Existential Angst

Each man and woman creates the meaning of his or her life. Meaning is not determined by a supernatural god or any earthly authority. One is free.

So say the existentialists. Nietzsche, Sarte, et al.

According to them, this freedom to choose ones own way, this "free will" gives rise to anxiety or dread when life-decisions are made, and this feeling of "angst" can be overwhelming when you realize your choice can kill you and nobody will stop you or even care.

The Danish philosopher, writer on existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard gives the example of a person standing on the edge of a high cliff. Of course he feels the instinctual fear of falling off, but there is also the fear that he might throw himself off. No one would stop him from doing so. This "anxiety of free will" lasts only a second before he steps back, but the thought that he is alone with his choices brings on that moment of dread. This dread arises form the individuals brief encounter with true freedom of choice, and the gut-wrenching realization that no one will interfere with that choice.

Angst is more than just fear. In regular fear, one can take steps to remove the object of the fear. Angst is the fear of what you might do, if you so chose.

I never said Nietsche or Jean-Paul Sarte made sense.

Anyway, with this in mind, I now consider Adam and whether he experienced angst before he took a bite of the apple. I think it was "forbidden fruit", not "apple." If there were any angst it would not arise from a concept of good and evil, since Adam had no such knowledge yet. Any angst would have simply come from the perceived consequence of disobeying a being he felt great respect for, such as a child contemplating disobeying his parent. It was only after his first bite that he realized he had done something wrong. This is rather a complex thing to sort out. Add to this the realization that God KNEW what choice Adam was going to make, it boggles the mind even more. This "free will" thing is pretty hard for me to understand.

After talking about the angst of true free will, Kierkegaard went on to consider the concept of "despair". Despair is loss of hope, and ensues when the prime motivation for happiness in your life, your driving force, is taken from you. If a famous singer has built her entire life around being able to sing beautifully, and then suddenly she loses that ability, she feels despair if she has nothing to fall back on. Imagine the feeling which a long-time fan of The Heart of Midlothian must feel. That is true despair. Utter hopelessness. I think it was Nietsche who gave that particular example.

"Let each one learn what he can; both of us can learn that a person’s unhappiness never lies in his lack of control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely unhappy." (Kierkegaard: "Either/Or".)

And...

"When the God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope nothing at all. Love hopes all things – yet is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision."  (Kierkegaard: "Works of Love.") 

Wake up and smell it

A philosophy is one's system of beliefs with regard to reality. There is only one true reality - that which is - but everyone has their own view of the world, and thus anyone can play the "magical reality" game. Barack Obama comes to mind as someone who should be mentioned here as a fine example of a magical reality kind of guy.

Well, by gosh, a philosophy seeks to understand and even explain the nature of our existence. By "our" I mean, of course, "your" - I already know the nature of my own existence. Poverty. They say (and by "they" I mean Wikipedia) that our philosophy - our belief system - becomes our personal standard through which we perceive and process ideas. In this sense, you could say that philosophy is the foundation of knowledge. I'm not sure I would say that, but smart people have said it. You are smart, so you may say that too. Barack and company destest knowledge and sound ideas, so "they" wouldn't say that.

Basically, what we want to know is, what the heck is going on and what our place is in the world. Maybe in the universe even. Somebody once said that once you start philosophizing about your purpose in life, in the universe, then you are sick. So it's a catch-22. Was it Freud? Sounds like something he would say. Somebody smart like him, anyway.

Anyway, I started out wanting to do a little post on Objectivism, a word (and philosophy) coined by Ayn Rand to explain her philosophy of life (or personal crazy sickness) because... well, because the word existentialism had already been taken, I guess. Actually, I don't have to guess - Ms. Rand admitted those very words herself. BTW, please don't get Ayn Rand mixed up with Georgia O'Keefe.

Why did I want to make a little post on the subject of Objectivism? You might well ask. I don't really know. Just because it is the weekend and J.E.B. Stuart still hasn't returned in the other series of posts anyway. Besides, Ojectivism is REALLY interesting (just not that interesting on a blog, sadly) and has the added appeal of probably pissing off liberals. Win-win. But I ramble. I know I do. Getting back on topic now. Very soon.

Gary Cooper WAS Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead." I tell you this else no one but the Rocket Scientist would have gotten the connection of the clever picture insert. Well, A. would have gotten it, because A. knows most everything and is good at free association.

Incidentally - as if you weren't impressed enough already - there is an Ayn Rand Society, which is affiliated with the American Philosophical Association (A. Phil Ass) which you also may not have heard of (your loss) because there are only a few members. Ayn Rand, Georgia O'keefe and her buddy D.L. Lawrence (and almost surely his philosophical gardner) and myself and probably Soubriquet. Most assuredly NOT Adullamite. All are dead. Well, not ALL. But the famous ones are.

Objectivism promotes the values of love, friendship, wealth, and comfort. Sadly, Ayn realized none of these things, but hey. I personally like Objectivism because it emphasizes reason and clarity, both of which I could be a universal model. in.

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." —Ayn Rand.

Sort of like President Obama's philosophy of life, only backwards. I was reminded of the man's hatred of self-reliance as I watched his jobs speech the other night. Pretty darn good speech, by the way. I mean, pretty good for a socialist. Count me in on that more spending and higher taxes thing. Put me down for another $75. And tax the living crap out of the small businessmen who create jobs; that'll do the trick. That's fair. Heck, more than half of Americans pay zero income taxes now. You call THAT fair? Everybody should pay SOMETHING. Oh, god, I kid you.