existential crisis

Existential Dread, Annihilation Of The Self.

“Existential dread is a state in which in individual questions existence, meaning, purpose and almost everything about life in a cynical way.” This is a random post I read scrolling through Facebook.

I was confused on why would this happen. Why would people get crisis on existing? Soon the confusion turned into curiosity and I want to know about this. I googled it but the results are a bit confusing.

So I messaged my friend, of course, you guessed it, John. So here is how the conversation goes.

Me: Hey John! My man! How are you?

John: Hey, I’m good, how about you?

Me: I’m good, so I saw this term called “existential dread”. What does it mean?

If you remember, John has a habit of texting back late when asked something important. After a couple of hours, I got a text back from him.

John: Why do you want to know that?

Me: I just read it on Facebook and want to know more about the same.

John: Okay, before we dig deep, you need to know a term called “existentialism” and “existential crisis.”

Existentialism:

In simple words, it is is a philosophy that stresses the importance of human experience, and says that everyone is responsible for the results of their actions.

Existential Crisis:

In simple words, an existential crisis leads to a time of deep questioning within oneself. This normally associates with how someone sees themselves and their meaning within the world.

John: Existential dread and existential crises are technically the same. If we push, we can say that the dread is the next stage of the crisis.

Me: I get that, but why does anyone question their existence and feel bad about it?

John: If we talk scientifically, it may trigger when there is a trauma, death of loved ones, major loss, substance abuse etc., But on a philosophical level it is on a different note.

Me: Okay, can you elaborate on that?

John: Sure, from the philosophical standpoint, the burden of existence is the cause of the crisis.

Me: What? It doesn’t make sense. I mean how is existence a burden? We all exist and that is a fact. I don’t get it.

John: It is very simple, the existence of an individual is not a choice. All life and existence are random. So you really don’t have a choice of existing.

Me: I get that, but life is what it is. Adding to what you said, you cannot really choose to exist or not. So why feel sad about it?

John: That is exactly the issue. Life is what it is which is an unavoidable thing.,. Some people choose not to exist yet they do. As there is a famous saying “Life is not a bed of roses.”

Me: Okay, I get the premise of the existential dread. How bad can it be? You might feel bad for some time and move on right?

John: It is one of the worst things to hit you. It is almost a mental suicide. If a person is hit by it, they lose interest in almost anything and just become a deactivated robot.

Me: I don’t believe it. How extreme will it be?

John: Any individual suffering from the dread will be in a very bizarre position. As I said, they have zero interest in doing almost everything, the consequences are overthinking, less expressive, not able to focus etc.,

According to some studies, these can lead to some mental illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety etc., It not only affects you mentally but also physically as you are not able to focus.

Me: Oh man! That is very bad than it sounds. What would a day look like for the person who is hit by existential dread?

John: I can talk from a personal point of view. For instance, If I have a knife in my hand, I want to just want to cut my hand and see how the blood would ooze out. Even by thinking about this, I wouldn’t flinch.

If I’m on the roof of a building, I would imagine if I would jump, how would my head burst when it’s hit the ground, how would the blood splatter all over and things like this.

These are not suicidal tendencies but complications of overthinking on the burden of existence. I would just sit in a dark room staring and thinking or would be in the shower for hours doing nothing.

It is like a man who is emotionally dead, with an expressionless face just walking around. Everything around me eventually stops making sense doesn’t make any sense no matter what. It feels very weird.

Me: Man this sound awful! Is there no other way to divert from this existential dread?

John: There is one amazing quote I read somewhere it says “The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn’t a search for meaning. It’s to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you’ll be dead.”

If we just keep ourselves busy with any unimportant shit, we can eventually come out or avoid the existential dread.

Mama, What’s Happening?

