[May 1999 journal entry]
A physician acquaintance has in recent months used increasingly the terms ‘existentialist/ism’ when commenting on the rootlessness he sees in modern western societies. I am trying to explain to him that the central premise of existentialist thought is that there is one empirically demonstrable/indisputable ‘truth’ – i.e., that all human beings die and that, therefore, all decisions about how to live should be rooted in and driven by this ‘truth’. This point is made emphatically in Ecclesiastes. To the existentialist point of view (with which I agree), I would add a second empirically demonstrable ‘truth’ – i.e., that the breadth/depth of human suffering establishes the reality of in fact (not just in appearance) ‘innocent’ suffering. This point is made emphatically by the author/narrator of the story/play Job.
A physician acquaintance has in recent months used increasingly the terms ‘existentialist/ism’ when commenting on the rootlessness he sees in modern western societies. I am trying to explain to him that the central premise of existentialist thought is that there is one empirically demonstrable/indisputable ‘truth’ – i.e., that all human beings die and that, therefore, all decisions about how to live should be rooted in and driven by this ‘truth’. This point is made emphatically in Ecclesiastes. To the existentialist point of view (with which I agree), I would add a second empirically demonstrable ‘truth’ – i.e., that the breadth/depth of human suffering establishes the reality of in fact (not just in appearance) ‘innocent’ suffering. This point is made emphatically by the author/narrator of the story/play Job.
