This is post three of a series titled: Monica’s Mind-Blowing Trip Through Existential Philosophy.

The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. (Wikipedia)

So said Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) in an 1835 letter to his friend Peter Wilhelm Lund. It’s a strange idea – a “truth” that is true for me.

After all, isn’t truth meant to be like fact – verified and indisputable? Reality. Actuality. The Truth, according to Dictionary.com, is an “ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience.”

But here Kierkegaard has transformed the concrete Truth into something far more slippery. In one sentence he has bedded it in subjectivity, brought it right back down to perceived experienced. The truth is different for every individual, as is the “meaning(s) of life”. Both truth and purpose are unstable, and completely and utterly UP TO YOU.

And so began the time in philosophy dubbed existentialism.

Here’s an analogy that works for me:

You are floating – no – existing out in space, in nothingness, and you have a pack of cards. You are building a house with those cards, sometimes adding cards, sometimes removing. The shape of the house changes as you do this, but you’re not thinking too hard about it.

Suddenly Nihilism comes along and says, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m playing with these cards,” you reply.

Nihilism is shaking its head, and grinning wickedly. “But those cards doesn’t exist. They’re all in your head.”

Suddenly you look down and the imaginary cards have disappeared. You can’t believe all along those cards had just been in your head. Crazy!

But now you have nothing to do, and it gets you quite depressed. Nihilism wanders away, laughing.

Existentialism comes along and seeing you inquires, “what’s up?”

“Nothing. I was playing with these cards, but then I realised they were totally imaginary, and now I’m pretty depressed because there’s nothing to do. Frankly, I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” you reply.

Existentialism sits down in front of you and grabs you by the hand, full of passion. “Wasn’t it better when you were playing cards?”

You nod glumly.

“Well play with the imaginary cards then! Even though you know they’re imaginary, and you don’t have to play with them, existence is better if you are. So imagine them back!”

And like a dawning sun you slowly realise Existentialism is right. Even though you’ll always be aware that the cards you’re playing with are imaginary, that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy playing them!!

“And guess what?” Existentialism pips up, full of sincerity in its eyes and a warm smile on its face. “You don’t even have to play cards. You can play anything!”

Well actually we’re not completely free of all constraints. But that’s coming in another post.

For those of you who found my story a little too optimistic, the French-Algerian writer Albert Camus (1913-1960) used this analogy in his book The Myth of Sisyphus (I’m going to write about more him later):

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock will roll to the bottom again. Camus believes that this existence is pointless but that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it. (Wikipedia)