An Existential Inquiry: Kierkegaard’s Quest for Meaning

by John Hansen *

Søren Kierkegaard is often thought of as the originator of existentialism – which is the notion that individuals can shape their own significance, objectives, and aspirations by using their freedom. We here explore, through Kierkegaard’s thought, existentialism’s unique way of creating meaning. 

Existentialism is distinguished from other systems of thought in various ways.

• While philosophies championing freedom, such as political liberalism, individual autonomy, and rejection of determinism share many similarities with existentialist thinking, existentialist philosophy commonly explores themes of attendant anguish, apprehension, or disquiet. In its emphasis on total freedom, existentialism differs from philosophies that promote freedom yet fail to examine its existential implications fully.

• While existentialism often speaks of an absurd or chaotic world, it tends to resist nihilism and despair. Rather, it highlights the significance of persevering and taking accountability to transcend the lack of meaning in existence without falling into hopelessness. It centres on the belief that there is always purpose in life, and seeks freedom from life’s absurdities when it meets meaninglessness.

• While existentialists accept that freedom of choice is associated with anxiety and ambiguity – existential anguish often being accentuated as an integral part of human life – they acknowledge that it also allows people to choose their own values and goals. In the view of existentialist philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, all individuals are ultimately responsible for their actions and decisions.

• While existentialist philosophy often portrays the world as uncaring or lacking any predestined intention, those who choose to view their lives as purposeful may question their decisions and goals. In a process of internal reflection, they face their realities and find transcendent wisdom beyond the confines of the finite universe, even though it is often fraught with conflicting forces.

All of these characteristics contribute to a tension, or duality in existentialism – and, as a result, the existentialist must continually strive to reconcile their contradictory existence. On Kierkegaard’s theory, we are constantly in conflict with ourselves and with our societies. Adversity and paradox are inherent to the human condition.

At the same time, opposing aspects of human nature must be reconciled. A major dichotomy which Kierkegaard emphasised was that between the finite and infinite, the transient and the eternal. Based on Kierkegaard's philosophy, disparate forces engage in dialectical interactions. To uncover truth, one must actively grapple with the uncertainties of one’s being.

As a major example, in Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard depicts Abraham’s unwavering determination to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a symbol of the struggle between faith and ethics. Abraham represents both being a father and having unwavering faith in a higher, divine authority at the same time.

As one finds in this pivotal story, Kierkegaard notes that humans try to grasp their existence and find meaning in their lives from their subjective viewpoints – through the exploration of first-person perspectives – among them ethics, principles, and liberties. A key feature of his writing is the importance which he places on the individual’s experience, authenticity, and engagement with existential issues.

The attention Kierkegaard places on the inner life of the individual contrasts with the widespread sentiments of hollowness and anguish in society today. Thus, Kierkegaard’s ideas still matter today – as is witnessed, for example, by a series of articles published in The Guardian in 2010, by Clare Carlisle – one such being titled, “Kierkegaard and the Pursuit of Meaning.” Duality entails an existential conflict that must be accepted for one to discover oneself.

Kierkegaard's systematic questions enable us to discover conflicting forces and go beyond the finite world in a way that cannot be achieved otherwise. His discussion of duality illuminates the fundamental inconsistencies of human nature. The process of existential inquiry evolves from being a purely philosophical journey to being one of faith and uncertainty as a result of introspection.

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* John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and an MA in English literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared in Philosophical Investigations, Philological Review, The Summerset Review, One Sentence Poems, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Litro Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, The Banyan Review, Drunk Monkeys, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. He has presented on a variety of topics at The National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD), The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC—Regional), The American Comparative Literature Association, The Midwest Conference on British Studies, and others. He is an English Department faculty member at Mohave Community College in Arizona. Read more at johnphansen.com.

Search for Meaning

by Youngjin Kang *

"What is the meaning of life?"

This is probably one of the most fundamental questions pertaining to the well-being of mankind. And many of us frequently ask it to ourselves, either consciously or subconsciously, for the sake of avoiding the eternal hellhole of existential crisis.

