Existential Angst – Friend or Foe?
Existential angst is an experience that leaves the person asking the bigger questions of life e. What is the point? What is the purpose of living? Is there any meaning or just that I or others make of things? A person facing this experience can find themselves caught in the grip of questioning everything that may have believe about life now or in the past. Norms, social expectations and individual and collective belief systems are questioned as the person truly realises, maybe for the first time, that they alone are the only ones who can make sense of their lives and the world in which they live. Even if others offer solutions, it is each individual who must choose to belief one thing or another, without any real sense of objective rightness in that decision. Existential angst leaves us at the crossroads in our lives – we can either shrivel and withdraw from the headiness of our freedom to choose our own meaning (and being itself) or grasp the challenge and live in an awareness of ‘not knowing’ but taking full and complete responsibility for our life choices.
Similar Posts:
- Existential Angst – Breakdown or Breakthrough?
- The Existential Angst of Everyday Change
- Existential philosophy – Relevance to our lives?
- Existential Anxiety
- Existential Lessons from Everyday Life
Thank you for writing about these things. It may be among the biggest problems a person could face, as it seems to be one without a solution. Since my teenage years my mind has questioned everything, to the point where, years down the track, I have no idea what meaning to ascribe to life’s patchwork quilt, or indeed what “meaning” would feel like if I could grasp it, apart from an emotional reaction, which I sometimes think is what a “sense of meaning” really is. Apologies for accosting your senses with a monster sentence.
But, it seems to me, the idea of “choosing one’s meaning” is problematic. Is it possible to consciously choose for something to have meaning? Or is it as impossible as choosing to love someone? One can change one’s attitude to a situation or a person, even change one’s feelings to a certain degree. But meaning.. the concept itself is fundamental to everything we feel and do.
What happens when one’s mind cannot but interrogate every meaning, question every assumption, and seem to be so reasonable in doing so? Scraping a living on the shores of this void is not a reasonable life. How can one find meaning, when it is like an atheist being told that only religion will save them? How can meaning be found when the concept itself has been a stranger for most of one’s life?
For me, it is less a question of what meaning to choose or create, than it is how to believe, to have faith, that there is meaning – solid ground, unquestionable meaning – which can be held in the hand and hugged to the breast for warmth. Knowledge, somehow, that it is void, after all, in which one cannot possibly believe.
Interesting read. Existential angst is exactly what people feel, when the meaning they constracted in their life dissolves as a result of crisis. How do you think we can be sure we will be able to construct some meaning again?
Here are my thoughts on this:
http://innovationimitation.com/2010/12/is-your-life-worth-living
Finding our meaning is indeed something that can take some time, especially when bombarded with advice from others, the media, gurus and religion of what meaning means. However, I believe meaning is a very personal affair – it doesn’t have to be on other people’s terms or even known to others. We can find meaning in being pleasant to a neighbour when we choose to smile rather than frown; we can find meaning in something like a job we do everyday. However, from personal experience and in listening to the stories of hundreds of my clients, students and friends, I believe meaning – like fulfilment or happiness – has something to do with knowing we are part of something bigger than ourselves or making a contribution to others in some way.
Click on the link below to listen to an interview I did with a social ecologist on ‘Dispelling the Myth of Happiness’ – I think you may find this very interesting.
http://socialmythbuster.com/the-myth-of-happiness-2/334/
Best of luck!
Please check out my new short story : “An essay on Fear”
http://authspot.com/short-stories/an-essay-on-fear/