Existential Philosophy : Karim Benammar

 As part of my 'Introspection Summer', I signed up for three courses on Udemy, and completed one. 'Existential Philosophy' by Karim Benammar. It not only provided clarity as to existential crises and purpose, but opened up a whole new world of freedom and choice. 

Why are we alive?

There are two questions that we seek the answers to. How to make a living and How to give shape to our life. We have answered the first question through careers, and providing for our families. We have a world of abundance, where survival is no longer our primary purpose. We have time and energy to do other things, which brings us to the question 'How do we give shape to our life?'

Throughout our lifetime we are simply becoming who we are. We are free to live authentically. We are free to sculpt our life, but that is a responsibility, and newsflash says - 'That's scary!'. Why are you alive? That question can make your life meaningful and enjoyable. The answer is to be constructed by you, over time. 

What is stopping me from living authentically?

Friedrich Nietzsche, a man who comes to be quite important, said 'If an outsider looked at us , they would think we were conquered by fear and laziness.'

Humans are not Herd animals. We are unique. This arrangement of genetic information will never exist on Earth again. We are unique, and so are our destinies. Other people's journeys can be examples and inspirations but our life is ours to live. We so badly don't want to be ourselves that we take other people's paths. The cost for taking someone else's path is too high. It's your life. 

Laziness is the other one. When opportunity comes knocking on your door and you postpone it. Create that opportunity outside your door. In your head, you feel that Your current life is not YOU. Look at our choices. Are these choices out of fear and laziness?

Nietzsche Ideas

1. Apollo-Dionysus - Apollo is the God of Measure, Structure, Clarity while Dionysus is all things revelry , madness and ecstasy. Both are needed to create art. And art is not necessarily a thing, it can be your life. 

2. God is Dead - People no longer truly believe in God. We pick our own values. 

3. Affirm the Good - We determine that an action is Bad. And any other action becomes Good. Good equals Not Bad. Nietzsche says, 'Affirm the good. The bad is much less important'

4. Truth is a perspective. There is no single unchanging truth. 

The Eternal Return

This is a thought experiment and a criterion for decisions. How do you know you are living authentically? How do you know this is the right decision for you? Imagine, that one day a demon came to you and said that the life you have lived so far and are living now will repeat eternally. You can no longer change any of your decisions. What would you do? Would you curse the demon or bless him? Gnash your teeth or call him God?

Are you proud enough of your life? What are you ashamed of, but do anyway? What if these choices are for eternity? DO YOU STAND BY WHAT YOU DO?

If you do, you are living an authentic life.

The Surplus

You can look at the world in two ways. You can see scarcity in violence, hunger, poverty and health. Or a world of abundance. A world where we have so much energy and so many ways to expend it. We all have to expend this energy in one way or another. According to Georges Bataille, we can expend this gloriously (carnivals, sports) or catastrophically(war, violence). War is a great way to expend energy. Break everything down, build it up again, but it is catastrophic for humans. 

The Sun expends so much energy. Life therefore has a tendency to overflow giving us this abundance or too muchness. 

The Absurd

The Absurd is my favourite part of this course. It is something I have often pondered about. A lot of people may refuse to buy it, which is great, and look at it as a sad way of looking at things. But it really isn't. 

Life is meaningless. The universe has no structure or reason. No rules, just an abyss of nothingness. Tomorrow if the earth were to explode and the human race was done for, who would care? Who would freaking care? But no, we want meaning and we want answers? What if there is no reason. The Absurd is this- Humans want meaning, but there is no meaning out there. There is no reason for suffering or happiness or anything. Now , that goes against years of things we have been

 taught. But if we are all gone tomorrow, who would care? We have built a small community for ourselves where we give small explanations for things. But in the big picture, no one cares. Life is meaningless, but we treat it like it does.

Photo Credit : Nana, KBR park, 2016

 

Now, Albert Camus says that people can react to the Absurd in 3 ways : 

1. Suicide. By this we mean, philosophical suicide. The emotion may be something like 'Count me out. I am just not in this. Peace!'

2. Living in Hope- Some just sit and say, well, I will wait for someone to tell me a story that there is meaning in life. We create stories about agencies to whom our lives matter. We desperately want someone up there to care about our lives, that whatever happens happens because of him. Yes, this is religion. Not to be taking a stance on religion, but we find it hard to accept that there may be nobody up there. No divine being. What if it doesn't matter?