Yet, finding an answer to such a question requires us to clarify the implication of the word "meaning" in the first place. What does "meaning" really mean, anyways? There could be a wide spectrum of interpretations for sure, but the most obvious one is to regard the word "meaning" as a synonym of "purpose" in the context of biology.

We, as living things, constantly strive to survive and reproduce because it is what biological entities are predisposed to do. This is instinctual, and conscious effort is needed to suppress such a tendency. Since it is the apparent reality of things around us, it is by no means absurd to claim that the meaning of life is to survive and reproduce, and nothing more.

This, of course, feels a bit too shallow and incomplete. As long as we are intellectually flexible enough to let some philosophy dwell in our faculty of metaphysical delight, we retain our desire to muse upon the meaning of not just our biological bodies, but also the universe as a whole. Such an idea, however, does not provide us with a clear guideline for our thought process because it is mostly hypothetical.

The meaning of the world around us, in its entirety, is a rather vague concept to grasp because the very definition of the word "meaning" does not reside in such an abstract context. When people say that something is "meaningful", they typically mean that it is likely to bring some personal advantage to themselves, such as more money, improved health, better relationship, and the like. They might insist that it is supposed to benefit the whole of humanity and not just themselves, yet this is just the same secular notion being applied to a wider scale (i.e. Beneficial to a large number of people instead of just a few). If we are to discuss the meaning of the universe as a whole, outside of even the scope of humanity itself, it is necessary to admit that such a construct is more of a word play than something inducible from our experience.

If we wish to identify the meaning of life from a pragmatic standpoint, therefore, we must avoid groundless speculations and simply begin by investigating what we are supposed to be doing as biological entities. Only after we succeed in making sense of this, we will be able to expand our domain of reason further and manage to define the word "meaning" in a broader context.

The most primary goal we all share as human beings is to survive. As far as our practical definition of causality goes, all other goals are subsidiary to this root goal. For example, we search for food because the act of eating increases our chance of survival, and we seek shelter because the act of staying in a secure area increases our chance of survival. "Search for food" and "Seek shelter" are both goals, yet they are nothing more than subgoals which are aimed to serve their parent goal (i.e. "Survive").

Let us just suppose for now that our purpose is to live as happily as possible. This makes sense, doesn't it? We all want to be happy, and do not want to be miserable. We all want to survive, live, and prosper. This presupposition of value is unquestionable, as long as we do not venture to hypothesize with the very meaning of our existence itself.

The real problem arises, though, when we try to find out a rather specific way to achieve such a goal. There are countless alternative choices of action which may or may not work, depending on who we are. And since every one of us is a unique individual, a method which works for some of us may not work for others. We all have our own ways of living a happy life because we have different talents, preferences, personalities, physical traits, living standards, etc.

So, how to figure out the best way to live? This is probably the most baffling question you can ever ask to yourself, since you are the only one who can figure it out. You are the one who knows about you thoroughly, and thus nobody but yourself can come up with an accurate answer. And its main difficulty lies on the fact that you alone is the only subject you can observe and analyze when it comes to drawing an empirically sound conclusion.

This is indeed frustrating. If you do not know what to do with your life, you won't be able to motivate yourself to do anything in particular. And as long as this state of uncertainty continues, you will always be anxious and depressed.

Fortunately, there is a way to cure at least a significant portion of this problem. Although every one of us is a unique soul and thus requires a unique approach to life, we all share a set of traits which are common to all human beings.

For example, we all know that eating healthy meals, exercising daily, preferring love over hatred, being honest, and being diligent are good for us. These habits are so universally applicable, that one does not even need to question their effectiveness. The key lies on noticing these "common disciplines" and integrating them into your daily routine.

