So Monday was our last day of presentations and it was sort of a recap of what the entire semester consisted of. The main question of the presentation was what is existentialism to you and how does it affect you. Before this class I only briefly knew of existentialism. I had only known a few philosophers and their general ideas. Taking this class has taught me so much more about these men and women philosophers and how profound they all are (in my opinion). For me, existentialism is an awakening. It’s an idea that thrusts you into real life. Existentialism has helped me to look at situations differently now. I reflect upon my actions more, I think outside of myself more, and I have a new way of thinking about things that can lead to a concise answer. I found the works of Albert Camus to be spectacular, especially “The Stranger”. Through this story is where I find inspiration to reflect on my life. It has taught me to accept responsibility for my life and if I want something changed then I must change it. Kierkegaard and his subjective truth also greatly impacted me. One struggle for me has been growing up in a Christian family and then changing my views to atheist. I do not believe that God exists and being around my family for 20+ years has made it difficult to accept their decisions to keep their religion. When I learned about subjective and objective truth, it kind of put my mind at ease from this internal struggle. In a way, we all subjectively know our own god or gods. This can even include the option of no god. Kierkegaard has helped me realize that it is just fine to have different views of what god is or isn’t.

Wednesday’s class was Hazel Barnes examining the works of Sartre and looking for misogynistic clues in his writings. To deviate a little bit, I would like to focus on Barnes’ translation of Sartre’s philosophy of the body and consciousness. Sartre says that consciousness is the body and at the same time, transcends the body. This makes sense in that consciousness is not a tangible object, but it can manifest itself into what we are: humans. Without consciousness, how would we know our place in the world? If the body and consciousness can be separate, then Barnes’ reply is that “neither anatomy nor physiology” can describe who we are. Those two traits do not make us who we are. If I understand this correctly in the proper context, in regards to feminism, men and women are no different. We are not seen as humans with this certain gender or body part, but as a body of consciousness. Just because a child is born female does not mean that she must grow up into a “female mold”, wearing dresses and having tea parties. Where does this kind of “female mold” originate then? Was it placed there by society or did we bring it into actuality? Society tells us that we have standards that we need to live by. But who created this society? WE DID! The pressures that you feel from society are the pressures that we have forced on ourselves. A blind slap in the face. So society fuels into the stereotyping of genders, which Barnes says advocates misogyny. This means that it is up to us to break these gender standards we are “forced” to live in. When the consciousness is the body, we are aware for two reasons: our self-awareness and the awareness from others. In the case of Barnes, she views her body as an object and a “treacherous instrument”. She views her body as on object because she is consciously aware of it. However, it is a “treacherous instrument” because society has sexualized females.

On Monday’s class we discussed Sartre and judgment. On the presentation, one of the questions asked: Would you be different if you were unaffected by the “objectified judgment” of others? I definitely think I would be a different person, perhaps a more sane person too! As we get older and start having more experiences in the world where we run into other people we have more of a sense of self. Our awareness is opened up and we are able to see our selves through others. I think Sartre was talking about this subject and “hell is other people,” meaning through other people we are constantly reminded of our selves and the judgments against ourselves. If no one were there to give an “objectified judgment” there would be less of an internal struggle in the world. One would have a sense of identity, but it would not be expansive due to the lack of external judgment. Another question that was asked was if you were stranded on a desert island, do you have a sense of yourself? Hypothetically, if a person were stranded on an island (since birth) and that person grew up alone there with resources to live, then that person would absolutely have no sense of his or her self. Based on Sartre’s philosophy, people are sort of like mirrors and they reveal to us our self-image and traits. The simple look that a person can give you can bring out any insecurity tucked deep away. Thus, this person on the island has no concept of his or her self. But think about this, would it be so bad to live ignorantly rather than in fear of constant judgment? If we accept the way that others see us we are not displaying courage. If we do so, we fall into a mold that is not necessarily true. We are no longer free once we are not living by how we see ourselves.

