Life Changing Mindset

How to go about have an existentialist mindset?

And what does that really mean. What do you think about having such a mindset?

Public Comments

1. It's a dissociation between your artificial judgments and how you actually behave in reality. Nobody ACTUALLY lives their lives as if they create all the meaning in their lives.

Existentialism is itself a non sequitor. It does not follow that because the essence of objects do not themselves have any attribute that could be called "meaning", that does not mean that there is no inherent meaning in anything. Meaning is about efficacy and not perfection. This is a direct reflection of the language we use.

Humans have a part of the brain that has been called "the story teller" that generates the words that you use. It does this automatically BECAUSE there are inherent meanings to words and objects. It is universalize-able and inherent to the way we communicate with each other.

When you pretend this is not the case (nihilism/existentialism) then you create dissociation in your brain. Dissociation is a direct cause of depression.

2. Sartre, one of the early founders wrote that there are "two types of reality which lie beyond our conscious experience: the being of the object of consciousness and that of consciousness itself. The object of consciousness exists as “in-itself,” that is, in an independent and non-relational way. However, consciousness is always consciousness “of something,” so it is defined in relation to something else, and it is not possible to grasp it within a conscious experience: it exists as “for-itself.” http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/

This is directly opposed to Aristotelianism, which maintains that there is but one type of reality, and that is "all that exists."

Ayn Rand put Aristotle's idea this way, where her use of "identity" means "essence": "Existence and identity are not attributes of existents, they are the existents . . . . The units of the concepts “existence” and “identity” are every entity, attribute, action, event or phenomenon (including consciousness) that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/existe…

But as for the idea of consciousness as "defined in relation to something else, and it is not possible to grasp it within a conscious experience: it exists as “for-itself", that is where existentialism and Objectivism overlap.

"Directly or indirectly, every phenomenon of consciousness is derived from one’s awareness of the external world...Awareness is awareness of something...One can study what exists and how consciousness functions; but one cannot analyze (or “prove”) existence as such, or consciousness as such. These are irreducible primaries. (An attempt to “prove” them is self-contradictory: it is an attempt to “prove” existence by means of non-existence, and consciousness by means of unconsciousness.)" http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/consci…

You have often heard the question, "What is the meaning of life?" Well, "The early 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, posthumously regarded as the father of existentialism,[5][6] maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely,[7][8] in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.[9]" http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/

If you read Albert Camus, you will find this idea explicitly demonstrated through the actions of the characters, unlike as with some other fiction which comes closer to absurdism.