Existentialism ponderings

I've been reading a lot about existentialism lately. I stumbled on it. I am trying to live an authentic life and the two are related.

I had a friend in high school named Juan who talked about it all the time. At the time, I don't think I was capable of that kind of higher consciousness. I wonder where that genius friend of mine is now.

Anyways, it's taken 15 years before I could even join the conversation.




Sartre was bullied after his mother was remarried. He had a strabismus for his right eye. When I look at him, he reminds me a bit of newt. But looks are nothing. They mean nothing to what that person stands for. Basically, I would be stupid not to look at this odd looking man deeper.

I didn't know he was involved with Simone de Beauvoir. That lady was a bad ass feminist. She wouldn't have gotten with an idiot or a misogynist.

He had some interesting political affiliations. Heard the FBI had a file on him b/c he was friends with Castro and Che Gueverra. He had a fondness for the Marxism. He probably scared the shit out of everyone then. Also, loved that he turned down the Nobel Prize for Lit. I mean, who does that?

So right, what was his philosophy all about? Here's what I understand.

That we are all free.

That we choose to stay in our collective prisons b/c we're scared to let ourselves be all what we can be (anguish)

That there is no purpose for us, we create it as we go. (Existence precedes essence). That's probably where the whole "God is Dead" thing comes from. He's not talking about God holy spirit (though he might, he didn't really like Christianity) he was talking about the belief of preordained will and that belief you were put here on Earth for a purpose. Sartre was saying that's bullshit, that there is no God that decides that for you. Hence, "God is Dead." That the life you've lived, that gives you the ideas you have now. There's not an idea that's just planted in your head of what you should be.

Also, that whole living in "bad faith" thing. That you live b/c that's just how things are supposed to be. I guess it's like believing the box around you is real. It isn't real. It's all in your mind. To believe that you are stuck living the life you have now b/c of some kind of constraint be it money, or a dead end job, or kids. That's not true. B/c we are all free. And we'd rather live thinking we weren't.


Sartre is a lot to take in. His ideas anyway. The idea that we are free already. I mean, no wonder the dude was revolutionary.

Ideas like his can be dangerous in the wrong hands. If there are people who mistake this philosophy for the disintegration of mortality, then a lot of people would suffer. Khmer Rouge is credited for this sort of thing.

All I'm trying to do is live authentically. To live pure and clean of the constraints I have put myself in. I want a life like that.