Take the habit of exercise, for instance. No matter what your profession is and what your personal predilections are, it is almost absolutely certain that doing SOME workout on a regular basis will benefit you in some way or another (unless you are suffering from a rare genetic disease, such as one which makes your muscles emit toxic chemicals whenever you use them). This means that, even if you are totally unsure of what you should be doing with your life, you can still be sure of the fact that you should be working out in order to stay fit. The benefit of this habit will not diminish no matter what path your life will happen to follow in the future.

This is the main takeaway of the analysis made so far. If you don't know what to do, at least do something that is worth doing regardless of your future choices. This behavioral guideline will give you a safety net to which you can always fall back whenever circumstances prevent you from making detailed decisions.

Here is the rule of thumb. Focus on doing something which you can manage to do on a regular basis without relying on external factors (e.g. your wealth, your job, place you live, relationships, etc). This will provide you with a "baseline layer of sanity" upon which you can keep moving forward with your life without having to constantly worry about the meaning of what you are doing. This will be the fountain of purpose from which you can drink an endless stream of hope.

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* Youngjin Kang is a software engineer who develops computer games, simulations, and other forms of interactive media.

To Be or Not to Be

by Veena Gupta and Surya Rao Maturu

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The time is 4.00 a.m. It is cold and dark outside.

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To Be or Not to Be, by Anatole Krasnyansky

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question. To get up or to go to bed again. Early to bed and early to rise. Is it still healthy, wealthy, and wise, or is it that the early worm gets caught by the early bird?

Am I a gnostic or a nastik?

To pray or not to pray, that is the question

And if to pray, then whom to pray to

Should I chant OM or should I keep silent

Should I close my eyes or should I keep them open

What should I request God as a boon

Or, am I for God just a character in a cartoon

Should I do yoga or should I go for a walk

Should I wear salwar-kurta or a trouser-tee shirt

Should I eat my breakfast now or at 6.00 a.m.

Mother: Oh ... Oh ... Baby Hemlata! Why are you disturbing me so early? I will wake you at 6 o’clock. Just SHUT UP and go to sleep!

Baby Hemlata: Oh, Mother, why are you so cruel? Why don’t you just answer some of my questions?

I wonder where all these come from!

Are there not a million myriad questions

And why are there so few answers

Is an answer born after one asks a question

Or, does it lie brooding, as a chicken inside an egg

Maybe there are infinite questions and equal number of answers

Only, you have to match them one to one

Exactly like our English test paper

Or, maybe there is one common answer to many questions

Mother: Yes. SHUT UP!

(Baby Hemlata gets up, washes, goes for a morning walk, returns, has breakfast, goes to school, and returns home)

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question

To bunk classes or not is also a question

To do homework on our own or not is a question

To copy cheat in the exams or not is a question

To grow up or not, is it a question?

To do engineering or medicine was the question in my mother’s time

Now, to do e-commerce or fashion designing is the question

To earn how much MONEY? and how? is the question

To marry or to TARRY, that is the question

If yes, to give dowry or not

To give it, or maybe I can even get a dowry myself ...

To marry a Punjabi or Bengali, or a Madrasi, or better, an NRI

Or, as a spinster, to live alone with my mother, that is the question

To live in a rented flat, or to buy our own DDA flat, that is also a question

(Mother is worried about her daughter. She rings up her family Doctor, Dr. Sumati, who comes over to check up Hemlata)

Dr. Sumati: Hello Baby Hemlata! Come here to Aunty. Let me see your tongue. Put this thermometer in your mouth. Let me take your B.P. Come sit near me.

Baby Hemlata: To be or not to be, that is the question
Welcome, Doctor, to our happy home
Do you doctor the Body, or the mind, or the soul?
Does allopathy treat a person whole?
Is not happiness half the cure?
Where is Joy, as in the songs of YORE?
Why, oh why, is LIFE, now, such a BORE?
Why has religion become such a HOLY COW?
Why cannot grown-ups just GROW?
Why should Adults behave childishly?
Why can’t women stand up to Men,
Instead of suffering like doormats?
Why is there so much cruelty, injustice, and despair?
Why is there so much hunger, and disease; is it fair?
Why is there: the Rich, and the Poor?
We got our Independence in 1947, are we SURE?
Why should children labour even now, morning till night?
Why should newly-wed brides burn like bonfires bright?
Why, oh, why, will anyone pray tell me why?

