How to live and write as an Existentialist

‘Why do we create?

Michaux said: ‘To get out of the chaos’

Genet said: ‘To be loved’

Nabakov said: ‘To drive back the beast’

 

- From the film ‘The sexual life of the Belgians.’

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Living existentially requires passionate commitment to its goals, and each new day is a new opportunity to renew our pledge to the art of living. Existential work in art and literature often describes lived experience as it presents itself. The movement of existentialism continues to influence writers, musicians, artists and filmmakers across the globe. Existentialism is a philosophical movement concerned with the humanity of the individual. The perception of constraints determining who we must become is prevalent throughout western culture for millennia. It is with existentialism that humanity is aware that to be human means we are constantly ‘becoming’. To exist is to be in flux. For existentialists, as Walter Kaufman explains in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ‘the rich texture of individuality’ overthrows rational and neat schemes in which to abide by.  In fact, ‘the existentialists try to deny the centrality of that rationality’ Robert Solomon tells us. 

Existentialism, as a movement, is multilingual and multi-faceted. The modern roots of existentialism are found in the nineteenth century and were developed by philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. The movement grew in prominence from the late 1920s in Germany and France, with ground-breaking ideas being carried forward by philosophers including Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre amongst others. These philosophies were then carried forward, spreading to the rest of Europe and America where they survive today.

The answers we seek are within us. Existentialism is a search for truth, a truth not to be found in an abstract objective universe but within the core of the inner life of the individual. Søren Kierkegaard, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, maintains that ‘the inward deepening in and through existing, is truth.’ Jean-Paul Sartre in Existentialism Is a Humanism, explains that: 

to Kierkegaard individuals alone were real – and not solved by intellectual exploration of the facts, not of the laws of thinking about them. Their resolutions emerge through conflicts and tumults in the soul, anxieties, agonies, perilous adventures of faith into unknown territories.’ ‘Truth’ said Kierkegaard, ‘is subjectivity.’ Kierkegaard thought of subjective truth as a personal passionate commitment to life. For existentialists, becoming aware and exercising our radical freedom is a necessity. 

Intelligence is complex, areas of which are inaccessible to empirical evidence. However, an aspect of a book, a film, a piece of literature, or art, may speak to an experience we have had. We get to explore our own truth when we create a piece of work that allows us to express our inner life, to let it flow freely onto the page, or canvas, whatever medium we wish to use. Our greatest gift to ourselves will always be our ability to portray the authentic self. Allowing the subjective to be universally understood is firstly very brave, as we are essentially sharing the predicament of all human existence and inviting others to make of it what they will. To impose an objective interpretation on a creative work of literature, is to obstruct the exchange between the individual viewer and the reader. Analytical psychologist Carl Jung in The Spirit of Man, Art and Literature, argues that we have no right to expect an explanation from a piece of work. In relation to art he says:

‘seizes a human being and makes him its instrument, one who allows art to realize its purposes through him ... He is subordinate to it and we have no right to expect him to interpret it for us. He has done his utmost by giving it form.’

An existential writer then, simply holds up a moment in existence to be internalised and answered only by the observer, not the producer of the work.  For existentialists, making choices, such as taking responsibility for our lives and to consciously move forward from one moment to the next is necessary. Choosing to be authentic is a significant desire for existentialists.  

Eigentlichkeit (authenticity) is a word created by German philosopher, Martin Heidegger in his book Being and Time, 1927. It translates as, ‘being one’s own’ or being your own self.  Heidegger of course was influenced by the Ancient Greeks and the Oracle at Delphi ‘know thyself.’  While knowing thyself is great, daring to be your own self, and expressing our journeys or perilous adventures of faith into unknown territories as writers, is in today’s world of instant feedback, is courageous. As creators of the work, it is essentially not for us to get attached to others' perceptions of it. 

By choosing what is true for you (being one’s own) is to choose your own existence. ‘Existence’ means in direct translation to stand out (from the Greek work Ekstasis).  The journey through life is filled with many wonderful adventures of love, and excitement, but equally strife, and injustice. To exist in awareness is to experience it all and make literature or art from it. 

Within the existential requirement that we take responsibility in moving forward in our own search for truth, while paying attention to the life we live, the process of creation is as important as the work produced. As individuals, we do not experience the journey through life in the same fashion or manner. It is not possible to ‘understand all of the feelings of any living being,’ as stated by the Irish artist Jack B. Yeats in 1947.  There is no ultimate objective meaning by which our lives are guided. To objectify experience or meaning would be the imposition of an inauthentic application to the rules of convention within our lives. It is our individual responsibility to find or create the meaning of our own life.  

 

‘Life may be difficult; circumstances may be impossible,’ yet ‘to live is to live passionately’, Solomon states. Real, authentic works of literature and art provide a way for humanity to express the nature of hope and disappointment. Rationality can often prove deficient in clarifying or conveying life’s journey comprehensively. Existentialists believe that we are responsible for how we face adversity. A genuine and passionate dedication to life can enable humans to thread through the darker hours. Van Gogh dedicated his life to his art, and even used an unfortunate event as an opportunity to make art, as in his ‘Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear’ (1889).

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

To sit around and wait for something that makes you feel like you exist is to live in-authentically. For existentialists, it is necessary to add something of your own to the world. By making life our own, to go our own way, is to be free. Freedom, although it won’t relieve all suffering, gives purpose and having purpose in our lives can bring moments of great joy. 

There can be no objective meaning for existentialism.  It asks only that you be yourself, in an authentic search for a subjective truth as a personal passionate commitment to life. Or as Kierkegaard put it, ‘The thing is to understand myself: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die’. 

Melanie Ann Dunne