#existentialism

#existentialism

Camus famously summed up the story like this: A man who does not cry at his mother's funeral will be condemned. Thus, the novel begins: 'Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know,' introducing Meursault's flat, noncommittal tone.

In particular, I have a fascination with one-hit wonders, songwriters who at some point inexplicably produced a morsel of unequivocal genius, a sonic masterpiece, like a portal into an unknown universe... three to five timeless minutes that hover with esoteric intelligence as if heaven itself reached down and caressed a human voice... a song that brushes close enough to the divine to leave us believing in a force greater than our flesh and bones.

In Rinrigaku, Watsuji argues that ethics is the study of what it means for us to be human. How we think about the nature of human existence, he says, dictates the ways in which we understand our ethical values. Hence, he criticises Western philosophical conceptions of the modern subject, arguing that the Western rendering of subjectivity is both problematic and foreign

If you don't know it, Ecclesiastes is a collection of Old Testament verses in which the eponymous title character discourses on the apparent meaninglessness of pleasure, accomplishment, wealth, politics, and life itself in the face of the infinitude of the universe and the absolute perfection of God. It is the source of many of our most cliched phrases, such as there is a time for everything and there is nothing new under the sun.

The child is expected to take a specific role in that world, a place that is stable and certain. The rules and goals are set by the adults in the child's world. At the same time, at play and with its peers the child experiences a completely free world. It is open to all possibilities, even those beyond the child's physical limits. It's as if the child is free in a room, with walls, ceilings and floors that protect it from actual danger.

Perfectionism is philosophically encapsulated by an existential conviction. Many perfectionists are not only certain of the objective validity of their rigid way of living; they're also emboldened by the sense that their lives have an objective meaning, afforded to them in the way a god may grant his messiah a grand objective. Peers and loved ones question the perfectionist's obsessiveness because its root is often hidden, protected from the slings and arrows of reason. Perfectionism persists in large part because it remains unchallenged.

In Mahayana Buddhism, sunyata - often translated as "emptiness" - doesn't mean that nothing matters. It means nothing exists with a permanent essence. Everything is constantly changing and without fixed self-nature. Seeing through the illusion of an enduring, separate self can be liberating.

"The word for snow will be the snow," says one, foreseeing a time when language itself will be scorched away by some cosmic fatality.

In that sense, it's not so different from a lab experiment, where researchers set the stage and observe what unfolds. The aim of these often fantastical scenarios is just as serious: to test, stretch, or even shatter our intuitions about how the world works.

PUP confronts world-weary discontent with deadpan humor, hard-earned wisdom and a lot of heart, transforming existential dread into joyful and uplifting music.

Vivi thanks Zidane and his friends for the adventures, stating, "That's why we have to help each other and live life to the fullest."

If the world were to perish in flames, I'm pretty sure it would be no more than it deserved.

In this film, vampires serve not just as horror elements but as metaphors for institutional racism, illustrating how it drains the life and joy from African Americans.

Sigmund Freud mistakenly believed that human civilization would mature and outgrow childlike thinking in religion, but the Pew survey shows that spirituality remains deeply embedded in society.

The subject of saṃvega is a disquieting feeling that we all experience at some point, reinforcing our sense of unease about life's purpose.

"These scenes are something in Zsa-Zsa's brain - some neurological experience that he's having. Somewhere along the line, we realize this guy is being confronted with his own death so aggressively and overtly that it's actually starting to change his view of the world, which is not something he's ever been open to. And what he's learning in those moments I guess he's learning from himself."

Robinson’s characters constantly embody a Midwestern sense of impotence, vulnerably trapped in the contradictions of their environment, desperately crying for some relief from life's chaos.

Murderbot, a self-aware security cyborg, navigates its newfound freedom while hoping to pursue trivial pastimes instead of its programmed duties.

The loss of self regards the forces that tend to hinder our growth and disrupt our ecology of self, shaped by relationships, environments, and experiences.

In The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry articulates that pain’s resistance to language not only makes sharing experiences of suffering difficult but also actively destroys the very language we use to convey them.

"which is to say wandering away from any self he might have spoken of the hour the foolishness with which we sculpt time into a life"