Your views on Existentialism and Nihilism ?

[girlsearching]

I think this Quarantine is getting to me and making me question a lot of things. I mean I kind of always felt that I have nothing to contribute to society.

I have only been reading online articles and watching Youtube videos about the two philosophies.

Existentialism: stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. With this responsibility comes a profound anguish or dread.

Nihilism : the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.

[girlsearching]

I'm sure at some point the majority of people have had Existential anxiety; It involves all-encompassing questions about the meaning and purpose of life and one’s place in the world.

[ocean breeze]

Where do you fall?

I don't believe people are entirely free but are responsible for what they make of themselves.

I don't really reject anything but do often feel life is meaningless.

[Altair]

I don’t believe people are ‘free’ in a real sense. We’re limited by genetics and environment, and then there is also randomness (being in the wrong/right place at the wrong/right time). Our cultures will of course say otherwise, because belief in freedom and responsibility motivate a society and people forwards. But it is the thinking human brain that seeks patterns and applies (often even demands) there is a meaning. If you study nature though it becomes clear that there is no meaning to life. All organisms are only as successful as the environment allows them, which in turn is just physics.

There’s no meaning behind a child dying after birth, the bubonic plague, coronavirus, or the K-T extinction event. We can make very good guesses why things happen so why insist ‘meaning’? Humans derive meaning so it is what you make of it that counts. Religious and moral principles can help you on that road, but they cannot provide objectivity, but they can provide inter-subjective agreed-upon ‘truths’. These can be helpful.

[girlsearching]

I think I fall under having a Nihilism view point. I used to want to have a career as Author & Illustrator writing for Children/Young Adults (I could still do that ). My dreams have been crushed by the lack of me not having confidence within myself, my family/relatives, and just realizing that maybe I was not meant to be in the literacy field. Besides the only job I have is being a Cafeteria Lady at Intermediate schools. Even if I were to have "The Dream career" of my choosing who's to say I'd be happy doing that too ? I mean I probably would. It dose not matter anymore.

Originally Posted by girlsearching

I think I fall under having a Nihilism view point. I used to want to have a career as Author & Illustrator writing for Children/Young Adults (I could still do that ). My dreams have been crushed by the lack of me not having confidence within myself, my family/relatives, and just realizing that maybe I was not meant to be in the literacy field. Besides the only job I have is being a Cafeteria Lady at Intermediate schools. Even if I were to have "The Dream career" of my choosing who's to say I'd be happy doing that too ? I mean I probably would. It dose not matter anymore.

I understand your last paragraph. I freelance. I started out working for an agency that promised great things. But the office politics, the working constraints soon palled and while music was a wonderful hobby, it turned out to be an awful profession - in that field at least.
I suppose I get some satisfaction now because I can choose what I pick up to an extent. I can also exercise creativity which will get me almost nowhere financially but there's time to do it. However, work sometimes dries up. Thankfully I'm adaptable enough to take up anything that pays something toward my survival!
In one respect, you're in a wonderful position: hopefully you pull in enough money to get by and you can look on it as income to finance what at the moment is your hobby, writing and illustrating.
I think lockdown is depressing us all... So I can understand how the difficulties of making a start - getting published - is amplified. It's going to be hard.
But you certainly aren't as you describe: a dead weight to society. Under non-lockdown circumstances you'd be doing a useful job, in contact with people, exercising your imagination in your creativity in your spare time.
Be brave. This lockdown can't go on forever...well, if it does we might as well all give up. But it won't. Meantime, work on your portfolio.

As others have said here, we aren't truly free and as individuals in society we have to "do what Romans do" or find ourselves ostracised. So...existentialism only works to a certain extent.
All the best...

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by girlsearching

Existentialism: stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. With this responsibility comes a profound anguish or dread.

Nihilism : the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.

One person can be born deformed, unhealthy, with mental illness, to abusive poor drug addict parents, another can be born perfectly healthy and beautiful, disposed to joy and happiness and outgoing and confident, to rich and loving, nurturing supportive parents.

Where is the freedom? Well in what we do with what we have. The what we have is mostly a given. No control over all of that. How to be happy or content, without conflict or stress, given what we are or have.

