Why Am I Here?

I've been thinking a lot about death recently. I don't think it's something that just popped into my mind. It's been there, on and off, for several years now. Perhaps it's just amped up a few notches lately as I see my parents getting older and have witnessed many of their friends dying recently.

Whatever the reason, I'm finding it necessary to reevaluate my long-held beliefs about why I'm here. For years, there was a smug assurance that I had answers--if not all of them, many. It's a great comfort to feel that pressing questions about existence have been answered. It takes some of the pressure off our daily routine--especially when that routine becomes depressing or is accompanied by dreaded thoughts of futility.

I was reading a copy of a lecture by Jean-Paul Sartre the other day. It was delivered to an audience in Paris on October 29, 1949. Sartre had already gained international notoriety as a playwright, novelist and philosopher and he'd become quite influential throughout the Western world.

In the lecture, he laid out a list that he'd developed about the principles of atheistic existentialism:

1. We are totally free. That is, we are not determined by heredity or environment.
2. Since there is no God to define our being, we must define our essence.
3. We are completely responsible for our actions, and we are responsible for prescribing a moral philosophy for everyone else too. We create our morality.
4. Because of the death of God and the human predicament, which leaves us totally free to create our values, we must exist in anguish, forlornness, and despair.
5. Yet we should celebrate the fact that we are creators of our essence and our values.

There are things about these principles that are surprisingly comforting to me. But there are numerous principles that are disturbing.

It's nice to be reminded that we're totally free. Sure, it produces some anxiety but it also gives me a great excuse to sit around and do nothing on a given day, free of guilt. I can't remember the last day I actually did that, but I know that I have done it and remember the feeling of liberation it gave me.

When I read or hear something like "since there is no God...," I find myself alternating between extreme sadness and overwhelming joy. I mean, I've studied existentialism for years, particularly as it relates to art. But as much as I try to embrace the concept of no God, I find myself searching for alternatives almost immediately; no judgemental God, for instance. Or perhaps the comforting thought of God as mother. In the end, I can't seem to escape the foundations of my earliest childhood indoctrinations: God=puppetmaster=benevolent or mean, depending on his mood.

Perhaps I can give myself credit for some maturity here. In previous stages of my life, many of these thoughts would have produced paralyzing fear. Today, they just leave me with a question that I can't answer: Why am I here?

It's Writing Time Again...

I have been on a writing sabbatical it seems. But I've been getting the urge again lately, and I've lots of new things to write about. Please re-visit in a few days to find out what's been on my mind.