He woke up to the smell of coconut oil. “Mama” he yelled in his sleep. His eyes are still shut but he feels irritated. He wants to sleep more but the coconut smell is irritating him. “Mama, stop” he yelled as he opened his eyes. There stood a beautiful lady who looked similar to his mother. But he doesn’t know who she is. He doesn’t understand what she is doing in his room with his mother’s looks and his mother’s oil. “Where is my mama?” he asked her. He feels invaded in his space. And he only wants to see his mother right when he wakes up. “Shhh” she patted his head. “Sleep, daddy,” the woman said as he went back into the slumber.

He woke up again and he was in a different room. His father was smoking a cigar, it was his study room. He walked up to his daddy. “Father, when did you come?” he asked eagerly. His father brushed the kid’s hair. “Right when you fell asleep on my desk, slugger” he tickled the kid in the tummy. The kid ran into the hallway screaming “Mamaa” and his mother answered from the garden. He rushed to the garden and he saw his mom plucking the weeds out of the bushes. “What is it Krishna?” she asks annoyed. “Mama, did you know papa is back?” he asked curiously. “Yes, I know my dear, why don’t you show papa your new toy you bought?” she brushed him away. Krishna rushed to his room and kept searching for his new toy.

After a lot of throwing the things around, he finally found the airplane toy that he was looking for. He held it in hands with pride and ran to his father’s study. He saw his mother weeping, a bit older than she was supposed to be, and holding his father’s hands. “Mama, what happened?” he asked as his mother pointed to Krishna and said “Why don’t you think about him?”. Krishna’s father stood from the chair “You can’t use him as defense every time, Sarala! He will be 21 this year!” he yelled. “Dad, I’m eleven” Krishna defends, but his voice came out rather coarse. He doesn’t understand how his voice is so coarse. He looked in the mirror that is beside him. And he had a moustache and a goatee. “But, I was just eleven a few moments ago” he said and turned back towards his parents.

His mother looked rather old, like she was 60 all of a sudden. “Mama, what’s happening?” he asked as she looked at him with despair in her eyes. “The dementors are coming” she said pointing to the window. Krishna moves to the window. He sees scary shadows filling his garden. He sees his own reflection in the windows and he is back 11 again. A dementor knocks on his window and he closes his eyes screaming loudly. He turns back screaming to see his mother and father quarrelling. “Mama there is a ghost outside” he shouts pointing at the window. “You are too old to be scared of imaginary things, Krishna” his father sighs. Krishna turns back to the window only to stare at his 21-year-old’s reflection.

He turns back to his father and is taken back looking at a black coffin and his old mother sitting beside. “What happened, mama?” he asked, trembling with fear. Random people in army uniforms entered the room and covered the coffin with a flag. The soldiers stood in a line in the room and they shot their guns in the air to pay respects to Krishna’s father. Krishna worried about the roof and looked above. It was blue sky and he turned down to realise that he had mud under his feet. He was standing in his garden where the rites of his father are taking place. The soldiers were going away and he followed them. “Don’t Krishna”, his mother yelled. But something pulled him with the soldiers. The soldiers rallied outside their gate and it was mayhem out there.

The planes were bombing around and the soldiers were camping, unloading guns from the crates. “Here” a soldier threw a rifle at Krishna. Krishna caught the rifle and took cover. “Charge!” the major yelled. “But, I’m just 21,” Complained Krishna. “You are 32 now, Captain Krishna” a soldier patted his back. “Krishna” his mother called him from behind. Krishna turned back and his mother was standing at the gate, and he ran to his mother and hugged her tight. His arms wrapped her legs. She lifted him up and threw him in the air and caught him again. “Coochie Coochie” Sarala chuckled and kissed Krishna on his cheek. His father, rather young, took Krishna into his hands and pointed towards the flag. “That’s the nation you will serve after me, Son” he said.

