Existentialism is a big part of my life personally because I don't want to be remembered as that guy who was just like everyone else. I want to be looked back upon as the guy who was original, who made up his own consequences in life, and who didn't let others make those situations and consequences for him. Until now I didn't realize how much I want existentialism to be in my life but this book and discussing these different themes made me think about it a lot more.
One of the major themes that I partially see now but hope to see a lot more in the later years of my life is moral individualism. Like I've said I don't want to be like everyone else. I want to make my own opportunities and achievements. The decisions that I make in life can lead me in the right direction or the wrong direction but at least I know that no matter where they take me they will be the decisions that I made.
Choices
Choices
1st English edition (publ. Hamish Hamilton)Life is all about ups and downs and part of life is learning to deal with those hardships. Related to this moral individualism is my indifference. I don't really care what others think about me and what I do. I mean sometimes I may try to act in a different way because of a girl or something like that but I wouldn't let that girl, no matter how she looked, change the person that I am. If I would let that happen I know that it would just come back to hurt me because the only way that my life can mean a lot to me is when it is my life and not a life of acting in different ways that aren't truly me.
Another huge theme in my life is Choice and Commitment. This is what my life and the life of everyone is all about. Every day I choose millions of different little things that come together to make my life. Little things like getting up in the morning, brushing my teach, going to school, and so on are the choices that by now are habitual to me. I could always choose not to do those things and my life would be totally different. But there are many other choices in life that are way more important and that lead to commitments of some kind in the future. One of those main choices would be going to college. This choice is definitely one that I want to take advantage of and hopefully I will adhere to its commitments and it will work out for me. Most of these big choices haven't yet come about in my life like marriage, my career, and things like that. But for the choices that I have been making lately I have noticed the Myth of Sisyphus coming up a lot. It seems that this senior year has been tough because of a lot of the wrong choices that I make. I usually decide to do my homework later at night and a lot of times end up falling asleep. A lot of the times I will get my homework done but for those times when I fall asleep and don't get to do it I have to pay the consequences. I feel that I will be all ready to finish my homework up, like Sisyphus being at the top of the hill, but then I will fall asleep and not get to something that I had to do, like Sisyphus being pushed right back to the bottom. I know that all these choices and commitments are just going to teach me and that I will learn from all the wrong decisions that I make.
As you can see I think existentialism is definitely a big part of my life. I believe that through existentialism you make a lot of mistakes and also learn a lot about your life. It's about finding out who you really are and what you're to be in this world. I enjoy that and hopefully now that I know more about these concepts they will be clearer and have more importance to me in life when deciding what my future will be.
Sisyphus by Titian, 1549