I think when you die its exactly like before you were born, its like being on anesthetic, or sleep without any dreams. I could see how this could be depressive for some but for me it seems calming and beautifully simple. Just curious what other people really think will happen to them when they die.
I’ve had two existential crises in my life.
What is the place of hope in existentialism? When we look at the world today, it is easy to see fragmentation. Climate crises, geopolitical instability, and a pervasive sense of alienation can make it feel as though the very structures of our shared reality are fracturing.
It was precisely this condition that French philosopher and Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel diagnosed when coining the phrase "the broken world" (le monde cassé). Marcel observed a world characterized by functionalization, where individuals are reduced to their social or economic roles. In this critique, Marcel’s concerns regarding "technical efficiency" deeply echo those of Martin Heidegger; both thinkers warned that a purely technological mindset treats the world and its inhabitants merely as resources to be mastered, calculated, and manipulated.
In popular culture, existentialism is often equated with the darkness that this broken world produces - a philosophy of angst, absurdity, and the cold isolation popularized by thinkers like Sartre. But Marcel, as an existential-phenomenologist, radically contradicts this assumption. He demonstrates that existentialism does not have to end in despair. Instead, it can provide the precise tools needed to navigate a broken world with profound, defiant hope.
In this session, we will explore Marcel’s unique philosophy through his phenomenology - his method of looking at concrete, lived human experiences rather than detached, abstract theories. We will focus on his crucial distinction between a problem (something external that we can solve with technical efficiency) and a mystery (something we are personally entangled in, which transcends mere logic). For Marcel, true hope is not a naive, passive wish that things will simply "work out." It is an active and engaged existential response to a world that tries to reduce human existence to a series of technical problems. It is an act of communion and presence, rooted in what he calls the ontological mystery. That is, a deep, experiential realization that being itself cannot be fully captured by a broken world.
In preparation for the group, please read the following chapter "Hope and Existentialism": https://academic.oup.com/book/61728/chapter/541574012
>Although existentialist thought is often associated with a negative diagnosis of the human condition in such thinkers as Camus and Sartre, there is a more positive strand focusing on uplifting aspects of experience, directly challenging the alienation, loss of meaning, and invitation to despair that has come to be associated with the movement. This vision of the human condition is to be found especially in the work of French philosopher Gabriel Marcel. This chapter considers Marcel’s phenomenological analysis of what is called ontological hope, distinguishing it from ordinary cases of hoping, as well as from optimism and desire. It examines the choice between hope and despair and introduces related themes of communion, intersubjectivity, and the search for the transcendent. The chapter argues that Marcel’s thought illustrates the reserves within the human personality and community that help individuals respond in a positive way to the existential challenges of modernity.
We will also watch a short video on the topic to support our discussion. Let's pursue the question: how might a phenomenological approach to hope alter how we live, act, and connect when the horizon looks dark?
This is an online discussion group hosted by Cece to discuss Gabriel Marcel's ideas and the place of hope in existentialism.
To join this meetup taking place on Friday May 22 (EDT), please sign up in advance on the main event page here (link); the Zoom link will be provided to registrants.
Look for other sessions in this series on our calendar (link).
All are welcome!
looking for thoughts that make you stop and rethink reality itself
I’ve been struggling with this contradiction lately. I feel like I’ve intellectually accepted nihilism: no objective meaning, no cosmic purpose, no “destiny” waiting for any of us. We live, suffer, die, and the universe moves on, and there isn’t really much we can do about it. Sucks but seems to just be how the world is.
What I’m struggling with is this: once you've internalized that, where does the motivation to keep living even come from?
I’m not necessarily talking about suicide… although I have contemplated it. But I eventually came to this realization: death is inevitable anyway. We all must die, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to escape it. So whether I kill myself today, tomorrow, or die naturally decades from now, the outcome is the same. I’ll still be dead forever. Nonexistence is unavoidable.
Honestly, that’s part of why suicide stopped making sense to me. If death is already guaranteed, what’s the point in rushing toward it? I have eternity to not exist. This tiny window of existence is the only thing I’ll ever experience before returning to permanent nothingness, so I might as well experience it while it lasts.
But now I’m left with another problem. If suicide is mostly off the table, how do you actually maintain the energy to participate in life when everything feels fundamentally empty underneath?
And people say things like “make your own meaning,” but that answer has never satisfied me. If I know I’m inventing that meaning myself, how am I supposed to take it seriously? It feels less like meaning and more like a coping mechanism. A story we tell ourselves so we can function and justify clinging to a pointless existence.
So what keeps you going? How do you actually get the will to continue living knowing how pointless it all is? Do you just lean into temporary pleasures and distractions? Is that all there is to this existence? Distractions? Is there some point where nihilism becomes freeing instead of paralyzing? Or is it always just something you learn to live with?
Social media, politics, the environment… more and more and more. To be the right person, you should care about the environment, always recycle correctly, don’t eat meat or dairy, don’t eat or drink at companies who support war. Be always politically aware. Then you hide in scrolling on social media cause you exhausted from how the world is demanding to do what’s “right”, only to get dithered overwhelmed and even disgusted by so many people pushing their own agendas, every video screams for your attention trying to sell their content.
I know there is a possibility of not carrying, doing what you want. But that’s still feels wrong, as being ignorant to the world.
But I am the happiest away from the news or social media. When I travel get to talk to amazing people about their life. Slowly enjoying small moments, whilst painting the world around me. Enjoying its culture, all the foods it has to offer. Of course often also heatedly discussing the world but in a way that’s not overwhelming.
Do you feel the same?
Thinking about what life is we are a bunch of worthless beings. We are born to live a short period of time compared to how long planets or existence itself have existed and we have no real impact. But were aware enough to know and wonder of why we are here. To live an actual good life you need to be so lucky, lucky to be born into a stable home, in a country without too much poverty, not be born during a war, not being born with disabilities or deformities etc. then we have to work so hard and go through stress to get things like money, jobs, house, car, partners just for a couple of decades to pass and then become a wrinkled, weaker and less energetic version of ourselves. Then theres the discussion of the afterlife, heaven or hell both sound bad, living for eternity is bound to make us go insane from boredom and if you go to hell imaging suffering for all eternity. Reincarnation is the only thing that sounds kinda of alright apart from just not existing, but that also is flawed as we can be born in horrible circumstances and human life is bound to end one day so what will happen then. You gotta get so lucky to be born, lucky to be born with good conditions, lucky on terms of attractiveness, lucky for how smart you are, basically all our existence was a gamble, all because of two people mating, and some of these people werent even planning in having a kid they were just horny. All your existance and pain because of two horny animals. It’s so crazy how easy it is to bring a sentient being to live.
All for no reason, no mission, nothing our lives mean nothing.
When you stop wasting energy on tension and resistance, then you conserve your focus for what truly matters. Because you are no longer pushing against the grain, tasks resolve themselves naturally and effectively. You enter a flow state where action and awareness merge and time seems to melt away.
Why are we born? In this world in this specific era? In specific place? Coincidence? Or placed by someone ?
For example a person may look at a burger and be flooded with memories and feelings but that burger is meaningless outside of the human experience or other life forms experiences.
Thoughts? Love to hear any counters!
