No-Pill #32 What Is Existentialism and Why Does It Sound So Good?
— Mystical Manipulation Runs Wide and Deep
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If an average and normal, work-a-day person was asked, “Hey, they have this new set of ideas, and they go like this: ‘always emphasize the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will,'” that person is likely to respond with something along the lines of “Yea? Sounds good to me; what’s new about that?”
That’s the classic and standard definition of Existentialism, a major Western philosophy with tentacles so far-reaching that it influences some Eastern thought and practices.
When you hear people use the term “My Truth,” that’s existentialism. It means: I don’t have to adhere, conform to, or acknowledge facts and reality if I don’t want to. It turns “individualism” on its head, inverting it from generally meaning that no other individual has any legitimate command over you, to not even facts and reality have any command over you. Existentialists believe that the nature of existence varies and is individualized to each person.
Does anyone care to test whether the existential nature of gravity is individualized to each person?
Some common sayings you may have heard over the decades that have their root in existentialist thought are:
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