Mother (cries and weeps): Look at her, Doctor. I’m worried. My baby has gone MAD. What shall I do now? O! God, please help me and save my child (sobs).

Doctor: To be or not to be, that is the question, indeed
Baby Hamlet, of a writer, in you I see a seed
Fie, I defy my allopathy
I who wanted to be a writer, not a doctor
Indeed I’m tired of ministering to the body
Inside me, my own soul lies stunted and starved
Where has MAN arrived in this 21st century?
Why so much poverty, misery, penury
Why is there so much unhappiness
When will man become brother of man
When will woman become the mother, sister, and lover of man
When will India truly become independent
When will the government start governing
Will corruption ever cease to seduce
When will human greed ever reduce
Will glorious Bharat once again ascend to Glory
Or, was all that golden past, a mere story
Yes, we all have failed in our Duty
Child, we’ve mistaken the Beast for Beauty
We were too busy earning our bread
We go on hoarding our riches till we are dead
I confess we are not wise
We are foolish and small in size
Yes, when adults become children
Children begin to act like adults
Why should farmers kill themselves in hopelessness?
Why can’t a kisan get a salary or pension
Why should the poor get unemployment, illness and tension
Why can’t we wholly repair Indians
Why can’t we reapply our ancient wisdom
Once upon a time, there was no depression
No heart-attacks, no cancer
Peace was aplenty and prosperity was a merry dancer
Dharma, then, my friend, was a four-legged cow
But now, oh, now ………. and how?

Mother: Oh my God! Doctor! You too have caught this strange disease? Oh, pray, what shall I do?

Doctor: Relax, Lady, I am quite well
Baby Hamlet, too, is sound as a bell
She’s neither infected nor mad, thus I tell she is sane and sensible
She is in rhyme, immensible 
To the Muse she looks apprenticed
Yes, we all too ought to ask these questions
Yes, we all too ought to watch for the answers
It is a shame, we go on selfishly being happy, in our homes
While our brothers and sisters all around, are in deep pain
Pain that is a rain
Their lives dark as the monsoon clouds
Living with despair clothing them, as a shroud
Can a few Islands of Happiness, amidst an Ocean of Misery last?
Can a minority continuously feast,while the majority always fast
Let us break all our Lakshman-rekhas
Let us share all the suffering, Aankho-Dekhas
Our life is not Real, it is a TV-Soap Opera, a cartoon
Come now let us all sing!

(Mother, Doctor, and Baby Hemlata all join hands and sing together)

Vasudhaiva hi kutumbakam

Dharmo rakshati Rakshitalra

Sarve Jana Sukhino Bhavante

Sarve Santu Niraamaya

Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantihi

(Curtain)

This play was censored by the L.D. Jain Girls' School 100th Anniversary Function Committee, so that its staging had to be aborted. Contact Surya Rao Maturu: <suryaraom@gmail.com>

And the Universe Shrugged

Posted by Keith Tidman

It’s not a question of whether humankind will become extinct, but when.

To be clear, I’m not talking about a devastatingly runaway climate; the predations of human beings on ecosystems; an asteroid slamming into Earth; a super-volcano erupting; a thermonuclear conflagration; a global contagion; rogue artificial intelligence; an eventual red-giant sun engulfing us; the pending collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Nor am I talking about the record of short-lived survival of our forerunners, like the Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo erectus, all of whom slid into extinction after unimpressive spans.

Rather, I’m speaking of cosmic death!

