I stud­ied a lot of phi­los­o­phy in high­school & was drawn mostly to exis­ten­tial­ism. Prob­a­bly both for it’s para­dox­i­cal extreme bleak­ness & over­whelm­ing hope­ful­ness. I think it par­al­lels in many ways w/ Bud­dhist thought (more on that another time?), & have def­i­nitely adopted many of the key themes into my own per­sonal phi­los­o­phy (per­haps a true exis­ten­tial phi­los­o­phy is indeed one that is uniquely your own).

In Exis­ten­tial­ism & Human Emo­tions, Sartre makes the point that every­thing is a choice. Like the reli­gious man who feels he has received a sign from God, & is mak­ing the choice to see it in such a way. Life itself is a choice we must make, & our whole real­ity is based on our per­sonal & col­lec­tive per­cep­tions of it. No mat­ter what you believe to be real– that is your choice.

So I have a slightly exis­ten­tial view on choice & life, but I’m also an ide­al­ist w/a touch of (irra­tional?) opti­mism thrown in. Why choose a neg­a­tive per­spec­tive? Why inten­tion­ally limit your­self? Why choose to feel bad when the only thing stop­ping you from feel­ing good is choice? Why on earth, would any­one in their right mind actively choose mis­ery over eupho­ria (huh? Teenage Sara? Why?!)

I believe strongly in the power of the indi­vid­ual to rev­o­lu­tion­ize their own lives, & thus rev­o­lu­tion­ize col­lec­tive real­ity. Because I choose this view on real­ity, I try to act in accordince to it & live a life where I choose to see even the occa­sional con­trast­ing suf­fer­ing, as beau­ti­ful moments of per­fec­tion, work­ing in har­mony to help me grow. I choose to believe in the power of myself & that magic is REAL, that art & love can save, & that pure bliss­ful wak­ing joy exists if we choose to reach out & grab it.

Mean­ing may not really exist- it’s up to you the indi­vid­ual to cre­ate mean­ing in life (another rather exis­ten­tial state­ment), so whats your choice? Whats the mean­ing you’ll give to reality?

Related Posts:

• Incog­nito & prac­ti­cal evolution
• Per­spec­tive Change
• How to be an Outlaw
• Prin­ci­ples of Art: Steal from your­self (aka, every­thing is an artists tool)
• The ulti­mately sim­ple 2 step guide to choos­ing what you believe in.