But the flag started turning black, like there is a black fire on the flag. The flag started vanishing into nothingness. “It is not fire” Baby Krishna yelled to his father. “Krishna” his mother called him from behind and he turned back. “The dementors, Krishna!” she screamed as she caught black fire on her. Krishna started running towards her but his knees started aching. His voice started trembling. He kept running towards her as she kept burning in the black fire. “Daddy” a voice called Krishna from behind. He turned back to see a young lady resembling his mother. “Daddy, let’s go” she yelled at Krishna. “My mother, she is being taken away into the void. I need to save her” Krishna yelled.

“Don’t embarrass me in front of my friends, papa” she shouted angrily. There were a lot of kids laughing at Krishna standing beside his daughter. “Why are you laughing at me? My mother is going into the void, everything is going into the void!” he yells. “Papa!” the lady yelled. “You are not my daughter, I’m still eleven, how can I have a daughter” he yelled at her as he fell down. The lady came running and lifted Krishna. Krishna felt a piercing pain in his knees. In her eyes he saw his own reflection. His wrinkled skin and shaking face. He couldn’t accept it, he screamed hard. He stood up and started running. His body turned into an eleven-year-old boy. His daughter and her friends kept chasing him but they are old, they are twenty somethings. Can they outrun an eleven-year-old boy?

Krishna ran on the streets and entered into a building he found familiar. His old mother sat on the couch when he entered the door. “I was waiting for you, Krishna,” his mother opened her arms. Krishna hugged her tight. “Stay here, with me” mother said embracing him proudly. He felt as if the hug was squeezing him. Soon he feels choked. “Mama, leave me alone” he yelled and frees himself from her. There was a gigantic thud and he rushed to the window. The world is filled with dementors. They are putting up the black fire. And the black fire is sucking everything. “Mama, what is happening?” he yells. “They are eating your memories, Krishna! Please stay with me, I can’t move. Stay with me and accept the void” his mother opened her arms again.

But the ghastly creatures have bashed the door open. They sucked his mother into the void and pounced upon Krishna. They started sucking the life out of him. And they took breaks for each inhalation. And with each inhalation, they took things into the void. Krishna was holding the carpet hard, he doesn’t want to go to the void. The dementor inhaled him. But he was strong. With first inhalation, Krishna turned 15 and his eleven year old self went into the void. With the second inhalation, the 15 year old went in and Krishna turned 21. “No, Please. I want to remain young! I belong here!” Krishna yelled as his 21 year old got sucked in too. They kept on sucking the life out of Krishna till he turned 83. There was nothing left anymore. They sucked everything in the room.

They began with sucking the wallpaper. As they suck, there appears a black fire around the objects and the objects go into the void. The wallpaper went into the void and turned white. The inhalations of dementors grew and the room looked like a hospital room. And after everything went into the void, the coconut smell, it still exists. He couldn’t open his eyes anymore, he hadn’t got the power to keep them open. He closed his eyes as his daughter stood by him crying touching his forehead. “Stay, Daddy” she said. He overheard someone talking, maybe her husband. He closed his eyes, his hearing was going weak, sucked into the void. “Dementia, Dude.. He was suffering from Alzheimer’s for a long time. It doesn’t look like he is going to make it” he heard it faintly and he couldn’t hear anything anymore. And there was nothing, the void!

Nausea of Jean-Paul Sartre

I have been reading this book, nausea, for quite a long time. No matter how short this book is, don’t fall for the less number of pages, it is a lot of content that exhausts an average mind. When I began this book, I read 85 pages in a single go. But then, I didn’t dare touch it for two months. It is not that I didn’t want to open the book; there was never a moment that I didn’t think about it.

Everything I look reminds of “nausea”. The way Jean-Paul Satre wrote the book, he takes time to explain everything around the character. The character hits an existential crisis and begins to observe everything around him keenly. He begins to explain everything to us in a detailed manner. We are reading his journal, the pages left from his diary. His name is Antoine Roquentin, and his dairy explains all his thoughts and feelings about everything.