Cosmic death will occur according to standard physics, including cosmology. Because of the accelerating expansion of the universe and the irrepressibility of entropy — the headlong plunge toward evermore disorder and chaos — eventually no new stars will form, and existing stars will burn out. The universe will become uninhabitable long before its actual demise. Eventually a near vacuum will result. Particles that remain will be so unimaginably distanced from one another that they’ll seldom, if ever, interact. This is the ultimate end of the universe, when entropy reaches its maximum or so-called thermodynamic equilibrium, more descriptively dubbed ‘heat death’. There’s no place to duck; spacefaring won’t make a difference. Nowhere in the universe is immune.

Assuredly, heat death will take trillions of years to happen. However, might anyone imagine that the timeframe veils the true metaphysical significance of universal extinction, including the extinction of humans and all other conscious, intelligent life? And does it really make a difference if it’s tens of years or tens of trillions of years? Don’t the same ontological questions about being still searingly pertain, irrespective of timescale? Furthermore, does it really make a difference if this would be the so-called ‘sixth extinction’, or the thousandth, or the millionth, or the billionth? Again, don’t the same questions still pertain? There remains, amidst all this, the reality of finality. The consequences — the upshot of why this actuality matters to us existentially — stay the same, immune to time.

So, to ask ‘what is the meaning of life?’ — that old chestnut from inquiring minds through the millennia — likely becomes moot and even unanswerable, in the face of surefire universal extinction. As we contemplate the wafer-thin slice of time that makes up our eighty-or-so-year lifespans, the question seems to make a bit of sense. That select, very manageable timeframe puts us into our comfort zone; we can assure ourselves of meaning, to a degree. But the cosmological context of cosmic heat death contemptuously renders the question about life’s purpose without an answer; all bets are off. And, in face of cosmic thermodynamic death, it’s easy to shift to another chestnut: why, in light of all this, is there something rather than nothing? All this while we may justifiably stay in awe of the universe’s size and majesty, yet know the timing and inevitability of our own extinction rests deterministically in its hands.

A more suitable question might be whether we were given, evolutionarily, consciousness and higher-order intelligence for a reason, making it possible for us to reflect on and try to make sense of the universe. And where that ‘reason’ for our being might originate: an ethereal source, something intrinsic to the cosmos itself, or other. It’s possible that the answer is simply that humankind is incidental, consigning issues like beginnings to unimportance or even nonsense. After all, if the universe dies, and is itself therefore arguably incidental, we may be incidental, too. Again, the fact that the timeframe is huge is immaterial to these inquiries. Also immaterial is whether there might, hypothetically, be another, follow-on Big Bang. Whereby the cosmological process restarts, to include a set of natural physical laws, the possible evolution of intelligent life, and, let’s not overlook it, entropy all over again.

We compartmentalise our lives, to make sense of the bits and pieces that competitively and sometimes contradictorily impact us daily. And in the case of cosmic death and the extinction of life — ours and everyone else’s possibly dotting the universe — that event’s speck-like remoteness in distant time and the vastness of space understandably mollifies. This, despite the event’s unavoidability and hard-to-fathom, hard-to-internalise conclusiveness, existential warts and all. To include, one might suppose, the end of history, the end of physics, and the end of metaphysics! This end of everything might challenge claims to any singular specialness of our and other species, all jointly riding our home planets to this peculiar end. 

Perhaps we have no choice, in the meantime, to conduct ourselves in ways that reflect our belief systems and acknowledge the institutional tools (sociological, political, spiritual) used to referee those beliefs. As an everyday priority, we’ll surely continue to convert those beliefs into norms, to improve society and the quality of life in concrete, actionable ways. Those norms and institutions enable us to live an orderly existence — one that our minds can plumb and make rational sense of. Even though that may largely be a salve, it may be our best (realistically, only) default behaviour in contending with daily realities, ranging from the humdrum to the spectacular. We tend to practice what’s called ‘manic defence’, whereby people distract themselves by focusing on things other than what causes their anxiety and discomfort.

