DE Weekly: Negativity, Uncertainty, & Hope
Below is an archived email originally sent on December 9, 2024.
Negativity, Uncertainty, & Hope
Fear and negativity are in abundance today. Uncertainty is everywhere. It seems like it’s just one thing after another. Right? That’s what we’re led to believe, at least.
Take one minute to scroll through social media, flip on the news, pick up the local paper at the newsstand (do they still have those?), and, yes, you’d think the sky is going to come crashing down tomorrow.
Fear, negativity, uncertainty…
These feelings are unavoidable in life. But they don’t have to rule our lives.
You see, darkness is a part of life. There is darkness out there… but there is also light. And where there is light, there is hope.
This persistent negativity that we’re subject to every day is not new–it’s a tale as old as time. And it always will be. If we’re not careful, though, we can fall under the grasp of this negativity and become cynics. It is crucial we don’t let this happen.
There’s a passage from the Bible that says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–– on them light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2).
To further that passage, I offer a Latin adage: “Dum spiro, spero.” In English: “While I breathe, I hope.” (h/t @latindisce on X)
So, what does this all have to do with existentialism?
The answer is everything.
I’ve said this before–existentialism is so all-encompassing because, at its roots, it seeks to understand the human condition, the meaning of life.
This is rooted in a deep-seated uncertainty we have as humans.
This uncertainty stems from a statement that bounces around in our heads: “I don’t know what my future holds.”
This is so frightening to many of us because it’s so real. For the existentialists, a key part of overcoming this anxiety is to accept the one certainty we all face in life: death.
Death is a necessary part of life. Life and death are interdependent. So, for the existentialists, accepting this fact can help save us in life.
It can do so by helping us to free ourselves from our own anxiety, our own uncertainty. It can help us ground ourselves–to become more self-aware, and to accept a higher level of responsibility for our actions and to face the trials of life headstrong.
In short, this uncertainty can help us discover our meaning and purpose in life by making our own. Meaning in life is given by the one living it.
For Jean-Paul Sartre, giving in to negativity is actually inauthentic. It’s betraying our nature. It’s what he called “bad faith”–by doing this, we deny ourselves our intrinsic freedom to make choices.
The best way to live authentically, Sartre wrote–in good faith–is to accept the totality of our freedom.
That we all must die is absurd. But it’s part of life. So we must make choices despite the absurd.
So, when your inner uncertainty says “I don’t know what my future holds”, respond with certainty: “Yes, but I will make a choice anyway.”
Bad things will happen to all of us in life.
We will all experience pain, suffering, loss, death. There will always be negativity and fear, darkness abounds. This is true on a personal level, and it’s true of the world.
But it is important–absolutely crucial–that we understand this isn’t intrinsically bad. It just is. It is a part of life just as goodness is. This is true all the way up to death.
This is why I believe existentialism is bang on about death. It’s the one certainty in life, so we’d better accept it. This isn’t a new idea, either. It’s in the Bible:
“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)
In other words, why be afraid of death? We can face it.
So don’t let the darkness grasp you. Acknowledge the fear, negativity, and uncertainty, and send it on its way. I’ll leave you with a timeless passage from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings:
“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.” –– Samwise Gamgee
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
If you’re wondering why I cited the Bible in this email, realize that existentialism isn’t exclusively a secular philosophy. While the most famous of its kin were self-proclaimed atheists, there were also devoutly religious authors like Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky. Tolkien, too. Remember, existentialism can be found everywhere, so it’s good to look everywhere.
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