Jean-Paul Sartre was one of the first existential philosophers that I got into. (In fact, Nausea was the first philosophical book I bought.) The handout states that Sartre’s philosophy is about freedom, which is strange because the impression that I get from the text is confinement and power. Perhaps the freedom comes out of the power. The introduction to Sartre began to develop his theory about being held responsible for our actions, which includes our emotions, and he uses the phrase “emotional consciousness” which is simply beautiful. If you couldn’t tell from my other blog posts, I have such a passion for exploring consciousness. Emotional consciousness is what brings an emotion into possibility. Before we can act upon an emotion, we have to feel that emotion first. In order to feel that emotion, according to Sartre, there must be a physical reaction in the brain to induce that emotion. Emotional consciousness is the unperceived set of events that leads you to experience an emotion. The emotion doesn’t exist yet, but the probability of emotion is very high, thus bringing the emotion into life. I also agree with him when he says that our emotions are strategies. Often when I am at school I act nicely to everyone. When I act nice my emotions show it; I appear happy and content. To me, this is just a strategy for a way to fit in. I can also see it as a strategy to not draw attention to myself, to not start arguments with anyone. Basically by being happy, I go to class and then go home, which can all be seen as a strategy to get by. Bad faith, as described by Sartre, is when someone uses their emotions strategically to avoid their fears and come to terms with their fears. I am definitely guilty of doing this sometimes. Reflecting on this, it is important to take control of your emotions and learn to master them, not let them master you.

How do we even go about answering the question “why do things exist rather than not exist?” Is it difficult because all we know is existence? If you think about it, we are only cognizant of our existence and not our death and what occur after death. So if we try to relate the question to ourselves, is it not but impossible to answer? Perhaps an example of this question can be related to our actual existence. Why are the only humans in the known universe alive on the planet earth? Why do we only exist in one place and not any other place? If we say that to exist is one state of being, then reciprocally, we can say that to not exist is another state of being. Does one state simply transition to the next, or is there some kind of order in these states? If we try to apply my example to answer the question then this is the following: We are only alive on earth because it is suitable for our needs. We have oxygen, water, shelter, and food. We are alive because, so far, we cannot exist anywhere else in the universe. This must mean that to be alive right now, everything before our existence had to have been set up perfectly. There are behind-the-scenes events that are taking place, without our knowledge. In other words, there was a design for our existence. So to try to answer the question initially stated with this side-example, things exist because there was an order that formed the said thing into existence. If something does not exist, there was no order, design, or plan for it. Or maybe the reason something does not exist is because the order that brought it into existence has terminated. What brings about the termination of order though? Is it just the natural cycle to go from start to finish? Does that mean that there is also an order for non-existence that constantly stays at finish or end?

Wednesday’s lecture was Heidegger’s views on death. Heidegger uses the term Dasein to describe human existence or the act of existing/being. We cannot have a learned or remembered experience of death because we are dead after it happens. This leads us to question how we can fully understand Dasein, in its entirety, if we cannot experience the end of Dasein. Heidegger says that by learning about the end of Dasein in others, by this he means the death of another person, we can have a better understanding of our own Dasein and what it really means to die. Thad brought the lecture to an interesting point when he said that Heidegger wants you, the individual, to relate to yourself to death. We all know that we will die, but none of us know when or how death will come. There is really only one thing you are guaranteed in life and that is death. Everything living must die at some point. Millions of humans have died before you even existed and even after you die, millions more will die. I think a lot of people try to have this philosophy of “live today like you will die tomorrow” and I think that’s bullshit. I bet that no one is constantly thinking about their death, which inspires them to live. (I am excluding people who are sick or have a terminal illness.) However, my opinion doesn’t change the fact that I still could die at any time. Just like any other human being, I have thought about what it would be like to die. I’ve sat in boxes before, acting like they were coffins, and who hasn’t sat in bed at night randomly thinking about mortality and death? One of the questions on the power point slide asked, what does it mean to exist, and I believe that it means being aware of consciousness, being aware of nature (this earth we live on, this galaxy earth lives in, this universe our galaxy lives in), being aware of other humans, and not knowing the answers to everything which makes us strive to find those answers. We do not know what is in store for us in death, anything is possible.