The alternative — to capitulate, falling back upon self-indulgent nihilism — is untenable, insupportable, and unsustainable. We are, after all, quite a resilient species. And we live every day with comparatively attainable horizons. There remains, moreover, a richness to our existence, when our existence is considered outside of extraordinary universal timeframes. Accordingly, we go on with our lives with optimism, not dwelling on the fact that something existential will eventually happen — our collective whistling past the graveyard, one might say. We seldom, if ever, factor this universal expiry date into our thinking — understandably so. There would be little to gain, on any practical level, in doing otherwise. Cosmic thermodynamic death, after all, doesn’t concern considerations of morality. Cosmic death is an amoral event, devoid of concerns about its rightness or wrongness. It will happen matter of factly.

Meanwhile, might the only response to cosmic extinction — and with it, our extinction — be for the universe and humanity to shrug?

Is Beyoncé really an Existentialist?

Glamorous, yes. But is this what an Existentialist couple looks like?

Posted by Martin Cohen

There are many who claim to be existentialists, but few of them seem to be following the same path. Perhaps that is because existentialism is supposed to be all about individualism. Here is one such recruit to the philosophy - Beyoncé - of whom we are assured ‘writing existential songs that move millions is kind of her thing’. Her performance of her song ‘I Was Here’ at the United Nations World Humanitarian Day in 2012 was epic.

‘The song is so powerful, so true. It is existentialism in it’s purest form: I was here. “I want to leave my footprints on the sand of time/ Know there was something that, something that I left behind/ When I leave this world, I’ll leave no regrets/Leave something to remember, so they won’t forget.”’

So writes Kari. Who is: a ‘vegan, breastfeeding, baby-wearing, yogi-mama that also loves to binge watch Netflix whilst eating an entire bag of potato chips’. So she ought to know!

But is it really existentialism as philosophers see it? Indeed the word has often been misused, but hen it is a term poorly defined even by the great existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre. Instead, we are left to guess at its , ahem, ‘essence’.

‘I was here, I lived, I loved, I was here. I did, I’ve done, everything that I wanted.’

Beyoncé Knowles is in many ways a remarkable figure. Born on September 4, 1981, in Houston, Texas, to parents one of whom worked as a hairstylist and the other was.. a manager in the record industry. The advice and skills of the two were both doubtless of later use. She somehow managed to become one of music’s top-selling artists with a net worth of around $300 million, only slightly shadowed by the assets of her partner, the rapper, Jay Z, who wears his cap back-to-front and T-shirts with slogans like ‘Blame Society’ and is is sitting on a pile of $500 million. Is there not something inauthentic, even contradictory about that? Maybe, but then… ‘Blame society’.

As a young girl, Beyoncé won a school singing competition with John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. But it’s not what Lennon probably imagined as the good life, even if it is highly idiosyncratic. To be fair, she does do some ‘good works’, with charities including Chime for Change, Girl Up, Elevate Network, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Girls Inc. of Greater Houston, and I Was Here cited in her publicity. Beyoncé also joined former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Kelly Rowland, to create the Survivor Foundation, which provides relief to victims of natural disasters. This is all very fine  - but it is not the stuff of existentialism, which is at heart a selfish doctrine born of elitism.

But back to the main question: is Beyoncé really an existentialist? And I don't think so… After all, whatever else he may or may not have been saying, Sartre openly derides those who act out roles: the bourgeoisie with their comfortable sense of ‘duty’, homosexuals who pretend to be heterosexuals, peeping Toms who get caught in the act of spying and - most famously of all - waiters who rush about. All of these, he says are slaves to other people's perceptions - to ‘the Other’. They are exhibiting mauvaise foi - bad faith.

This is a common flaw, and as the psychologists say, in choosing this fault to condemn in others, Sartre tells us a little about himself too. But isn’t it a popstar who dresses a certain way, adopts a certain hairstyle, away of speaking, of walking, that Sartre should really mock for their pretending and posturing to the audiecne and promising to be something that they are not really…?

Surely Beyoncé should find another label than that of ‘existentialist’ to attach to herself.

