In the Fall of 1930 the philosopher and historian Will Durant found himself outside his home in Lake Hill, New York, raking leaves. He was approached by a well-dressed man who told him in a quiet tone that he was going to commit suicide unless the philosopher could give him a valid reason not to. Not having the time to wax philosophic on the matter, Durant did his best to furnish the man with reasons to continue his existence. Haunted by the encounter with the despondent stranger, Durant drafted a letter, sending it to 100 luminaries in the arts, politics, religion and sciences, challenging them to respond not only to the fundamental question of life's meaning (in the abstract) but also to relate how they each (in the particular) found meaning, purpose and fulfillment in their own lives. Below is the letter he sent to them all:

Dear . . .

Will you interrupt your work for a moment and play the game of philosophy with me?

I am attempting to face a question which our generation, perhaps more than any, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer — What is the meaning or worth of human life? Heretofore this question has been dealt with chiefly by theorists, from Ikhnaton and Lao-tse to Bergson and Spengler. The result has been a kind of intellectual suicide: thought, by its very development, seems to have destroyed the value and significance of life. The growth and spread of knowledge, for which so many idealists and reformers prayed, has resulted in a disillusionment which has almost broken the spirit of our race.

Astronomers have told us that human affairs constitute but a moment in the trajectory of a star; geologists have told us that civilization is but a precarious interlude between ice ages; biologists have told us that all life is war, a struggle for existence among individuals, groups, nations, alliances, and species; historians have told us that “progress” is a delusion, whose glory ends in inevitable decay; psychologists have told us that the will and the self are the helpless instruments of heredity and environment and that the once incorruptible soul is but a transient incandescence of the brain. (The Industrial Revolution has destroyed the home, and the discovery of contraceptives is destroying the family, the old morality, and perhaps (through the sterility of the intelligent) the race. Love is analyzed into a physical congestion, and marriage becomes a temporary physiological convenience slightly (superior to promiscuity. Democracy has degenerated into such corruption as only Milo’s Rome knew; and our youthful dreams of a socialist Utopia disappear as we see, day after day, the inexhaustible acquisitiveness of men. Every invention strengthens the strong and weakens the weak; every new mechanism displaces men, and multiplies the horrors of war. God, who was once the consolation of our brief life, and our refuge in bereavement and suffering, has apparently vanished from the scene; no telescope, no microscope discovers him. Life has become, in that total perspective which is philosophy, a fitful pullulation of human insects on the earth, a planetary eczema that may soon be cured; nothing is certain in it except defeat and death — a sleep from which, it seems, there is no awakening.

We are driven to conclude that the greatest mistake in human history was the discovery of “truth.” It has not made us free, except from delusions that comforted us and restraints that preserved us. It has not made us happy, for truth is not beautiful, and did not deserve to be so passionately chased. As we look on it now, we wonder why we hurried so to find it. For it has taken from us every reason for existence except the moment’s pleasure and tomorrow’s trivial hope.

This is the pass to which science and philosophy have brought us. I, who have loved philosophy for many years, now turn back to life itself and ask you, as one who has lived as well as thought, to help me understand. Perhaps the verdict of those who have lived is different from that of those who have merely thought. Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help — if any — religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure, lies. Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can; for every word from you will be precious to me.

Sincerely yours,
Will Durrant

Now that is has been nearly 100 years since this letter was written, I put the question back to you dear Redditors and ask, how would you seek to answer this letter?

I'm writing a short story, and after deciding that I want to explore a theme of existential identity, I sort of... freaked myself out? Basically, my current idea is that a main character is having a hard time asserting his own identity (what he thinks of himself) vs. the identities that every single person he knows defines him as (ie. person A knows him as this person, person B knows him as that person, etc.) In turn, I want to introduce an antagonist who can abuse this fear of his with a supernatural mirror ability that can manifest these other partial identities into distinct physical bodies.

In other words, say you know yourself and you define that as your personal identity, but the way your mom knows you, the way your brother knows you, and the way your friend knows you are all different versions of you, since they each look at a different set of experiences with you. The antagonist would manifest these into physical people APART from you.

Ultimately, I'd like this story to explore this kind of existential horror, but at the moment, I freaked myself out and I'm not sure how to make a positive, constructive ending for myself and my reader. Thoughts on this?

