Existentialism (MOC)
📓Notes
What is the meaning of life? Is it destined or whether Meaning is Crafted? Is there a right or wrong to choosing a meaning or are we the final and only judges of that? These are the questions related to existentialism.
The Desire for Meaning
It is claimed that within each of us there is a source, a power, a drive to do something, to be someone, to find some meaning in our lives. Whether it is a Will to Power , a desire to increase our control onto the world, or a Will to life , a desire to spread and support life. Either way, we have a clear desire for transcendence , to escape our Objectivity , to not be considered an item, an object in the world, but rather a thinking living being with a purpose, the strive for an ideal, a sense of Subjectivity.
Does Meaning Exists?
It is not even clear that we have meaning to our lives, surly not one predestined for us, and not even a cultivated one. Since we are finite being destined to experience pain and death, could there even be meaning? perhaps the desire for meaning is nothing more than trying to escape the Absurdity of existence, a futile attempt, a man made illusion to escape nature's true. Same can be said for values, which brings Nihilism . We will never be complete, so any attempt to find meaning, even if we find it, will not lead us to the final developed self, there will always be new meanings, new challenges, and new ways to grow.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that in the search for meaning we often give up. Either lost in the infinite or lost in the finite, we use excuses and shallow alternatives to meaning, replacing values with fakes. And even when we focus on doing something, it is usually a form of detachment, of pursuing Negative freedom rather than Positive freedom
Cultivate Meaning
How one finds or cultivates their Life's Mission? what brings us happiness (Happiness is to be virtuous) ? It seems that crafting meaning is something that is hard to do rationally, mainly because arguments for and against each mission can be easily found, and hardly determined which is the right path for us, even retroactively it is difficult to tell. Perhaps we all need a Leap Into Faith , to believe without reason, without question in our meaning in order to be able to pursue it.
Although, some would say that it is precisely our force of reason that can help us transcend life's challenges and continue on our course. Stoicism is such an ideology, that claims that one should detach from all expectations and illusions we might implement on ourselves, to live according to nature, rid ourselves of false perceptions and see reality clearly, and this clarity would bring forth our mission, we would see what is within our power to control, and what drives us.
Meaning can be added into everything we do, even in our work we can craft meaning (job crafting ). We must act in such a way that we are satisfied with our life's course, to accept the good and the bad, to such a level that we would embrace repeating it to infinity (Amor Fati ), even those who experience obstacles and hardships are able to find meaning to their experiences
Small tips and reminders on your search for meaning:
- boredom is a signal that shows us what is our passion and give us time to think
- Only authenticity can bring forth our personal mission, without caving to the culture we are in.
- quality beats quantity every time (Slowing down )
- Life's meaning is not about you, is about what you bring to the world, to others
📧Sources
Philosophers
Ralph waldo Emerson (philosopher) Simone de Beauvoir (philosopher) Soren Kierkegaard (philosopher) Jean-Paul Sartre (philosopher) Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher) Arthur Schopenhauer (philosopher) Isaiah Berlin (philosopher)
Books
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (book) On the Shortness of Life (book) Man's Search For Meaning (book) Ethics of ambiguity (book) Beyond Good and Evil (book) Freedom and Circumstance (book) The Second Mountain (book) The Art of Being (book) Tao Te Ching (book) A Significant Life (book)