DE Weekly: Ego, Busyness, & Being-For-Others
Below is an archived email originally sent on March 3, 2025.
Ego, Busyness, & Being-For-Others
One point we encounter again and again when reading many of the existentialists is that we are solely responsible for finding and creating meaning in our own lives. The reason we are tasked with this is because, according to the existentialists, there is no central, universal meaning out there.
This is a daunting task. How do we find and create meaning where there is none? The answer for me is probably different than the answer for you.
One way many people try to live a life of meaning is in searching for a purpose. And upon realizing how short life is and how little time we have, many confront this challenge with a similar strategy: get busy.
Put your head down and work hard. Try to get ahead. Try to do everything. Try to go everywhere. Try to try more, and more… That's what people do.
Busy unto death.
Busyness is a purpose for some. But what happens if you spend all your time staying “busy”, and something changes? What if you lose your job, have to move, or have to change your routine?
What if something uproots your “purpose”? When your day-to-day is ripped from you––what is your purpose then? Who are you?
John Vervaeke, a cognitive scientist and philosopher at the University of Toronto, said in this way, the “meaning dilemma” is egocentric. What does he mean by that?
I’ll try and explain from my own experience. When I underwent my first existential crisis of sorts at age nineteen, I developed a deep sense of longing for meaning. Not only that, it was urgent. I had to find my meaning in this world, fast.
At first, each instinct I had was invariably self-centered. I asked myself, “What can I do to find a purpose? How can I feel better about my path? How can I ensure that I am happy when I die?”
I proved Vervaeke correct––my dilemma of meaning was entirely egocentric.
At a certain point after living with these feelings for a time, Vervaeke says, you should ask yourself this question: How much meaning are you making for other people? How much coherence and beauty are you bringing into the world?
That’s the funny thing about being a human being––we have no choice but to live inside our own heads. We’re stuck with them. That’s why the meaning dilemma is egocentric––we’re always thinking about ourselves simply because that’s the only mind we have access to 24/7.
But, like Vervaeke said, meaning is not one-dimensional; it involves other people. For some of the existentialists, namely Jean-Paul Sartre, this added a whole new dimension of complexity.
In his magnum opus Being and Nothingness, Sartre introduces three types of being: being-in-itself, being-for-itself, and being-for-others.
For Sartre, humans are two things: being-for-itself and beings-for-others. By this, he means to say that we are conscious beings who can act in our own self-interest, but at the same time, we are beholden to the interests of other people, as well.
Sartre believed that the being-for-others facet of human existence constrains our personal freedom. To Sartre, human freedom should be free from others. But it’s not. And that’s why he said we are “condemned to be free.”
Here’s what I think…
I think Sartre is right to a certain degree. I think that human freedom does have a limit; our freedom is limited by the freedom of others. But here’s how I think he’s off by just a bit…
I don’t think human freedom is a paradox because we must reckon with the freedom of others, nor do I find it ironic. I see it as part of the deal––part of human existence.
To confront our own existence in the world, we must confront the existence of others. To retreat from this is to retreat from the wholeness of existence in itself.
Like so many facets of existence, we have no choice in the matter. So we must get on with it. We must function within these confines. Then, we can dispel the ego and make meaning from here. A meaning that is not egocentric, but involves other people.
The thing is, Sartre actually understood this. He might not have liked it, but he understood it. It’s apparent in the last lines of his play No Exit:
GARCIN: “Yes, now’s the moment . . . I understand that I’m in hell . . . all those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. So this is hell. I’d never have believed it . . . There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is–other people!” (45).
In Sartre’s Hell, three characters in a closed room forced to interact with each other and only know themselves through the eyes of the Other is the most sinister form of torture. It’s a window into how he viewed our lives overall.
Each character realizes they are stuck with each other, and that they must negotiate their identities with each other. They end up remarking at how funny it all is. The character Garcin concludes at the end, “Let’s get on with it.”
Many of us will experience a crisis of meaning. Nowadays, it seems like everyone is searching for something. Something to work for, a purpose, a reason to live…
The “paradox of human freedom” is that we have to step outside our own minds and look to the Other for a total and complete sense of meaning and purpose.
In doing so, we cannot let the desire for more choke us out, and we cannot be busy unto death. We must rely on ourselves and on others for a life of meaning.
“They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” (Mark 4:18)
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
I know I write about Sartre a lot, so if you haven’t read him yet and want to understand him better, here’s three things of his you have to read to start: Being and Nothingness, No Exit, and Nausea.
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