There is a page where Antoine explains how he felt anxious when he thought about his existence. He keeps reminding himself that he exists. And he keeps repeating “I think therefore I exist” in his mind numerous times and at the end, says, “I think therefore I am moustache” and loses it! He begins to question everything since he picks up a rock to skip it in a river; begins to question the essence of stone, and since then, he asks the nature of everything.

He begins to contemplate people, their actions, lifestyles; doesn’t see meaning in doing whatever it is. And he questions everything in a rather radical manner by drowning in absurd imaginations. Jean-Paul Sartre has carefully written the thoughts of Antoin in a way that while reading the pages that consist of anxious thoughts, we feel nervous too. I found myself observing everything in a more detailed manner and started describing things around me after reading 85 pages in a single go. I’m like Antoin too, and this book acted like the rock for him in his story.

Ever since I have read those pages, I became sensitive to smell. I began keen on observing the smells of everything. I even had a vomiting sensation, literal Nausea after sniffing certain smells. All the world is smells, visuals, audio, touch and taste. And there is nothing more to it; I feared reading this book any more. I needed time to continue reading this gem. And I have overloaded myself with it. After this overdose, something continued its journey with me—the meaning of this particular book.

Even though I have more 80 pages to read, I somehow knew where he was leading with the rest of the book. The effect that the 85 pages have done to my mind, I had the thoughts of Antoin for next 80 pages. I understood Antoin, and I suffered from similar views. I knew where Jean-Paul would lead me next. And I had existential crisis myself at the age of 19, and it was four years ago on 21st September that I first this ‘nausea’ that Sartre calls.

This Nausea bothered me, and I had cried multiple nights because I didn’t know anything anymore. Everything seemed false because nothing had any meaning. I don’t know if this is how it feels for everyone, but the way Sartre had written it down, I could relate to it. I resumed reading the remaining pages to see if I was right and yes, I was. And I predicted right, and it went over like I thought it would. But it was more beautiful than the first half of the book. He did not just raise multiple existential questions; he tried to resolve it.

Even though the resolution is not correctly baked, even Sartre knows that. He didn’t claim to have answers for the problems. Instead, he ended with a note of temporary patches that Antoin would do to avoid Nausea. It is a significant literary work as its style is new, post-modern and unique. Not only for its academic brilliance, but it is also philosophically sound. Unlike other books which claim to be resolutions of your life and offer fake solutions through influence, Nausea is pretty much straight forward and asks you questions. It is up to you to resolve those questions, or you can choose to embrace them.

I Exist in a dog’s mouth

I was sitting in a cafe, sipping a cold drink. The drink passed in my throat, I can feel it going down my throat and falling into my belly. Right when it hit the bottom of my stomach, I couldn’t feel it anymore. This thought struck my mind, and it made e forget that I’m sitting in a cafe. I was lost in my thoughts. This drink, when mixed with all the half-digested junk in my tummy, becomes something else. It isn’t the soda that I drank anymore. It’s some dude’s half-digested stomach acid. So, the soda doesn’t exist now. It existed a while ago till it was in the throat. But now, it doesn’t, and you can’t turn me upside down and get it back. If you try that, you might get that semi-digested white puke that is not the soda anymore.

So, is this what happens to me? What A I? I’m a skeletal structure, and above that, a muscular one fit with all the organs in a way that I have consciousness. I’m me, till I am conscious. So, if I’m not conscious, aware and awake, am I non-existent? I lost in dreaming about ‘nothing’. I could see something black everywhere. But I know that ‘nothing’ would not be black, because black is something, for it to be nothing, I have to imagine a blank space. I realised that it is humanly impossible to imagine nothingness as we have something or the other to always think about. We can not really think nothing like those meditation fantasisers claim. The close one to nothing that I could think was everything!