No matter what we were given, we can be nice and kind and loving. Money stress is hard but then one can join the military and choose a guaranteed non-violent job like in human resources or personnel. Then the money stress is gone. Free housing and food and medical and dental. If I could not get some kind of high paying job in civilian life, I'd probably join the military in some non-violent job. That one job, chaplains assistant would be easy and spiritual in a sense. One would have to be social and outgoing for that job though as it means you help with church activities and services.

Freedom means we can not follow philosophies or beliefs that are depressing like Existentialism or Nihilism. Oh one could also go join a commune or be a monk or nun if that lifestyle seems fun. My friends dad was in the Marine band. So his job was playing the tuba for 20 years lol. That's pretty easy life. I tried to be a fireman for awhile but never got picked. I think you have to know someone. Being appreciative for what we have is good as there is always someone much worse off.

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by girlsearching

I used to want to have a career as Author & Illustrator writing for Children/Young Adults (I could still do that ).

I wrote some children's books and a few screenplays. Never made any money off of them. But then the women who wrote Harry Potter and the Twilight Books became millionaires. So that interest can pay off if one is good and lucky. J. K. Rowling was a divorced mother living on welfare when her book on Harry Potter became popular then she made over 200 million.

[Starman]

Originally Posted by girlsearching

I think this Quarantine is getting to me and making me question a lot of things. I mean I kind of always felt that I have nothing to contribute to society.

I have only been reading online articles and watching Youtube videos about the two philosophies.

Existentialism: stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. With this responsibility comes a profound anguish or dread.

Nihilism : the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.

Human existence is very fragile, nonetheless, we all have and unfathomable potential. But our potential is dominated by our culture and our interpretation of self. Human beings perceive their existence through the lens of logic and reasoning; we give more validity to thinking than we do to feeling, and most people live in their head and not their heart.

Male dominated cultures have often talked about how females are too emotional, or how women don’t know how to reason the way that men do. Intuition can give us lots of wisdom but intuition is not widely embraced by humankind. So humanity is dominated by logic and reasoning to the detriment of intuition; when we might learn how to use both.

So we interpret our existence using logic and reasoning when our existence transcends logic and reasoning. We are multidimensional beings, existing simultaneously in a mental state, and emotional state, a physical state, and a state of what we may call a pure unformed spiritual presence.

We exist in these states simultaneously, endeavoring in varying degrees to express all of them while here in this transitional physical condition. Although I am not my physical body, nor am I my thoughts or emotions. I am not the name on my birth certificate, nor am I a race, gender, or nationality.

That which I am transcends words and thoughts. It can not be identified using words, thoughts, reasoning or logic. But it can be experienced. Taoism teaches that nothing in the universe is what we call it here on Earth. We label and name things in and attempt to put a handle on them and grasp them.

We humans only know things by the label we have given them. We are more familiar with the name given to things then we are the things themselves. This is the nature of life here in this physical realm; a realm of name and form.

The human perception of time and space is only a human perception, and animals, insects, etc., mark time differently than human beings, that is if they mark time at all. The thing is many humans feel insecure if they do not have a purpose, but we are human beings and not human do'ers. We are states of being that we transition through on a daily basis.

We label the states which we experience as negative or positive depending on what we embrace. Existence is much more than what we think it is. As was said in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there are more things in heaven and earth than can be found in our philosophies (paraphrased). In my opinion life does not have to have purpose or meaning. When I retired I wondered what was my purpose now that I was not working, and decided that my purpose was just to be, to explore my existence on deeper levels. We give to others the work or lack of work that we have done on ourselves. that is our unspoken gift to humanity.

[girlsearching]

Today, 05:05 AM
Phaelyn
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Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 563




I wrote some children's books and a few screenplays. Never made any money off of them. But then the women who wrote Harry Potter and the Twilight Books became millionaires. So that interest can pay off if one is good and lucky. J. K. Rowling was a divorced mother living on welfare when her book on Harry Potter became popular then she made over 200 million.

Ive' watched a unauthorized biopic about J.K. Rowling on the Lifetime channel . I remember one scene in where she was in college and her teacher told her that "no one is ever going to want to read fantasy stories from a woman". So that is why J.K. used her initials .