The Existentialism Thread

[Manly Blissey]

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

—Friedrich Nietzche

The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposite. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is secure enough, fixed enough for it.

—Friedrich Nietzche

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

—Umberto Eco

These are all quotes the revolve around the ideology of existentialism. What is existentialism? Simply, it's the attempt to understand ideas that are logically unattainable. Many topics are existential and discussed as such, including the meaning of life and what awaits us in the afterlife.

Have you ever been lying in bed when all sorts of obscure thoughts are brewing in your mind, but you're unsure of how to interpret them? For example, you think of all the possible things that could happen after your life on Earth—your body, your mind, your soul. What becomes of them? Well, you may have just had an existential thought process.

Here, we can freely discuss any sort of thoughts or ideas we've had about anything outlandish, ambiguous, or simply out of the ordinary.

 

[Buchou]

We discussed this a bit my Senior year of high school in AP Literature and Composition. We read both Hamlet (concerning the struggle with nothing, identity, and more) and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (concerning theatre of the absurb). I actually ended up liking Hamlet more than the latter, but Theatre of the Absurb is an interesting concept, even funny at times. I've also read Fight Club on my own, but until I researched it, didn't connect it to Existentialism.

I find it actually quite interesting to research. It was a bit hard for me to grasp the concept because how my teacher presented it to us. The articles we had tor read were quite confusing. I do now find myself thinking about it every now and then. Like in OP's post about what happens to the body, mind, and soul after life on earth.

 

[facetious]

All existentialists I've encountered have tried to kill themselves at least once.

Let's hope you're next.

 

[Malanu]

The only times I have pondered these types of thoughts was when I was stoned on acid or very (very) drunk! They really get you know where. As one in the second half of life, I wonder about death a bit more know, but not what it will be like, but how it will come to claim me.

 

[Zhanton]

The only times I have pondered these types of thoughts was when I was stoned on acid or very (very) drunk! They really get you nowhere. As one in the second half of life, I wonder about death a bit more now, but not what it will be like, but how it will come to claim me.

You seem not to know when to use the word 'know'.

Anyways, we briefly looked at existentialism whilst studying Fly Away Peter in which the author, David Malouf, questions the seemingly meaningless notion of life and seems to draw a conclusion that life is meaningless and goes on regardless of the world. I personally believe that everything happens for a reason so I do find this ideology quite outlandish so to speak. I have yet to meet an existentialist though.

 

[Kutie Pie]

Lol, this is the second time I saw this term. The first time I saw it was back in March where someone labeled my story as such. I looked it up, but it made no sense then. But after finding this thread, I now understand it better, and I can tell where he got that idea from, because I suppose there are existentialist thoughts in it.

But anyway.

So thinking about life and death's effects on the personal wellbeing is existentialist? So does that mean there's a little bit of existentialism in everyone, and in all religions?

If so, I have thought those thoughts before. It could be because of how religious I am, and how much we are taught about the afterlife, but I do think about it on my own time. It freaks my brain out trying to think about what really, really lies beyond the Veil, about what it looks like, what life was before this. I suppose the reason it does that is because it's that very Veil pushing against my brain wanting to lift, but won't, either because I'm not supposed to know, or I'm not ready. Who knows.

Life is such an interesting topic, same with death. I honestly think at the end of our mortal life, before we pass on, we actually do figure out what life is about when we think about our past experiences and what we've done.

Same with the universe, at how vast it is, and how we're non-existent compared to everything else out there. The universe is beautiful like that, since we're just not meant to understand it all, instead we're to marvel. The human mind is fickle like that.

 

[Malanu]

You seem not to know when to use the word 'know'.

Or do I know when to and just occasionally don't care enough to correct it?

Because:

Most importantly, it is the arbitrary act that existentialism finds most objectionable-that is, when someone or society tries to impose or demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed. Existentialists believe this destroys individualism and makes a person become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being an object. Existentialism then stresses that a person's judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values.

 

[Yeul]

An existential thread? I've never really understood the whole meaning of existentialism, but I'm sure that if I ask a few questions everything'll be okay...

All existentialists I've encountered have tried to kill themselves at least once.

Let's hope you're next.

....Was that supposed to be a joke?