I imagined everything instead of nothing but excluded me out of the picture; I imagined the world as it is, full of splendour and horror. And I imaged the dog sniffing in garbage and perverts sniffing thrown panties. The world is the same, the mixture of every opinion it contains. Just one difference; I don’t exist anymore. This thought struck me from the back like an ice pick with full of snow on it. I felt breathless like, Jean-Paul Sartre; nausea. Nothing mattered anymore. I can see my reflection in the empty bottle on the table in front of me. It exists, it is a plastic bottle designed to contain a liquid that people consume; It has a purpose that’s solved, and I trash it. And it goes into the dump and from there it recycles. It’s molten and becomes some other product, or ironically the same bottle again.

But this one, this new transformation is different from the older bottle. Even though it is the same bottle, it is different. It is not the old bottle now, it changed. As per our understanding, its existence has not ceased but transformed into something else or the same thing again. But it is not exact, it is different. Maybe there was an imperfection in the bottle somewhere, perhaps it had an extra plastic layer on it, but it has some new flaws now. It is not the same bottle even if it looks like it. This made me realised how objectified are religious people. Maybe they don’t voluntarily do that, but they compare themselves with objects. They think like this bottle even they are made by some external being, filled with some purpose, and after the fulfilment of that purpose they believe they are re-used.

I think I know how they came to this conclusion. The religious people are just like me, just like how I felt about this soda bottle, they thought about it too, looking at the mirror. They compare themselves with the things that they see because these things are what immediate to our sense and intellect. We can see them, think them. But we can’t think about what is not there. We can’t think about the things that happened before us that connect to us. We don’t know what our parents were thinking about before conceiving us. Or we don’t know what happens in the baby-making factory of God. We don’t even know if God is a dude or an animal. What we speak about or think about God or anything that we haven’t seen by comparing it with things that we have seen and try to make it sense.

But we haven’t seen them, we are not capable of thinking about something before or after our existence. But I have successfully done that. I have thought about the world where I don’t exist. I ceased to exist. I’m lying in the ground, six feet under. Years have passed, and my descendants don’t even know that it is me that brought them into existence. The graveyard has been destroyed, and now the land is a real-estate venture. The tractors moved the soil. My fragile bones broke because of the pressure, and now they got jumbled; My favourite face, the beautiful face that I apply moisturiser every day is now a skull with no features half-cracked inside the ground. And my flesh in the tummies of maggots long back now. My energy drained in the soil went into the roots of a plant. It sucked me with its rots from the humus. And my jaw, my beautiful jaw broken because of the soil-digging, has now surfaced. My jawless skeleton lay underground.

This spectacular jaw attracted the skinny stray dog. It found a play toy in this calcium deposit that I once wielded a majestic beard; It held the jaw in its mouth and ran all over the venture. And It played with my jaw, and the tooth that was stuck on it fell on the ground. My sharp-canine got into a car tyre, made it flat. This angry driver threw my tooth out of this tyre on the filth beside the road. I exist! I exist in the plant’s body, I exist in the maggots that have eaten me, I exist in the dog’s mouth and car’s tyre. But it is not me, it was me, but not me now. Now it is a mere veil that had held me like the empty bottle with no soda. My muscles, my organs, my brain and my functions and my user-interface, the mind, they don’t exist. I transform into a plant, my cells live.

I existed even before I was born, like the stardust. We all don’t cease to exist, we transform. And we change from a being sitting in a cafe sipping a cold drink to dog’s play-bone and a maggot’s midday meal. We are eternal. It is just our consciousness that is not. It is a limited offer which is a result of evolution by natural selection. The cell in evolution had thought it’s best if this ape gets consciousness. Thus, the mind, and existence of consciousness. And here I exist. As a memory in the mind of myself writing this in the future after my cafe episode. Then the regular diversion have started. I have crossed all these thoughts off my brain; I wanted to close my eyes for a while and when I open it, I don’t want to picture my death anymore. And I want to delude myself into believing that I have a purpose like that plastic bottle.

