Individual Existentialism

This one has been a long time coming. 

Existentialism is whatever wikipedia says existentialism is. Taking as an axiom the lack of inherent meaning in the universe (which in itself doesn't mean shit) existentialism affirms the individual can be the source of its own meaning. Which I will define here for shits and giggles as "the sensation of purpose". So, essentially, if you decide playing videogames all day is meaningful, meaningful it is. Here, we manufacture everything ourselves. Meaning, purpose, destiny, entelechy, dreams. All the big words, we have all of them. And those are the source of everything, justify everything. There are some branches of existentialism, but I'm not going to go much into it. Basically, you can be team Camus, team Kidegaard or team Nietzsche. The first is Bo-Bo-Bo, the second Jordan Peterson and the third Griffith. It's easy to see the allure of existentialism for minds still in love with heroism that feel alienated with the cultural constraints of it's own place in space and time. I myself was an existentialist for a long time. Maybe still am, deep down. Probably, but it requires a degree of strength I don't always dispose of. Most of the time, I consider myself in a leave of absence.

Imagine this: You are a knight, standing in top of a hill, leaving behind the lies and mediocrity, rising above the masses of falsehood and those who tried to convince you that you were just one of them. Triumphant, in eternal war against god, the elements, destiny, whatever you see fit. Defying and ready to take on the future with the strength of your own fist. Eyes in the distance, looking far away. Others don't understand. They don't need to. You are not one of them.

The problem being, I'm not Griffith.

You aren't either, by the way.

I'm not in the mood to be understood, so I will speak frankly. What we understand today as existentialism is in fact heroic, individual existentialism. When we try to isolate it from its inherent air of exceptionalism and try to say it's meant to be for everyone is even more absurd. It's premises are not wrong by any stretch of the imagination, but they simply apply to an humanity that doesn't exist. Never existed, never will. Our sense of purpose is not born from thin air or from a pure will to power but is a social instinct. Emerges for societal born structures of meaning. Even when against the group, is born from the constraints of it. Even when abstracted from it in forms of virtue, it's born from it's womb. It can be really delicate, and romantic, and pure. But it's not yours. The reality of the world is social existentialism. What is meaningful is decided almost in assembly inside the collective consciousness, and only tickles us if the walls decide to resonate. Existentialism ignores that architecture. Acts as if it doesn't exist. The last five years of my life have been invested into trying to figure out if the blueprints are even here and what materials are used. We don't feel (or choose) purpose at random. They are the crystallization of esoteric forms of narrative, heroism, acceptance, beauty, archetypes, role based identity, family, expectation, education, appearance, symbolism and the list goes on and on.

There was this documentary about a colony of orangutans. Yeah I know I have a lot of free time. The thing about them, it was an unusually large colony, don't remember why. That started a slow and continuous transformation of their behavior, as groups that size don't usually last under the idiosyncrasy and culture of normal orangutan society. Rates of in-group aggression went down, elder members were cared of, kids were raised in a more group-like manner, started to show some signs of a division of labor. In general stuff that reminisces of human tribal society. The one that struck me most (and the researchers too) was that there seemed to be a group of young, male, strong orangutans that eat more than most, worked the least getting food and overall received preferential treatment. At first they though they were the leaders, but soon it was proved otherwise. The territory was attack or "invaded" by another group of monkeys and those were the first to jump there to fight. Ah, these are soldiers. One of those soldiers, however, slacked off or something and didn't risk his life protecting his orangutan nation. The day after, it was beaten down by the rest of the colony. Holy shit. The thing is, eventually that tribe or whatever you want to call it, separated. And the colonies that emerged from the schism, didn't behave in that particular manner and return to normal orangutan social behavior. Without solid and strong mechanisms of cultural transmission, social "advances" or constructions tend to fade. It's not far fetched for me to think that in humans, soldiers develop heroism and see meaning in it as a result of cultural inheritance of social functions that had a tacit risk-reward mechanism in them. A cheap one that doesn't require such maintenance and is much more subtle. But a social mechanism nonetheless. We don't perceive it as the conclusion of the needs of the tribe, we perceive it as purpose, meaning, function, and wrongly define individual existentialism as the source of it just because it comes from within.

We have to stop deluding ourselves into thinking we (as individuals) are the creators of meaning in this universe and start to rebuild foundations that support social meaning in a way we like. Even if it's through trial and error. Maybe the idea itself of existentialism has function as it is, I don't deny it, but to pretend that's the solution to the death of god is ridiculous. We don't have heroic struggles, express through art and ride horses. We watch american sitcoms and buy yogurt to feed our kids. Even when we do those heroic things, it's telegraphed. It's glorified yogurt-buying. At it's best, is a constructor of purpose, but a terrible way to try to understand what people do and why. Even worst at trying to make them do things. Do thou will, at implying your will is your own, is a lie.

That said. I don't give non-cryptic advice often, but I will this time. You owe nothing to truth. Who cares where it comes from; if you feel the rush of purpose, don't start deconstructing it as it will led to its inevitable downfall. Ride it as long as you can. As hard as you can. Until your inevitable downfall.