EXISTENTIALISM
Existentialism refers to a set of ideas about human existence. The philosophy
maintains that the individual has the sole responsibility for giving one's own life
meaning and with living life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many
obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, choice, boredom,
and death.
Existentialism is the philosophy that places emphasis on individual existence,
freedom and choice. Existentialism stresses the individuality of existence, and
the problems that arise with said existence. The term itself suggests one major
theme, the stress on concrete, individual existence, and on subjectivity,
individual freedom and choice.
In general, existentialism has been described as a set of ideas to categorise
human existence, a philosophy that emphasises the uniqueness and isolation of
the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human
existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility
for the consequences of one's acts.
Some of the core concepts embraced by the existential philosophy are:
● We exist in a hostile and indifferent universe.
● As a consequence, we find it difficult to connect meaningfully with others.
● We desire some kind of focus/meaning/purpose in life and attempt to
discover what that is.
● We have the power of individual choice and freedom, yet we are
confounded in our attempts to use this as we lack direction and meaning:
“man is condemned to be free” [Sartre].
● We have lost our relationship with God – we are out of touch with our
spiritual core: “God is Dead” [Nietszche]
● The world seems chaotic and we spend much of our time trying to make it
mean something.
● We spend our time randomly finding things to do that don’t really amount
to much.
● Time becomes a relative concept.