Picture Post 41: Playing with Shadows

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Martin Cohen

Sabine Weiss  Chairs, Paris, 1952

I like this simple image, to me a trompe l’oeil, or trick on the eye, although literally the phrase refers to things like those doorways to imaginary gardens painted on walls.

I managed to find out a little about the photographer in this case. Sabine Weiss, born in 1924 in Switzerland and still alive, living there although since 1995 a French citizen, is described as a representative of the ‘French Humanist photography movement’ — which showcases ‘Les villes, la rue, l'autre.’

Ah, ‘the other’... The French do seem to always return to that theme.For these two iron frame chairs, ‘the other’ certainly lurks just behind them changing their sense and indeed ‘presence’.

The French Humanist photographers claim to document their surroundings through an unbiased and non-critical lens. A guide for one exhibiton explains that she is praised for making ‘full of light, making play with shadows and blurred areas’ and, above all, for her ‘reconciliation with reality’.

I suppose a photographer should do that.

Existence and Subsistence: The Power of Concepts

The Weeping Woman. Pablo Picasso 1937.

By Christian Sötemann

Imagine a married couple, Laura and Audrey.  Both have regular work. Then, Laura loses her job, and Audrey’s mother dies.  The couple are now in a double predicament.  On the one hand, they will struggle to pay the rent.  On the other hand, they will have to work through Audrey’s mother’s death.

Now imagine an alternative situation, again involving Laura and Audrey.  Laura and Audrey now both lose their jobs.  This deepens their struggle with the rent.  Yet Audrey’s mother is still alive and well.

We would be somewhat justified in calling both situations ‘existential crises’, since both have to do with human existence.  Yet we might also apply two different terms to Laura and Audrey’s experiences – one being a problem of ‘existence’, the other a problem of ‘subsistence’.  It may not be an exact distinction, but it can point to two different – and at times overlapping – spheres.

In the first example, Audrey and Laura undergo problems of ‘existence’ (Audrey’s mother) as well as problems of ‘subsistence’ (Laura’s job).  In the second example, it can be construed as a problem of how to subsist at all.  Now, we might ask wherein the difference lies, more exactly.

Deepening our Meanings

Subsistence, here, concerns physiological survival, and the provision of basic material needs.  One does not have to subscribe to Marxism to agree with Marx when he pointed out that ‘life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things.’  The psychologist Abraham Maslow has suggested that basic needs such as these precede more complex ones such as appreciation by others or self-actualisation.

One might be tempted to state that their problems of subsistence are about material necessities, to continue their existence on biological and economic levels.  And yet – it would be fruitful to reserve the term ‘existence’ for certain phenomena inextricably interwoven with human life, which go beyond self-conservation and material safety.

‘Existence’ may further be differentiated from ‘being’.  One may discern this in a human death.  When we die, we do not turn into nothingness.  There is always still something there: ashes, or a lifeless body dissolving into dust.  To quote Sartre, there is not less – ‘there is something else.’  However, human life – a unique existence – is lost.

Being turns into different being. Something remains on one level – but on the existential level, a most drastic change occurs when a human being dies. And that is regardless of whether one takes an atheist stance or postulates an immortal soul, since the latter would still indicate an existential transformation.

Philosophers like Heidegger saw a difference here, and even though one can be critical of the ideas which led to this distinction, there is some merit to the idea of reserving the term ‘existence’ for human beings, in that it enables us to contemplate the existential dimension of human life.

In this understanding, ‘existence’ goes beyond the mere ‘being there’ of something, in spite of all changes, and instead points to the existential – to questions of death, one’s take on the meaning of the world, loneliness and freedom and responsibility.  These are the ‘ultimate concerns’ that the existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom has identified.

Differentiating our Meanings

Whatever the case may be, there is something that shows us that the spheres of ‘existence’ and ‘subsistence’ cannot be identical.  Even if one has all that is needed for physiological and economic survival, one is still confronted with the inescapability of death and the task of committing to a meaning of one’s own life, among other things. No material protection can relieve existential issues, once they come under scrutiny.