Being aware of other people heightens my sense of being. There are many reasons for me to think this way, but two reasons I feel like sharing are because I am self-conscious too much and because of my consciousness. To make this entry an existentialist text and not a therapy session, I will explain the latter reasoning. I believe that everything in the universe is composed of waves of consciousness. Consciousness exists everywhere, and it is through us and every other living, or non-living, thing that consciousness is able to experience itself. This look on life makes me grateful for being alive and all that I do because the opposite would mean that I am not aware of life and I would not exist without consciousness. You can find so much inspiration in life by being able to fully experience it. I mean, thank consciousness or a higher being for manifesting you into a human and not a rock or part of a dust cloud in space. So with my deep love and respect for consciousness, my sense of self is heightened and I am made aware of other people. Other people are a reminder that we are not alone and that consciousness runs throughout everything. Seeing other people live their lives and the fact that they are able to get through their life with all the troubles that tag along reminds me that I am not alone. I guess you can say that other people help me to be who I am, whether I get ideas from somebody or if I can model myself after the goodness I see in them. Therefore, this brings up a question of whether or not I am authentic. I believe everyone is authentic. Yes we can copy each other, but we are all so different. Consciousness is the same in everything and everyone, but it’s through the vessel (human, animal, object, deity) that consciousness is different. We carry out our ideas and our values differently through consciousness, which makes us unique and authentic. The fact that we are alive and can exist right now makes us authentic because this world is full of change and destruction that might not give us the chance to live on it anymore.

To start this blog post off with some words, I enjoyed the reading about Frankl very much. His analogy of the Holocaust prisoners being released was powerful. The title of the section was “Man’s Search for Meaning”, but did the prisoners find meaning after their release? The book stated that they slowly left the concentration camp and walked down the road, observing the land where they were held captive. Frankl said that they looked for freedom, even though they knew they were free, but they couldn’t grasp the idea of freedom. These prisoners were left with an existential crisis. Frankl says that the meaning comes later, when these once-prisoners have learned to look back on their experience. How could one even find meaning in something so evil? For Frankl, he believes the meaning is that they no longer fear anything because of the hell that they endured. I think trying to find meaning in your captivity is such an extreme example. It makes a lasting impression and strikes the heart of every person. Frankl also discusses his idea of tragic optimism. Tragic optimism is described as the optimism that is generated in a human even though that human knows that he or she will one day feel pain, guilt, and death. If we could be given the conscious choice of living or dying the instant that we are born, what would we do? Keep in mind that you are well aware of the suffering that accompanies humanity, the sickness, and death. Would we have the will power to say yes or no to life? Maybe it is better that we are not given that choice and that we have a default answer, which is to keep living. As Frankl said, by being optimistic we can reflect on our lives and find the benefits in our negative experiences and use those benefits to better ourselves.

