#existentialism

infpisme:

Dear Valerie,

As we are free
Within our own confines
And no matter how much
We expand we only create
Newer limitations
Who then does your
God worship

(sic)

Love Chris

10/12/77

The past is gone, dying, dead.
To remain there is to relive your death over and over.

The future is uncertain, unmade, unable.
To remain there is to continually be shattered and unwhole.

The now is here, clear, focused.
To remain is to be able to explore everywhere.

Where shall we exist?

Me: it’s October!! Spooky Month™!! 

Brain: time doesn’t exist. October is simply a construct of society. This isn’t real. 

Me:

psycho-troped:

I tell you, even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it.

The Sirens of Titan

Kurt Vonnegut

psycho-troped:

I tell you, even a half-dead man hates to be alive and not be able to see any sense to it.

The Sirens of Titan

Kurt Vonnegut

Crappy little comic what I did :P

I, once, told my teacher I have social anxiety and have existential crises form time to time due to constant years of bullying

And guess what….

She was like ‘then don’t let them hate’

Like hoe, if it were that easy I wouldn’t be going through it in the first place

But noooo….

It’s as easy as pie to not have those belittling words to swim through your head by almost every other person in your existence

But s’ok 

It wasn’t as if I needed an advice I had been giving myself for years and actually tried going through with it while constantly having a new comment pour upon me to be said out loud and magically work

Thanks for helping. I appreciate it…

jadagul:

sigmaleph:

jadagul:

kurloz38:

annabellioncourt:

daddynietzsche:

throwback to that time in my existentialism class where the professor asked ‘who thinks hell is other people’ and half the class slowly and meekly put their hand up

then the prof was like ‘…i mean who originally said it’

there are some posts that sound utterly made up for the joke or for the notes, but this one I whole heartedly believe 

Sounds right to me…

That quote is amazing to me in that it’s quoted completely accurately and yet in a way that means something completely different from what it meant in context.

(Sartre was claiming that Hell was other people. He was not claiming that other people were hell.)

…I can’t actually tell what distinction you’re drawing there. Can you expand?

The line comes from No Exit, which is set in Hell. Spoilers for No Exit follow

In particular, three people who have been condemned to hell are trapped eternally in a room together. And at first they think they got off easy without any pitchforks or fiery lakes or anything. But over the course of the play they discover that they have been chosen very specifically to have neuroses and character flaws that interact with and torment each other.

Each one needs the approval of a second in an unstable RPS cycle so that any time one of them might be satisfied by a second, the third swoops in and ruins it.

And when they figure this out, one of the characters expresses his understanding, that hell isn’t physical torture. “Hell is just—other people.”

So the point isn’t that other people, generically, are hellish; it’s rather that you can build a hell out of other people.

But when I hear people quote it, it’s usually sort of an introvert-pride thing. “Other people are hell; you should spend time alone.” And that’s not the point at all. It’s a statement about how bad unhealthy relationships can be, not a statement about how all relationships are unhealthy!

See also Sartre’s own comment here:

“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell.

Vivir es mucho más complicado que morir.

by Albert Camus

What’s it about?

The main character is Meursault, a French man living in Algeria who is so disconnected from his environment that he barely registers the fact that his mother dies at the very start of the book, and seems to have no feelings whatsoever about murdering an Arab, for which he is sent to jail.

There is a context that most modern readers miss. The book was written in the middle of World War II, but the book explicitly deals with the brewing tensions in Algeria which would eventually erupt. As a pied-noir himself, Camus would have been very sensitive to these tensions.

There is a strong argument that proper, grown-up literature doesn’t need “context” and any effort to provide one dilutes the universality of the text. For instance, you don’t need to know anything about Joe McCarthy to get the point of The Crucible. I agree with this argument, but I’ve given you the context anyway because I’m complicated and I have layers.  

That all sounds a bit grim.

While it is indeed a bit grim, it should be judged as a work of absurdist literature, which includes Waiting for GodotandCatch-22. They are all unquestionably a product of existential philosophy, which broadly speaking deals with how people should relate to the universe when god has been removed from it. 

I don’t care about any of that. Also, you sound pretentious.

Right. I might be pretentious, but the book was a genuine attempt to respond artistically to the idea (now very mainstream) that each individual is horrifically alone in the universe, and that life is meaningless. Mersault has several opportunities to make things easier for himself by simply lying about how he feels, and he refuses to do so. 

Therefore, the sociopathic character is more “authentic” than all the “good” people who end up killing him. Although if you’ve read Game of ThronesandThe Outsider has too much meaninglessness for you, you should present yourself to the relevant authorities at first light.

Camus was famous for putting across his existentialist philosophy in accessible literature, while his frenemy, Jean-Paul Sartre, was famous for more direct, intractable existentialist philosophy in works such as Being and Nothingness. As you might expect, both men violently rejected the idea that either could be considered an existentialist.

What should I say to make people think I’ve read it?

“Even if you can’t relate to it, it’s probably a good idea to play the game of whatever society you’re in.”

What should I avoid saying when trying to convince people I’ve read it?

“A guidebook for people interested in solving the Muslim problem.”

Should I actually read it?

Yes. Every so often, it’s good to be confronted with how meaningless everything is. Some people never consider it at all. 

kira with the death note simply slaying with the pen

find clarity then lose it think its ego number ten

baptism to rebrand all my sins are forgiven

wash my hands and take command its the young evangelion

find myself in the abyss need some limits to make a difference

sweetboy i insist cant be timid with my wishes

lift the veil to free your mind stake a claim when you find the void

 searching for my soul pulled in dual directions like du bois

ask me theres no choice, went silent to find my voice

auto pilot lizard leaders rejoice while they exploit

workers who have the power too scared to use the leverage 

fighting for some water in illusionary deserts

genjetsu on the peasants break free to find the present

cant be out here acting stupid makin rash decision

be still to think it though shikamaru plotting different 

believe it believe it believe it believe it