I have lot of things to do, it is time to work, I thought. I stood-up walked away and looked all these people in the cafe, not knowing what happens to them after dying. They think they will transport to heaven or some think they stop existing. No, they exist, in a different form. A form that we don’t want to imagine. We turn in to the half-digested juice of this world’s other beings. But no, why should we think about it, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just look at that toe massager, dream of buying it. Let’s chase a paper print called money. Because I think any diversion is better than thinking about this. Or maybe we can embrace it, by calling it a random event that we had no say.

Our purpose, or to be precise, the purpose for us to have consciousness is to make these cells replicate and live long. Thus our purpose ends as other beings in the world use our energy, cells and etc. Hence our purpose solves. We transform! We exist, not same, but different!

The ultimate truth of Life!

What is true? How can we conclude something to be true and something to be false? Isn’t it ironical, that confirming that something is false, becomes confirming truth about that ‘thing’ to be false! Even if we are not deliberately searching for truth, instinctively we seek the truth. There is always a curiosity in human nature to find facts about almost everything. Am I beautiful? Does she like me? Do I need to improve my skills? We are continually questioning something because of the desire to know. And in the daily life of an average human, we face a lot of questions, and we seek a lot of affirmations. But is there something that we have been asking for a long time and there still is no answer? Yes! The purpose of existence! Why do we exist? That is the ultimate truth of life!

Have you ever wondered, why do we exist the way we do? Did a god make us like this? Or is it all random? No matter if we accept it or reject it, we all are curious to know! And we found a stream for that, dedicated to studying reality, existence, death, life and almost everything; Philosophy! We have made arguments! We brought conclusions, and we also raised questions that were never there before, using Philosophical studies. Many findings from Philosophical studies have been misinterpreted and misused for a long time! Few have accidentally misread the conclusions, and few have taken advantage of them for their benefits.

Philosophical conclusions or the arguments that Philosophers made throughout history, have proved useful to the con men who tell you that they have an ‘ultimate truth’. You can see many people using that term! They say to you that they found it, know it, and they are going to enlighten you by showering it to you. One of the most common ‘ultimate truths’ they pour upon us is about our existence and reality. These con men take advantage of our curiosity to know the meaning of our lives and preach pseudo-philosophical utterances that only put a patch over your void of existential crisis but does not fill the void. This patch is fake, it is like putting a plaster to a broken wall, it did fix it, but not the solution you are seeking.

The ultimate truths they speak are words of comfort that make you sleep at nights. Their sugar-coated words are indeed a bunch of lies. Even they don’t have answers for their very own existence. But they have found their purpose, that is to fool you and encash your belief in their utterances. But regardless of these conmen and confused men, is there a purpose to live, let alone human life, but the entire existence, does it? Well, it depends on what you choose to believe! It has enough space for anything you want to think. If you wish to place a purpose that your existence was meant to save lives and become a super-hero, it is! Because that is what you are telling yourselves!

The conmen are successful in making people believe whatever they tell about the purpose of existence. That is because it is a blank white paper; tabula rasa! The article having an answer about existence is blank! That is, the ultimate truth about the ultimate truth of existence is that it is false and does not exist! To clear the confusion and put it in simple terms, the ultimate truth about existence does not exist. And the fact that there is no ultimate truth becomes the ultimate truth indeed! Because that is what we all want to know ultimately! And that is what we all have to know! That there is no purpose for existence!

It might sound sad or discouraging to put it like this. So, let us perceive differently. Let us say “The paper that has answer to our existence is blank.” Now, this looks positive than the sentence “Life has neither a purpose nor a meaning to it.” This positive depiction of the absurdity of life, gives space to the one that reads it. The space that it creates is the space that one can use to fill that blank paper. This analogy of a paper encourages one to write their papers and fill it with meaning that they want to give to their lives. And again, it doesn’t necessitate one to write something. The paper is just blank, and you are free to choose to fill out or leave the paper blank! Every individual has this blank paper with them; filling it with some meaning every time they are doing something.

Every person is also free to do whatever they want to do with that sheet. You may create your Ultimate truth, or you can embrace the ultimate truth that there is none!