The concepts of existentialism and how they have helped in the development of the life journey - Essay Example

Existentialism This paper will talk about the concepts of existentialism and how they have helped in the development of my life journey. These concepts have inspired the understandings of many people and helped them in grasping the meaning of life and realistic approaches. Existentialism’s point of view is that there is no God or higher code in this world to guide us what we have to do. We are free and our existence is superior to essence. This is an atheist concept but it is the core of existentialism. These philosophies highlight the beliefs that there is a higher authority in this world to which we have to reach and for whom we have to strive. But existentialism has a philosophical position which opposes the natural sciences around us. It explains that human beings are composed of many other components rather only mind, body and other scientific categories. Human beings cannot be understood by the scientific truths or the moral substances such as responsibility, character, values, blame, duty and others (Daigle 9). Existentialism thus defines that human conditions are not based on scientific or moral truths, but on further categories that come under philosophical theory and which are significant to understand human existence. The concept of existentialism emerged after the WWII when the violence had forced people to think that life was meaning less and there was no God. Existentialism explained that there is no God or higher power, no karma or reward system in this world. Every human is an individual who is free and responsible for his own actions. As there is no central truth that the world governs under, the concept can be liberating and also depressing. Humans themselves choose how they wish to be and are not influenced by other people or forces around them. Hence, universe is amoral and humans can make their lives the way they want them to be (Flynn 79). Understanding existentialism while observing the personal journey of live may be difficult for a religious person as the theory eliminates the religious concepts completely. However, apart from the religious views that it abandons, existentialism can help many individuals to live in an amoral world in their own ways. My personal journey of how I learned to live life in my own way without the interference or expectations of others helped me in many ways to understand the concepts of existentialism. It is true that our existence precedes essence and helps us to have freedom (Daigle 9). Soren Kierkegaard was the first philosopher who believed in existentialism. He had explained the concepts of freedom and individualism through his work and highlighted the significance of personal commitment and choice. This is an important point when an individual wants to understand the reality of life and matches with many features of a practical life. Today, everyone’s life is very practical and very few people still live in the traditional concepts of values, responsibilities and abstract thinking. During my personal journey, I learnt with the help of Kierkegaard’s work that feelings and emotions of individuals is what the humans face when they have to make tough choices in life (Flynn 32). Although Kierkegaard has focused on the distinction between man and god in his work, it is mostly focusing on the reality of life. His work reflects through my personal journey as I strongly believe that our life and choices are purely based on our own choices. We are not answerable to anyone for our deeds and are not bound by any other person or power. Our deeds are simply ours and we make our lives good or bad. The scientific and moral truths have little to do with our development and condition and our existentialism has more impact over us. When I judge my life with the concepts of Kierkegaard and his three stages of life, I found that the way I lived my life is according to the internal living. Kierkegaard described this way of life as looking at oneself more than looking at others because when you look at others, you forget yourself. A person should learn to love the person that is in front of him not the person who he wished to see in front of him. This is the rule of practical life as life experiences teach us. Degrading others is when you look at them, but loving others is when you look at yourself and others’ activities do not bother you (Gravil 36). Through my personal journey I believed that this is the way I want to live my life, as a selfish person because in the end of the world, everyone leaves you. We have come to this world alone and will go alone. We are independent to make our choices and commitments the ways we want. To be successful, it is important to think of yourself before others. Every other person in this world is with you for a reason, not for emotional attachments. The world is free of values today and everyone is blaming one another for the ups and downs of life. Thus, we should have the freedom to take the responsibility of our lives and live it the way we want. We are free to make our choices. We can either make our life good or bad and that depends solely on our existence, not even our mind or body (Flynn 32). This is also the concept explained by Jean-Paul Sarte who said that we are free and we are responsible for our actions without excuses. We are alone in this world and there is no creator to whom we have essence. The biggest concept that defines this is death. Death tells us that we are individuals and free. This life is given to us and belongs to us only so we can make our own rules and ways to live it. We have our ideas and experiences when we experience real life situations. These life experiences teach us lessons and enable us to live a life of our own making our own choices (Flynn 59). This is the way I have learned important lessons of my life which is why I believe that we are all alone in this world and thus we should live our life our ways. The absurdism concept explains that there are negativities as well which humans face but these are not because of other people or other activities, these negativities come to us solely based upon our choices. It is up to us how we want to understand the conditions of our lives. There is no other meaning to anything except the meaning that we give to it. This meaninglessness means that karma does not exist. Good and bad things can happen to anyone who lets it happen to them. However, in my personal life I have experienced that karma does exist. We should let other people live the way they want to and we should live our lives in our own ways because there is a superpower in this world who is watching and who will attack the other person with karma. Revenge or blame is not our duty but the nature of this world gives everyone the fruit of what they have planted for others (Stewart 323). Facticity is another concept which explains that the past experiences always constitutes to the present and future. The past of a human cannot be ignored as it is an important part of reality but how it constitutes the present and future is when the human’s behaviour changes because of those past events. The pat is always attached to the person and those who deny their past constitute a lifestyle which is inauthentic. Facticity can be freedom and limitation both. We can give our past the meaning we want to. I have experienced this through my journey that the human conditions are dependent on their past activities and they can learn from them and change their lives in the way they want (Stewart 323). I was not aware of many of these concepts of existentialism, but in my life I had been experiencing and learning lessons which were related to these concepts. However, I do not believe in the atheist concepts, but I do believe that we are alone and individually responsible for every event that is happening in our lives. We can turn our lives in the ways we wish to at any point of time. I believed in freedom and individualism but my concepts got a clearer picture after understanding the existentialism philosophy. Work Cited Flynn Thomas. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. NY: Oxford University Press, 2006 Daigle Christine. Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics. Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006 Gravil Richard. Existentialism. UK: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007 Stewart Jon. Kierkegaard and Existentialism. UK: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2011 Read More