Camus. Two of his works in particular––his novel The Stranger and his book-length essay The Myth of Sisyphus––are undoubtedly his best known works. However, there is another novel of his I’ll be writing about today: A Happy Death.
A Happy Death is, in many ways, the classic Camus novel. Replete with beautifully written, endlessly quotable passages, wondrous highs and desperate lows, it is an enjoyable read, like many of his books.
DE Weekly: Time, Urgency, & the New Year
I sat down to think about what I wanted to write to kick off a new year, and it hit me: what a perfect opportunity to write about the new year itself. New years, new beginnings, new starts, new anythings all represent the core tenets of existentialism well.
When the new year approaches and the calendar finally turns, we tend to mull over the year that was and the year that will be. We ask ourselves, “How do I turn my ideas into actions, my freedom into good choices into meaning?”
DE Weekly: Meaning, Ex Nihilo, & the Chasm of Existence
For those not entirely familiar with existentialism, a pervasive mistake that can be made is to conflate the philosophy with nihilism, and to associate the beliefs of one with the other. In fact, even if you do have a solid understanding of existential philosophy, the two can sometimes bleed into one another.
The reason I like to differentiate between the two and really hammer home the fact that existentialism is not nihilist in its underlying beliefs is that I really do not have patience for nihilists and nihilism in general.
DE Weekly: Camus, Animals, & Human Nature
Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel, “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” This quote has stuck in my mind recently, and I’ve thought quite a bit about its meaning and everything it entails.
Camus believed humans are unique among all the creatures of the Earth, not in the least for our self-awareness of our own existence. He argued that this self-awareness, however, leads us to reject our fundamental nature.
DE Weekly: Amor Fati, Nietzsche, & Sisyphus
Although existentialism didn’t roll around to officially cement itself as a bona fide philosophy until the twentieth century, earlier philosophies explored proto-existentialist ideas and laid the foundation upon which it would one day sprout from.
One philosophy that has quite a bit in common with existentialism, at least insofar as it seeks to answer many of the same questions, is the ancient philosophy of Stoicism.
DE Weekly: Life, Death, & Certainty
“Life and death are two sides of a coin. But which of the two is more certain?” The answer to that question, as we know, is death.
That question came from Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. I included some quotes of his from his appearance on an episode of the Lex Fridman Podcast in my newsletter a few weeks ago, and there’s some more insight from Modi I’d like to include this week, too.
DE Weekly: Vitalism, Nietzsche, & God
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?”
This quote from Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1882 book The Gay Science is one of his most famous.
DE Weekly: Vervaeke, Van Gogh, & The Meaning Crisis
Of all the ways I’ve seen existentialism explained, one of my favorites remains the following: existentialism is a profound symptom of the human condition.
Here’s how I interpret this: while existentialism is a bona fide philosophy in its own right, it’s also something innate to human beings, as innate as our consciousness and sense of self, perhaps born of the two.
DE Weekly: Bukowski, Sisyphus, & the Human Condition
It’s difficult to wake up every day and be grateful for what you have. It’s difficult to remain in the present moment and remind yourself how good you have things. I’m guilty of this myself, usually when I’m in the middle of some necessary drudgery, like running certain errands or–God forbid–when I find myself somewhere as unholy as the DMV.