On Monday, one of the questions asked was, “Is it possible to live your life with contradiction?” Let’s try a harder question: Is it possible to live your life without contradiction? I think contradiction will find its way into your life no matter what circumstance or position you are in. It seems like one of those things in life that are just bound to happen. There are probably two categories of contradictions: internal and external. Going with the latter, external contradictions are more observable than internal contradictions. One could provide many examples, like a person who regularly attends church and practices Christianity, but his practices stay in the church. Outside of the church he sins willfully and holds no respect for his religion. Maybe we are blind to our external contradictions sometimes. The blindness could be a self-defense move in order to protect us from the devastating reality that reality, in itself, is a contradiction. I don’t see life and death a contradiction, but rather an inevitable cycle shared among every living thing. However, I do find what we are capable of doing and what we could be capable of doing a contradiction. We are blessed, through evolution, with a complex brain capable of higher thinking. What makes this a contradiction is that we can think outside of the box—solve problems, invent formless ideas, create anything that we can possibly imagine—and yet we cannot act upon it every time. How cruel of a contradiction is this? Now for the second contradiction, the internal contradiction. I think internal contradictions are the ones that you believe with your heart/soul and mind. An example of this would be hearing a new piece of information that didn’t sit right with you. You tried to accept it, but deep inside you cannot accept it. It defies not just your logic, but it defies you morally. What if you were told you had to accept this information no matter what and that it was the absolute truth? Could this same situation happen if you are being preached at in a church?

What relation does temptation have to the human conscience? It was asked in class whether or not we become a slave to the temptation that we give in to. Supposing that the temptation harms us in the long run or brings negative consequences, we long for what we ultimately desire, casting aside the adversities that trail along. I guess if you want an example, one could be a heroin user whose ultimate goal is to blast off and reach new heights (get high). However, every time that—let’s call the heroin user Joseph—Joseph uses heroin it adds another coin to the pot of bad effects to his body: the insomnia, chills, heart palpitations, and sad feelings. Joseph has enough will to overcome the negative effects of heroin for the high. To outsiders, Joseph is wasting his life away, being a slave to his temptations. But what about Joseph’s opinion? Shouldn’t that be the only opinion that truly matters? Joseph probably would say, “No man, I’m not a slave to my temptations. You got any change?” If we were a slave to our temptations, it would mean that we do it against our own will, but here in Joseph’s case, it was his free will to shoot up. So the point I am trying to make is that if we really want something, it is from our free will that we choose to do so. We are not slaves to our temptations if we want them. Until the day that Joseph decides that he no longer wants to use heroin and continues to use heroin against his own will, Joseph is not a slave to his temptation. Thad made a similar situation a couple weeks ago. He talked about how even though he didn’t want to take out the trash, he took out the trash, which meant that he actually wanted to take out the trash. If he didn’t want to take out the trash, he would not have taken out the trash.

The presentation on Monday was on the philosopher Dostoevsky, which was the first time I’ve ever heard about him. In Notes From Underground, the protagonist claims that he is a sick and spiteful man. Spiteful because he acknowledges his pain and discomfort, and in return, does nothing about it. He does not accept treatment even though he has respect for medicine and science. His spite is not about getting even with the doctors or about holding a grudge, he simply refuses help out of spite. Some of the characteristics of the underground man, stated by the presenting group, are superstitious, spiteful, bitterness, and isolated. What causes a man or woman to feel this way? These traits can apply to anyone on their bad days, but with these four traits, it seems like there is a deeper issue. All humans desire what will be advantageous to them. Money, good health, family, and a profession are some common desires, but what overpowers all of these desires? The answer is the advantageous advantage. Even though reason and science tells us how to live and what to aspire towards, we humans are not perfect. We are not accustomed to living the perfect way no matter how hard we try. We will do what we think is our best advantage. Our best advantage is our free will. According to the underground man, if we try to live by the laws of nature and science, we lose our free will because everything already has an order to they way it works. So instead of the protagonist seeking medical attention for his diseased liver, he exercises his free will by saying, “No.” In my opinion, I can only half agree with the underground man’s views of life. I understand his view of free will. It puts you in the uttermost control of your life and your life’s direction. It is the power that doctors, lawyers, friends, and family don’t give you. Even if you know their best interests, deciding your own free will is top priority. But to what extent do you use your free will? Until death or until you can no longer bear what you are going through?