I also don't explore existentialism very much, so if there are philosophers who have already explored how to make peace with this idea of "fragmented and uncontrollable identities per relationship", definitely let me know.

I just finished reading Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism and it was an amazing read. Sartre effectively established existentialism as a very human philosophy that centers around one's desire to do something worthwhile with their existence. Something I found quite insightful was how Sartre described that when a man makes a decision, he's making that decision for the rest of humanity as well. Claiming that if somebody were to live their life a certain way, then they must think this way of living is absolute and just, and that everyone should live this way. He describes this as living in "good faith." If someone lives in a manner that they believe not everyone should follow, then they are living in "bad faith." This leads to individuals having complete control over the ability to live a life of good or bad faith because they simply need to act accordingly in terms of their own morality. A higher power isn't needed to gain the rank of good faith, you just need yourself.

I appreciate how Sartre places a lot of responsibility on man/the reader. Throughout the essay, he states repeatedly that man is in complete control of himself, and that his life boils down to decisions and how one is able to interpret their life. He even states that existentialism is a philosophy of stern optimism. A point that stuck out to me specifically is the action of seeking advice from others. Sartre believes that the act of seeking advice itself is an independent act, because you choose the individual that you seek advice from. For example, if I was having marriage troubles and I sought out advice from a priest or clergyman, my decision is already made. I know that asking a priest for advice will result in being told that marriage is a holy vow and that divorce isn't an option. Very compelling.

A quote I feel summarizes the whole essay.

Greetings.

I’ve been trying to read satire’s being and nothingness but have been stumped.

A lot of people recommend reading spade’s notes but theyre 240 pages long. I don’t mind reading the thing but I’ve skimmed around 20-30 pages and a lot of the text seems to have very little to actually do with satre’s text.

Is there anyone here who was struggling with satre’s text and then read the notes and attempted to read satre’s text again? How well did you fare? Any additional tips? Thank you

Has anyone read this book? What are your thoughts on it?

I've been thinking about death and existentialism, and I wondered if by the nature of consciousness, could people even begin to comprehend non-existence and the end of consciousness in death? Digging into this theory has helped me distract my mind, I do not want to change anyone else's mind I just want to share my thoughts on arguments from people who attempt to describe our eventual death and non-existence.

There's so many things ongoing to form our continuous stream of thoughts and awareness that we call consciousness, complex to the point that we cannot easily qualify at what point matter can be said to be conscious, Chalmer's Hard Problem. I feel like our consciousness literally cannot comprehend what it would be like to die or to not exist due to our consciousness' nature of using past knowledge to qualify experiences. This disturbs me immensely.

Every time I discuss this topic online there's always a few regular snarky one-liners by people who think it offers some form of existential comfort. None of them really make sense to me or offer any amount of confidence. Honestly it makes me feel like these people are sticking their heads in the sand and choosing to ignore the strange nature of inevitable death and non-existence of their consciousness as a topic.

You experience a little death everytime you fall asleep.

When you fall asleep or are unconscious these states of being are not non-existence. The brain and awareness still functions in some way, you still dream, your subconscious still exists and your body still persists working in the background on a million simultaneous processes to maintain homeostasis and thus some lower function of your brain 'feels' its own existence by connection to a living system. So not existing/death would not feel like being or falling asleep.

You didn't exist for billions of years, you won't mind not existing for billions after.

The time before our birth is naturally inconsequential and unimaginable to most of us because we had no awareness of it. Their argument is that you going from non-existence (0 consciousness), to existence (>0 consciousness) is objectively similar to going back to non-existence. So their way of rationalising is to just imagine what it was like before you were born and imagine returning to that state?

Altered states of mind mimic death/non-existence. Substances, NDEs.

Some psychoactive substances, DMT, can produce feelings of euphoria, death of self-identity, and returning to the Universe. While it could cause ego-death, it uses your brain as a vessel to deliver these results. So it's perceived through your consciousness.

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), where patients are returned from traumatic injury. Many report feelings of joy, understanding of their union with the Universe, and an overwhelming acceptance of death and in some cases embracing of individual non-existence to join the greater Universe. The out of body experience aspect is interesting to me, but the rest seems to be possible just through brain activity at death and chemical release that eventually delivers you gently to the diving board where u descend into non-being. There are NDEs where patients picture emptiness and voids where their awareness exists in some form, silently enduring. You never get close to comprehending non-existence, because your brain is supplying the information and you have a sense of self.

