Existentialism

Romanticism, but somehow less happy.

World War One sucked. In addition to killing 16-20 million young men, the ones who survived were very bitter and ended up giving us existentialism. Maybe the war should've done its job better and gotten those soldiers instead. Because I know I badmouthed romanticism, but existentialism makes romanticism look like silky anteaters.

You're welcome for telling you about these.

They believed that every one of us, as an individual, is responsible for what we do and for who we are and how we deal with the world and how the world is. Okay, that seems fair enough. We decide who we are as human beings, because there are no absolute traits that define us as human beings. Okay, still going good. But then they tell you that because your actions are the only ones that you can control, everything that happens to you is directly your fault. Okay...what? 

This is more or less how existentialists view the world.

Weren't these the same people that were pissed off at being shipped overseas to die in a war? Were they pinning the blame for that on themselves? Because one of their tenants was that everybody is responsible for themselves as an individual, and so I'm just supposed to assume that everyone's a jerk to me because of stuff I did? That's not fair.

They did have some liberating ideas about deciding who you are in the future for yourself. They believed that you should have an image of who you want to be in the future, and you should spend your life striving to meet that goal and become that person, because you could die any day now.

Imagine Ernest Hemingway reading the secret and making a vision board,

But this knowledge is risky, because if you could die any day now, what's to stop you from living it up and robbing a bank? Well, they did say that people needed to have restraint. Because people have limitless potential, they have limitless freedom to do as they want. There's a lot of responsibility that comes with that power. It's impossible to have the power without the responsibility, because to deny one is to deny the other. This is why there was the "code hero," an individual who acted with endurance and precision under even the most dire of pressure, despite the knowledge that one day a loss is inevitable.

He gets it.

That's why I can't hate existentialism. Though it has its flaws, at its core it is a solid idea. It believes that existence precedes essence, and I think that's a good metaphor for its existence. It exists, and so it's created a great sort of atmosphere to thrive in. You just can't think too hard about it.

3 stars, because I get to choose whatever I want.