Nietzsche splits people into two basic types: those with a master morality and those with a slave morality. Both types of morality can be found within the same, one person. So, which one prevails? I think by default we associate with the slave morality. We can only adapt the master morality in time, feeding ourselves with power. In this case, Nietzsche says that the master morality is to seek happiness. It just so happens that the type of happiness Nietzsche talks about is power. Power, happiness, and “the good” are almost synonymous. Therefore, the master morality seeks happiness in power and, in return, this is the good for the person. One trait of the master morality is that he or she despises the opposite opinion of “the good” (i.e. “the bad”). This states that a person with a master morality despises a person with a slave morality for many reasons. People with a slave morality are like sheep; they follow the group, don’t think for themselves, and they are cowards. Nietzsche says that people with a slave morality, the common people, are liars. To take this one step further, I think that the lie they tell is to themselves. They don’t know what they strive for in life and are clouded in judgment of what is right and wrong, good and bad. (Just another reason for people with a master morality to loath those with a slave morality.) They seek judgment, assurance from others, whereas the master is the one who gives the judgment. He is one step, more than one step, ahead of the slave. One statement that really stuck with me was, “…the noble human being, too, helps the unfortunate, but not, or almost not, from pity, but prompted more by an urge begotten by excess of power.” A person with the master morality sees himself as better, and knows himself as better. The master is happy for everything that the slave is not and gloats in the glory.

Today’s discussion was about Nietzsche, who has to be one of my favorite philosophers. The excerpt discussed was taken out of The Gay Science, where a madman runs into a marketplace and exclaims that God is dead and we have killed him. What a statement huh? We humans have destroyed, mutilated, and defamed the story, idea, and representation of God. God! Kierkegaard shares his disgust on how we have strayed away from God and Christianity, and here Nietzsche is, telling us that we are to blame. The madman plays an important role in this story. He has come to a realization, one that the atheists and churchgoers have failed to see and accept. What does “God is dead” imply? No longer is there a higher authority? There is no one to look up to? What will happen to the world if there is no longer a God? Are we doomed or do we as a society benefit from this statement? I believe that by removing God, there is a shift in responsibility. More importance is placed on the individual, and this is what Nietzsche wanted. A huge change like this can only make us transcend ourselves, see what we are capable of doing. Morality is a matter of perception now, not what “society tells us is morally right or wrong”. We take matters into our own hands since the responsibility and morality equilibrium is shifted towards us. This process of transcending your previous self ties in to Nietzsche’s overman. Humanity today is not the overman. We cannot be the overman because of our beliefs today. We are limited. Society has placed boundaries on what we are capable of accomplishing. View us humans as a bridge that leads to the overman. A bridge leads you from one point to another. I think the first point, for Nietzsche, is that we have accepted and realized that God is dead. Religion is dead, it’s over and done. It’s no longer here. As time progresses, we can change modern thinking. We can change the physical and theoretical limitations that we have placed on ourselves. Once we have removed those limitations and are in a constant state of transcending ourselves, we have reached the point across the bridge. The main purpose for us humans is to lead ourselves across the bridge, to point ourselves in a direction in which we have ultimate power and responsibility.

On Monday my group presented Kierkegaard’s “Truth is Subjectivity”. Kierkegaard’s main focus was achieving passionate commitment with God. Since God is a subject and not an object, we can only think of him in a subjective way. This subjectivity is what Kierkegaard was talking about; taking a leap of faith. We touched on subjective truth and objective uncertainty, but I don’t think that it was discussed enough, or the link between them wasn’t discussed. To find passion, or subjective truth, objective uncertainty is necessary. Being unsure of the objective truth sparks desire to question it. If you search for the truth passionately, you come to a personal choice on the matter. This choice is yours alone and it is the subjective truth. Based on the question, “How should I live,” the Kierkegaardian answer would be: live your life by what drives you passionately, and utilize that passion to search for the answers that give meaning to you. A question to consider is in what sense is believing in God necessarily irrational? Believing in God without passion is irrational. This is probably a typical Christian who attends church every Sunday morning at 9 am, never reads through his bible, holds onto his faith loosely, and does not spread the message of God. This is just as bad as believing in God based solely on objective facts. Being in the same routine, not having that connection with God is like being a mechanical robot, emotionless with no inwardness. It might not be a bad thing in the eyes of that person, but they are robbing themselves of the close connection of God. The purpose of passionately seeking the truth of God is to put one at ease with the world and with their mind. It can be seen as seeking nirvana in God. Nirvana will never be reached, but it is the approach that matters.