3. Rebellion - Now , this Camus says is the best reaction. We accept the absurd or the meaninglessness of life. That it doesn't really matter. The attitude here however is 'Life is meaningless. I will give meaning to my own life' . As we see later, there is always the possibility of rebellion. Basically, life is meaningless. But you can lose in different ways.

Albert Camus

The Plague by Camus, is about a town affected by an untreatable plague. The protagonist, the town doctor, still continues to treat patients, knowing well that there will be little to no result of it. This is the concept of 'The Absurd Hero'. When we know that there is no material fruition to our work, but we have the passion to continue anyway. Camus once said 'One can only imagine Sisyphus happy.'

Freedom

To give shape to your life, we need freedom. We have freedom and agency. As Sartre said, we are completely free and fully responsible. We don't want to be responsible for our life, because what if we mess up? So we reject it and often say that we don't have freedom. However, we do. We are free! Actions determine who we are which shape our life. People recoil in fear because it is scary to give shape to your life. But, we always have choices. The situation doesn't determine how much freedom we have. We are ALWAYS free and responsible. 

Jean-Paul Sartre's work can be summarized as 'no excuses'. Every decision, he said, is a commitment. Take your own decisions to live authentically. Ask yourself, right now, 'Do you feel in charge of your life?'  In our process of running away from freedom, we see ourselves as things and use them as excuses. Have you ever caught someone or yourself saying things like - 

'I can't deal with emotions. I'm a man'

'Of course I'm broke, I'm 18!'

'How would I know how to jumpstart a car? I'm a woman'

These are excuses. We are avoiding taking responsibility for our shortcomings by using the groups we belong to as shields. We are not only ruining their name, but we are not facing our demons. 

Power Structures

Now you may think, I am not completely free. I still answer to the government. 

Michel Foucault says that we have been molded by our institutions. Groups have privileges and there are hidden and explicit dominant structures everywhere.

 How do you liberate yourself from society then? The straight answer is that we can't just throw it all away. We can only move forward. Analyse these dominating structures. In any way,

there is always the possibility of resistance. By this we are not referring solely to revolutionary rebellion, but

small choices. For example, is it my choice to watch TV? Am I doing this because I enjoy it or because the

world around me does it?What did your upbringing tell you about right and wrong, normal and abnormal? 

Before you rush off to protest, don't ask yourself what you want 'freedom from' but what you want 'freedom to do'. Do you have that freedom?

Community

All of this is an individual journey. But we can never truly be alone. We are always, always part of a community. There are two communities - Your Implicit community and your chosen community. Your implicit community existed before you. These are parents, uncles, family

friends, who are around you before you get to pick. Your chosen community consists of your friends, partners, hobbies. You can ask yourself, what does my chosen community bring to the table? How do they help me become who I am?

Projects

Humans need to expend their surplus energy in some way or form. This comes out in Projects. They needn't be meaningful or helpful to humanity. They need to bring joyousness and challenge which is sufficient to keep humans happy. Victor Frankl said that the people who survived the Holocaust had a reason to live, be it an unfinished business or grandchildren. 

Life as a Work of Art

Michel Foucault said - Why can't life be a work of art? Why are only things works of art?

That was the end of the course. Afterwards, I made this Existential questionnaire for myself when I feel a little lost. 

    EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONS

Why am I alive?

To what extent am I living authentically?

Am I making this decision based on fear or laziness? Am I a joyous soul?

Do I stand for what I do? Am I pleased with my choice?

What do I spend my surplus on?

What if there is no reason that I exist? Can I accept that life is meaningless, but try to give it meaning?

Can I be the Absurd Hero?

Do I feel in charge of my life? Do I take responsibility for my choices?

Is this my choice? Or is it society's choice?

What PROJECT will I spend my surplus on?

What do I want freedom to do? Do I have it?

What values are important to me?

The course left me with a lot to think about and a concise and complete understanding of the work of the world's best philosophers. It gave me clarity, purpose and a reason to get up in the morning with a smile. There are tons of conflicting ideas between these philosophers, but it is certainly worth going through. Personally, Albert Camus's theory of the Absurd resonated with me. 

Thank you to Karim Benammar and Udemy!

To sign up for this free course -https://www.udemy.com/share/101vWyAEYSdlpWQXgH/