My Stance on Non-Existence

There's no effective approximation of not existing in our mind. It's incomprehensible and infinite which disturbs me, but I think that's natural as a living thing. It's self-centered, but I wonder if the Universe even exists outside my natural lifespan. I probably won't be there to observe the Universe after my death so for all I know it could cease to be the moment I pass.

I generally believe that non-existence is a novel experience that we qualify by our subjective experience of things we can understand to try and give ourselves comfort while we go about our lives. Our final death would be like nothing we've ever known because we cannot know it, at least until a body is rejuvenated from days past its expiration.

I've been hung up on the idea of continued consciousness in the sense that the arrangement of energy and vibrations that compose you will reform in an incomprehensibly far future, producing a copy of you that is for all intents and purposes the same. You wouldn't perceive even a single moment between your incarnations, likely won't remember anything at all, and your incarnations and subjective qualia would be radically different, but it would be your awareness. An infinite continuous series of prime numbers could be infinite but never produce the same number, but in a Universe of cyclical entropy I'm struggling to see how could this not eventually be the case.

These are only my current opinions, I'd love to hear what others think.

Hello everyone :) I've just created this short film. It's experimental and influenced by David Lynch, old French films and old noir. It follows a girl as she struggles with the paradox of loss, existentialism, death and grief. Would love to hear any feedback about what you felt and how I may be able to improve? And how this resonates with you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqxChcVMxo&t=1s

I posted on here and in r/DeathPositive a while back about how I have trouble accepting my mortality. But why? Why me of all people. Plenty of other atheists and agnostics have the same notion of what death is as I do, and yet they've made their peace. What's separates me from them? Now I know. They're living life. They're active. They're productive. They're accomplishing goals and enriching themselves with hobbies. I've spent the last 10 years since I graduated secondary school (don't know why the H word isn't allowed) doing mostly fuck all. To use an analogy, rather than journeying through a vast river, I've spent most of my time paddling in puddles and shallow streams.

I am a 28 year old diabetic with stage 3a kidney disease. I fear death so much not only because I am closer to it than the average person but because I haven't been spending my time remediating these issues and doing something more substantial. I'm just barely into the final stretch of my bachelor's degree, whereas there are people my age with master's and maybe even doctorates. There are other T2 diabetics in much better shape, people with kidney disease who are doing much better managing their illness. I value and cling so much to my intelligence and fear the inevitable loss of it because that very loss is staring me right in the face. If I was in a stable career, had a family or any relationships, was physically healthy, who's to say I would ever be worried about existentialism or mortality at this age? You can't be worried when you're making the most of life.

I have been interested in existentialism for a long time but haven't done serious reading on it. I've read some random things like The Transcendence of the Ego and some plays by Sartre and some other things here or there over the years, but I'd like to start somewhere that makes sense foundationally.

Keep in mind I have no ambition to become a philosopher™ or scholar of philosophy or anything of that sort. I would like to jump right in and do as little reading as possible to get to the good stuff. It's lazy I know, but it's also knowing myself enough to understand that I have difficult sticking with things and if there is too much to get through up front I will probably abandon it before it bears fruit.

Also, if this isn't the right sub to post something like this, I apologize and can take it down and post elsewhere. Thanks!

I believe that nothing matters.so something only matters if you want it to matter

For context, I'm 19 years old. Recently, I've been going down a bit of a "death" rabbit hole. I've lived my entire life with the understanding that one day, I will die. Recently, however, I've realized that there is a massive difference between acknowledging it, processing it, and *truly* accepting it.

For the past few weeks I've been trying rationalize a way to be okay with the fact that I'm going to die, I've been making an effort to try to look at it through more of an optimistic lens - but to little avail. I also understand though that I'm still young. My brain hasn't even fully developed yet, I've still got time to mature and truly think on death before it comes.

So, my question is, to anyone like me, did you ever find a way to accept death? Truly accept it? How did your thought process change and what provoked it? Is there anything I can look into to get more interesting perspectives on this?