Today in class we concluded The Fall. The group that presented talked about 5 themes touched on by Clamence through Camus. The first theme was about manipulation. The class then discussed about how it ties in with relationships, throwing in the phrase ‘mental slavery’. I think a lot of the time we do favors (not sexual, or sexual, I don’t care what you do) for somebody with a mindset that we will receive something in return. Is this a form of manipulation? I believe so because it becomes an action—reaction response for both participating partners. This mechanism could be used to get something out of the other person. Some of the other themes were righteousness, pride, and shame. (When I saw the word Shame on the group’s power point, I couldn’t stop thinking of Steve McQueen’s Shame. If you haven’t seen it, I definitely recommend you stop reading my blog and check it out.) Is it hypocritical to judge others for the same faults that you see in yourself? I think we all would say yes, but we want to say no because we are all fucking guilty of doing it. I think if we judge others, but we have the same faults, we just can’t admit it to ourselves and come to terms with it. Why would you need to continue to judge other people if you are content in yourself? Discontent people are the ones who judge others. They cannot find peace within themselves and they project it outward, or at least that’s what I think. The group also coined a term “Jaumness”, which sounds a hell of a lot like jaundice. It is harmful to the human psyche to linger negatively on memories that have already passed. It will just make you into a human shell of anxiety with an inferior complex. Finding an inner peace seems to be the answer once again.

To start off this blog entry, I need to make it clear that The Fall literally killed me with boredom. There could not be any story more full of nonsense and experiences all pushed together as if they are coherent. Clemance bores me with all of his stories, and the narrative… The style of the writing is nauseating because one story falls into another and it seems like an endless cycle of lessons where Clemance simply changes his opinion on everything based on his experiences. With that mini-rant over, Camus has a point in his story about judgment. Every single human being has judged another human, whether it was a positive judgment or a negative judgment. The latter, it seems, is most prevalent and can impact our reality and future experiences. Since we all judge in one way or another, do we feel any remorse for it? Should we feel bad after we have judged someone? What does it mean if we don’t feel bad after doing it? It must mean that we find ourselves superior to whom we are judging. For example, during the group presentation on Wednesday, I noticed two students making fun of one of the presenters, deeming themselves “superior” to how he acted and presented himself, and the material he was covering. I find that judgment is a temporary entertainment that we provide for ourselves. Negative judgments should stay that way: a little comment to oneself to temporarily lighten the mood or to de-stress. Positive judgments have their own place: out into the open. It is important to be reminded that you are no better than the next person. We are all human and our outer appearances are simply containers for our brain and consciousness. If there were a room full of brains resting on desks instead of human bodies, would judgment matter? Would we even feel the need to judge? Camus writes, “What will future generations say of modern man... He fornicates and reads the newspapers.” His answer is very bleak and at the same time describes humanity so well. Is the meaning of life to reproduce and educate? Is that all that we have accomplished?

