I know a bunch of my peers on their last lap of the Search experience are stressing over what to write about for their final paper. It's supposed to be about what values they've gleaned from their three trying semesters of Search, and you know what? I'd truly prefer doing that to this entry that I'm supposed to be culturing right now. I have so many ideas about what to blog about that I really don't have any at all. Since Existentialism is serving as my last F1 credit, I feel I can justify my inability to succinctly tagline what I'm about to say by calling this a summary of a semester's worth of value-generating experience.
See, there. Example number one. I work better with a preset task, one which outlines what I'm supposed to do, while giving me enough creative license to do what I want. Sound like something from this class? Sartre's coefficient of adversity jumps to mind whenever I'm faced with this idea of overwhelming freedom. When I'm not given a topic to write about, I'm completely at a loss for words. Like the crag that Sartre uses to illustrate his concept of situational freedom, assignment boundaries grant me access to the sort of academic freedom that is necessary for me to efficiently function as a student. I'm especially fond of Sartre's assertion that "there is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situation only through freedom" (243). My freedom to write intelligently about a subject is predicated on there being a situation to write about said subject and vice versa. It's just like how you can't just say, "Yeah, I have so much freedom," because the inevitable response would be, "To do/be what?"
Which brings me to my second striking realization in this class: freedom is what makes a human being. This has sort of been spoon fed to me, because while I really liked the notion that "cool, we're free," I needed to examine the depictions of this freedom by Dostoevsky (in his Underground Man's refusal to adapt to the formulaic life) and Sartre (through the splitting of facticity and transcendence, he pinpointed how integral freedom is to our very nature) to allow this assertion to sink in.
Thirdly, and most importantly, I have come to grips with the concept that what I choose to do is really all on me. I have the freedom to choose to submit this blog entry or not. I have the freedom to set up parameters in which my intellectual freedom can operate so that my limited mind power can focus its energies on writing about one thing coherently. I have the freedom to not do that and have (what I fear this might be turning into) a really muddled stream-of-consciousness mess. I have freedom in any situation, no matter how dire. The responsibility factor, of course, requires a few assumptions. Like in any Physics experiment, a vacuum is necessary, so if I can fiat the total lack of preestablished values in this world (not even from religion, society, upbringing), I become responsible for the values that I create for myself and the subsequent decisions I make based on those values. Scary much?
Most recently, the possibility of an end to meaning-finding has been plaguing me. Since my quest for meaning really is utterly my own responsibility, the end of it (perhaps due to an overload of tragedy--an OD on Frankl's pain, guilt, and death) would also be my fault; would it not? I can't blame those external factors which might have driven me to depression because, after all, isn't sadness just another state of being with which I "affect myself" (231)? True I can't begin to comprehend the resilience of the human mind to tragedy, and one could contend that human freedom allows us to continue to find meaning regardless of what horrific things we suffer, but in spite of all that, this possibility of pointlessness is troubling.
I believe...no, I couldn't have. Have I stumbled upon what they call angst?
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3 comments:
ahhh I love this post Christine. The notion of having to make a blogpost as opposed to writing your good ol' standard everyday prompted college paper seems to me to be the perfect example of human beings being confronted with the frightening realization of their ultimate freedom. It's the perfect assignment for a course on existentialism in that it applies the material in a very real and practical way. Being allowed to write on just about anything we choose is definitely a little intimidating in the sense that the possibilites are literally endless. What if I write about something stupid? What if what I write about doesn't really apply like I think it does? What if I can't decide what I even want to write about? It's definitely intimidating, at least a little. Personally I enjoy this type of freedom because it gives me the oppurtunity to be a little creative as opposed to structured according to strict guidelines. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't at a little stressed or anxious when trying to settle on one topic out of a bajillion.
Freedom and responsibility are two of the most important concepts I've learned from existentialism this semester. I like Sartre's concept of freedom, that we are not free in the sense that we can always do what we want, but in the sense that there is never a time when we are not free. And I think that's a very empowering feeling. With responsibility, I feel like that is our job. We must take responsibility. With freedom comes responsibility, and if we can be trusted to be free to do as we may, it seems we also must be trusted to be responsible for what we choose to do with our freedom.
It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? :)
The blog does seem an appropriate existential expression, now that I think about it. It is scary too have that much freedom. You founder, tread water, not knowing what to do. Then the time is drawing near and your fear (of not doing the assignment at all and getting a bad grade) accelerates into anxiety about your own ineptitude(fail at this and you fail at life). Then, the magic: you write something down and it doesn't matter whether it's write, or even good. It is your choice. You have exercised your freedom. Success is, theoretically, irrelevant.
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