Granted, with rare exceptions, one has to achieve a certain level of material security to ponder the questions of ‘existence’ at all. The philosopher who ponders the meaning of the world is unlikely to be able to do so without access to food and drinking water and a place for nightly recuperation. Even Diogenes resorted to his tub, after all.  The sphere of existence requires the opportunity to go beyond questions of daily survival.

Thus, if one accepts this distinction between ‘subsistence’ and ‘existence’, one could shine a light on economic struggles and perceived injustice on the one hand, and discuss issues of a human being’s general position in the world from a more contemplative point of view on the other.  By defining ‘subsistence’ and ‘existence’, one may now employ these terms to powerful effect in philosophical debate as well as psychotherapy and psychological counselling.

Nothing: A Hungarian Etymology

'Landing', 2013. Grateful acknowledgement to Sadradeen Ameen

Posted by Király V. István

In its primary and abstract appearance, nothing is precisely 'that' 'which' it is not. However, the word is still there, in the words of all the languages we know. Here we explore its primary meaning in Hungarian.

The Hungarian word for nothing – 'semmi' – is a compound of 'sem' (nor) and 'mi' (we). The negative 'sem' expresses: 'nor here' (sem itt), 'nor there' (sem ott), 'nor then' (sem akkor), 'nor me' (sem én), 'nor him, nor her' (sem ő). That is to say, I or we have searched everywhere, yet have found nothing, nowhere, never.

However much we think about it, the not of 'sem' is not the negating 'not', nor the depriving 'not' which Heidegger revealed in his analysis of 'das Nichts'. The not in the 'sem' is a searching not! It says, in fact, that searching we have not found. By this, it says that the way that we meet, face, and confront the not is actually a search. Thus the 'sem' places the negation in the mode of search, and the search into the mode of not (that is, negation).

What does all this mean in its essence?

Firstly, it means that, although the 'sem' is indeed a kind of search, which 'flows into' the not, still it always distinguishes itself from the nots it faces and encounters. For searching is not simply the repetition of a question, but a question carried around. Therefore the 'sem' is always about more than the tension between the question and its negative answer, for the negation itself – the not – is placed into the mode of search! And conversely.

Therefore the 'sem' never negates the searching itself – it only places and fixes it in its deficient modes. This way, the 'sem' emphasises, outlines, and suffuses the not, yet stimulates the search, until the exhaustion of its final emptiness. The contextually experienced not – that is, the 'sem' – is actually nothing but an endless deficiency of an emptied, exhausted, yet not suspended search.

This ensures on the one hand, the stability of the 'sem', which is inclined to hermetically close up within itself – while it ensures on the other hand, an inner impulse for the search which, emanating from it, continues to push it to its emptiness.

It is in the horizon of this impulse, then, that the 'sem' merges with the 'mi'. The 'mi' in Hungarian is at the same time an interrogative pronoun and a personal pronoun. Whether or not this linguistic identity is a 'coincidence', it conceals important speculative possibilities, for the 'mi' pronoun, with the 'sem' negative, always says that it is 'we' (mi) who questioningly search, but find 'nothing' (semmi).

Merged in their common space, the 'sem' and the 'mi' signify that the questioners – in the plurality of their searching questions – only arrived at, and ran into, the not, the negation. Therefore the Hungarian word for the nothing offers a deeper and more articulated consideration of what this word 'expresses', fixing not only the search and its deficient modes, but also the fact that it is always we who search and question, even if we cannot find ourselves in 'that' – in the nothing.

That is to say, the nothing – in this, which is one of its meanings – is precisely the strangeness, foreignness, and unusualness that belongs to our own self – and therefore all our attempts to eliminate it from our existence will always be superfluous.

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Király V. István is an Associate Professor in the Hungarian Department of Philosophy of the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania. This post is an extract selected by the Editors, and adjusted for Pi, from his bilingual Hungarian-English Philosophy of The Names of the Nothing.