I finished The Stranger and I thought it was quite an excellent read. At times, Mersault’s emotions appealed to me and I could sympathize and relate to him. His epiphany towards the end of the story, when he realizes he spent his entire life only in the present and thinking about the future, made me sad for him. It only took a murder and deprivation of liberty for Mersault to understand himself and everyone else a little but better. Mersault, in my opinion, was blinded by ignorance, selfishness, and a lack of desire. (He had desires, but it appeared he rarely acted upon them, waiting for someone else to bring them to fruition.) He kept quiet when he had nothing important to say, which made him seem socially inept. Mersault had so many flaws, no wonder he was found guilty. If you could visualize Mersault, I think anyone would find him guilty based on the way he presented and carried himself. It’s not until after the guilty verdict does he see clearly the repercussions of his actions. Mersault reflects on the events that led up to the murder and wonders what would happen if anything were different; if the weather wasn’t so hot, if Raymond hadn’t given him the revolver, and probably if he had never gone to Paris. I loved how The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus can be seen as companion pieces. In The Myth of Sisyphus, I interpreted the absurdity to be the gray matter that separates human life from human death. As we talked about during the lecture today, the end for all living things is death. Death conquers all. So what then is the point to keep on living? If you believe in an afterlife, why not just die to spend eternity there? I think the answers are fear, the desire to keep living (biological function), and the possibility that we can become or make something extraordinary. I don’t wish to comment on suicide because I honestly feel it’s not up to me whether you want to die or not. On a last note, the image that stuck with me the most was when Sisyphus looked back down at the rock and decided to fetch it and roll it back up the hill. It was like realizing defeat and continuing with hope that something will change. I think that says a lot about a person’s character and the strength that they have, mentally and emotionally.

I am writing this about an hour before class, and honestly, I feel overwhelmed with the material and what is expected in order to succeed in the class. I am definitely committed to seeing everything through, but where to start? I guess the first smart thing would be to browse through the text and start reading about some existentialism. I met with my group lat week, still no Danielle Flores… I read one of my other group member’s blog and he talked about how he can’t forget her name after calling for her in the lecture room. For some strange reason I can’t forget her name either (sorry to be creepy Danielle, or not, I don’t know because you will probably never read this). Now this play or performance that we have to do… One word, “why?” Even though I really don’t want to act in front of 100+ students, I will swallow my anxiety and deliver a fucking stellar performance, or so I’d like to believe. (At least I will try.) Now, in the syllabus it says that Group 1 is presenting today and I am curious to see how it will play out. I am excited to see what the first group is going show us, lecture-wise. – Finishing up this reflection, I was impressed with the first group. They did a good job on not lecturing and engaging instead. Plus, they had the shortest time out of everyone to prepare and they still did well. The play they put on was quite simple and minimal, but still got to the point. I have to admit, I was a little behind on the reading of The Stranger, but as I read it, I find it incredibly engaging. Something about how the story is told draws my attention and the content appeals to me. I like anything out of the ordinary, so to start with a death progress into madness pleased me. Is that weird to say? Good night.

Outside of this course, I have read only a few selected works from popular existential philosophers. The first was Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. The book made me nauseous and I sold it at a used bookstore. The second, and hopefully not last, was Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. Now it’s not like I was able to read the entire book and be at ease with what it said. The read was, and still is, challenging to mentally grasp. Out of all the philosophers related to existentialism, Nietzsche is the one whom I am most drawn to. I like his ideas about holding every person responsible to their actions and how we must progress as humans to lead us to the Übermensch. What also draws me to existentialism is the questions that are being asked and how they relate to self-consciousness. I want to know more about philosophy, different ways of thinking, and to have a better understanding of my place in the world. The actions of some people make no sense, and it makes me think, “What gives them the right? What proper right do we have to do so and so?”  This leads me to question my own actions and whether or not I have significant meaning in a place with billions of other people. Existentialism asks such perfect questions, in my opinion. It throws you into a scenario and anything you do has a reaction. Being brought up into a world that is filled with chaos and beauty at the same time begs for existentialism to be discussed. It also lays out the groundwork for self-reflection. Taking an honest look at yourself is one of the hardest things to do. Analyzing your weaknesses and learning how to build off of them into something positive is a breath of fresh air. I am hoping that by learning more about existentialism, I will learn the right questions to be asking myself, and the right train of thought to further expand my knowledge of myself and the world I live in.