What about the suggestion that philosophy is not a disinterested activity, but instead an
individual search and quest for meaning? What about Jaspers’ claim that a hope for
objectivity is like a hope for utopia, with both being equally ‘illusory’? What about not
deliberately being a philosopher and not trying to think ‘as a thinker’, but instead, as
Feuerbach claims, thinking as a being ‘in existence’? What, in attempting to do this, might
we consider to be our most immediate and pressing questions?
What about the idea that if we are to have any understanding of what this existence is in
which we think, then we should ask: what is a human being’s kind of being? What about, in
the face of this question and the many resulting avenues of exploration, one considers the
apparent circularity and repetition found in the being of human beings? What about, then,
considering the reasons why so many of us live in such similar ways to others, often
repeating cycles of life and behaviour handed to us? What about exploring these reasons and
how it may be possible to 'be' as a human in a way that doesn’t repeat a cycle of actions that we did not consciously choose?
What about, then, beginning our exploration with Heidegger’s quiet conformity into which
we are ‘thrown’ and the thoughts, beliefs and words that ‘they’ - whoever ‘they’ may be -
have given us to hold? What about the possibility of us, through this conformity,
relinquishing control of our own lives to the unnoticed powerful forces of the cultures in
which we live and the decisions which ‘they’ have made? What about the ‘lostness’ of
ourselves in the ‘they’ - the removal, or surrendering, of agency from our lives which may
never be retrieved? What about, then, as we consider the prevalence of this type of being, the means and outlandish effort that might be required to wrest ourselves free from this
inauthenticity?
How might we repossess our lives and avoid an existence that simply repeats the cultural
cycle once more?
How about starting by noticing one’s conformity and lostness? How about noticing
Heidegger’s ‘average everydayness’ and how we are ‘falling’ into this lostness through our
simple and inane acts of constant conformity? How about wondering how much we live how 'they' expect us to, and who 'they' are? How about noticing one’s genetic programming,
cultural and social conditioning, and formative experiences? How about looking at the
choices that we make and considering how guilty we are of ‘bad faith’ in Sartre’s eyes? How
about, like Thoreau, trying to live ‘deliberately’?
Why not, then, try to become the authors of our own lives by owning up to who we are and
our actions? Why not compare ourselves to Sartre’s paper-cutter and consider that we are not
a ‘being-in-itself’ - we do not contain a given nature or purpose - that instead our existence
precedes our essence? Why not sit with the anxiety that this realisation may bring and use it
to super-power our realisation that significance is not something that we possess in a pre-
ordained way? Why not consider the possibility that in Heidegger’s ‘dasein’ there lies an
individual that is void of objective support and purpose?
Where do we go once we have acknowledged this ontological anxiety, and accepted
Heidegger’s ‘threat’ that derives from a lack of innate purpose or meaning? Where do we go
to avoid slipping back into the comfort of obscurity and instead become more free, unified and focused as authors of our own stories? Where do we go as ‘beings-towards-death’ to
wrest control of our journey until the final destination?
When we become our own projects (having done ‘philosophy with a hammer’ and moved out
of the shadow of Nietzsche’s idols) and strive to bend the world towards our own perspective
through sublimation, will we finally be free of the repeating the circularity of a herd-like
existence? When we have learnt to ‘reawaken ourselves and keep ourselves awake’, as
Thoreau suggested, will we be elevated above the conformity of cultural cycles? When I am
aware that the accumulation of my actions is creating me, and I am consciously the author of
my own life, will I be free? When I accept full responsibility for the choices that I make and
acknowledge Sartre’s claim that I am ‘condemned to be free’ in this way, will I be dictating
my own existence?
When I consider carefully what it means to ‘be’, aware of the threat of lostness, and make a
commitment to my own existence, standing fast in the face of challenge and owning my
actions in this world, will I be truly authentic and understand, at least in part, the answer to
our most immediate and pressing question - what is it to be a human being?
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R. D. STEVENS grew up in Kent, England, with an overactive imagination and a love of big questions. His award-winning YA debut novel 'The Journal' was released by Vulpine Press in August '22, and 'The Freeze', his sophomore novel, a dystopian thriller, was released in Jan '23. Recently, he has had short stories 'Biophilia' and 'Rebuilt' published by Carrion Press and Erropress respectively. Outside of writing, he loves to read books, play the guitar, and talk about existentialism. You can discover more about his journey on Instagram and Twitter with the handle @rdstevensauthor, or at www.rdstevensauthor.co.uk.
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