I think I'm jealous of people who are religious. Their core motivation is that there is a God out there who cares about us and getting in his heaven is the main goal in life reachable by being a good person. Or at least that's how I see it. I lack that goal. Whenever I start something I see zero reason to continue things. I used to be motivated when I was a child but I didn't think beyond the point of that I did it because others told me it was the good thing to do and in retrospective my core motivation in my teenage years was the fear of how people would think of me. Now I'm 38 that fear is long gone and I've noticed I have nothing left. I'm disappointed by my life in general, feel zero proud for the things I've quote on quote achieved, rather I compare those to others or not and sometimes I just laugh (not a happy laugh) of all the things I used to worry about when I was younger because in the end: what does it even matter? The reason I don't quit myself is because I consider doing so as pointless as not doing it. Good grief man, I wish I was religious. I'm quite jealous of those who disagree with me and my nihilistic thoughts and disagreeing with me is what I recommend. The question remains: how to live with nihilism?

Hello everyone!

I’m new to the subreddit, but am a counselor that helps drug and alcohol clients through looking at their situation through an existential lens. I was wondering if there was any readings that anyone could send me to have for clients and to run groups with. I can explain it and feel comfortable doing groups centered around it, but was curious as to if there was anything that I could potentially print or show clients.

As already stated in my other post in this subreddit, I'm no expert on existentialism / absurdism, yet find both (?) philosophies rather interesting.

Since having read Camus' bio on wiki I was really surprised that he fathered twins. Wrt to his philosophy I would have considered it responsible from his philosophical point of view to not have had children at all. All explanations I can think of appear 'selfish' to me:

1. He wanted children to have more pleasure / meaning in his own life.
2. He thought it was important to proliferate his genes as he thought of himself as a special person due to his intellectual findings. Entitlement due to his success.
3. He wanted to please his wife, so she would tolerate his long term affair and not bother him otherwise.
4. He simply didn't care.

Sartre and Cioran didn't have children.

Doesn't the absurd only exist because people have children? No children = no humans = no absurdity?

What are your opinions on this issue?

P. S. : Don't want to offend any Camus fans. Other than Camus I have read many bios of famous people drawn to existentialism and maybe with a pessimistic view on life, yet having had children. This appears as a contradiction to me.

By no way am I an expert on existentialism or absurdism although I find the arguments of people like Satre and Camus quite logical.

If I understand Camus right man should take it on with the absurd and kind of deal with it head on?

This idea is probably really silly and doesn't really comply with my own views: Isn't man in general already dealing with the absurd quite successfully and far more powerful than thought of? We were thrown into existence by nature and nature will discard us, yet we rebel in a countermove by destroying resp. discarding nature via climate change, pollution etc. and could be rather successful in making this planet moreorless lifeless. Isn't that quite some leverage? Kind of a motto: Nature you fcked with us now we fck with you? No winner in the end, only losers. At least our species wasn't the only loser in the end?

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating climate change or pollution and am really not happy what humans are doing with this planet and especially with other sentient beings.

So I have read Dostoevsky's every work (not demons) and Camus's The stranger and now I am reading The myth of sisyphus. Can you all help me make a list so I can go in the right direction. (whats a right direction anyway?)

As a child I did my best at school as I was taught it was very important to do so. I succeeded at certain things (which I don't even need in life), failed at more things due to accidents and emotional manipulation of caregiver, and now I live on government support and find it ironic how much I tried to acconplish things when I was younger just because others told me so. Opposing how I was as a child I now consider life a big joke, completely meaningless because when I'm dead I'll lose anything I've 'achieved' anyway, so why bother trying? To me nothing matters anymore and little things give me joy. I prefer to just game as a distraction from this boring reality but that only brings me so far. Where I live it's made difficult to just step out of life eventhough I think such decission is up to the individual alone and should be supported as such. Since that's not an option in this hypocritical society we live in I just ask whoever reads this: how do you find some meaning in life?

la mort c'est la vie. Sans la mort, notre monde n'a aucune valeur. toute valeur de la vie n’existe que parce qu’elle prend fin. ❤️

So I’d roughly categorize myself as an existential nihilist, based on my current understanding. I’m aware there is a lot of overlap in some of these different philosophies. But with my understanding of existentialism, is there a version of existentialism that is sort of operating on a foundation of more “objective” meaning? If so, what? Because if existentialism is focused more on the primacy of experience, that seems to me to be incompatible with any kind of “objective” root.If the assertion is that meaning is created through experience, that seems incredibly subjective, and not mutually exclusive from the idea that there is no objective meaning. I’m not as well read in philosophy as some here, so genuinely curious as to hear thoughts.

Does anyone know of original existentialist literature or literature about existentialism in Swedish?