One of the most familiar conclusions associated with existentialism is that life has no predetermined meaning, and therefore we must create our own.

But I've been wondering whether this conclusion follows at all. Why must meaning be invented rather than discovered?

In Existentialism Is a Humanism, Sartre argues that human beings must invent values. We are not born with a predetermined essence; through our choices, we become what we are.

Nietzsche seems to anticipate this. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he describes human beings as creators of good and evil. In The Gay Science §301, he likewise emphasizes the human role in giving value to the world.

Yet Nietzsche also offers something that seems, at first glance, rather different.

In The Gay Science §276, introducing amor fati, he expresses his desire to learn to see what is necessary in things as beautiful. And in §341, the thought of eternal recurrence asks whether one could affirm one's entire existence, including its suffering and necessity, without wishing anything different.

What interests me is the distinction between creating something beautiful and learning to see something as beautiful.

Perhaps the highest affirmation of existence does not consist in imposing our own values upon it, but in overcoming whatever prevents us from recognizing its worth.

This brings me, unexpectedly, to Kierkegaard.

In Fear and Trembling, the knight of faith first renounces the finite world, only to receive it again through faith. The world itself has not changed, but his relationship to it has been transformed.

The differences between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are, of course, profound. Yet both seem to suggest that the deepest transformation need not consist in inventing a different world, but in becoming capable of affirming the one before us.

And perhaps this helps explain something else about Nietzsche.

For all his insistence upon the creation of values, he also places extraordinary importance on reverence, rank, discipline, and self-overcoming. The higher individual is not simply someone who declares his preferences to be valuable. He must first overcome something in himself.

But overcome himself according to what measure?

If the will alone establishes value, what distinguishes self-overcoming from the mere triumph of one impulse over another? What makes one form of willing higher than another?

Nietzsche's philosophy certainly does not give us an uncomplicated answer, and his praise of value-creation cannot simply be dismissed.

Still, I wonder whether amor fati points toward a possibility that the familiar existentialist formula tends to overlook:

Perhaps the problem is not that existence lacks value until we assign it one, but that we have not yet learned to recognize what is valuable in existence itself.

So here is my question:

Is amor fati ultimately an act of value-creation, or does it point toward the discovery of something valuable in existence that our will did not put there?

And might the highest form of self-overcoming consist not in becoming the author of all value, but in becoming capable of recognizing what deserves to be affirmed?

what is the reason you live what is your purpose?

# Existential Reflections: Meaning, Consciousness, Free Will, and Morality

# TLDR

You grapple with existential despair—nothing inherently matters—yet find meaning in consciousness itself, the rarity of awareness, and the comfort of quantum possibilities. Rather than paralyze you, this drives a desire to live fully and leave a meaningful mark, treating this life as supremely valuable precisely because it might be all you have (or one of infinite versions of you).

# The Paradox of Meaning

I see everything and constantly think: what is the point? I love existentialism—the idea that we create our own purpose. Traveling, living well, and simply enjoying the universe for a moment feels great, but it comes with an overwhelming sense of despair. When you realize nothing inherently matters, it raises a terrifying question: if there is no cosmic point to existing, then why exist at all?

And yet, I still exist. I choose to exist.

# The Miracle of Consciousness

Before now, I was unconscious atoms. Now those atoms have come together to form something that I can barely comprehend: me. I think this is the rarest thing possible. Consciousness at this level of complexity is extraordinary. I'm happy I'm not a dog or another creature that doesn't possess—or hasn't yet revealed—this kind of complex comprehension. Most creatures lack what I have: the ability to contemplate my own existence.

# The Question of Free Will

But does free will exist? I would love to believe in it. I find comfort in Penrose's theories about microtubules and quantum phenomena as a potential seat of free will. Alternatively, there's the many-worlds interpretation: at each quantum collapse, the universe splits into infinite branches, creating every possible outcome. This idea provides great comfort. It means somewhere, in another branch of reality, I am a Pokémon master. Elsewhere, I'm the president. In another, I'm a beggar. Perhaps I'm even a turtle. Or Simba from The Lion King.

Who knows? Who knows?

# Living Across Infinite Possibilities

This multiverse concept gives me a reason to live. I don't truly die—or rather, all versions of me exist simultaneously across all possible timelines. It feels almost spiritual: "I am you, you are me—one soul hopping through all kinds of possibilities."

This perspective motivates me to live this life to the fullest. I want to maximize what I have this time, knowing that even if I compromise on something now, perhaps another branch of reality fulfills it for me. That's both humbling and empowering.

# The Desire to Matter

I would love to leave a big enough print on the world that I actually change the course of history. It would be nice. But then again, maybe I already have. Maybe in another timeline, I'm Napoleon. Or Genghis Khan. Maybe I'm no one—just a street beggar. Or maybe I was that turtle, or Simba.

The uncertainty is strangely liberating. It frees me from the pressure of needing to know whether I matter. Instead, I can simply choose to act as though I do.

# Random Thoughts

Just random thoughts, really. But they matter because I think them.

# Part II: Morality, Survival, and the Genes We Carry

# The Origin of Morality

I grapple with many thoughts every day. One is the fundamental tension: Should I live according to ideals for the collective good, or should I prioritize what is good for me? What even is right? What is wrong?

We're taught these concepts as if they were handed down to us—as if "right" and "wrong" are cosmic laws, universal truths carved into reality. But where did they actually come from?

# Evolution of Ethics

They were handed to us through evolution and survival. Not by some external authority, but by the brutal mathematics of natural selection.

Those who chose to die—who acted in ways that prevented reproduction, who made choices that didn't maximize their survival—their genes never passed on. They're gone. Their lineages ended. We don't inherit their moral intuitions because they didn't survive to pass them down.

What we do inherit are the genes of survivors. We carry the genetic code of those who chose to live, who reproduced, who acted in ways that kept them and their offspring alive.

# The Genes We Carry

This means our entire moral framework—our sense of right and wrong—is fundamentally rooted in survival and reproduction.

Right and wrong, at their core, evolved because they worked. Cooperation with your tribe? Worked—survival rates went up. Reciprocity? Worked—mutual aid increased chances of living through harsh winters. Empathy? Worked—it strengthened social bonds and group cohesion. Fairness? Worked—it prevented conflicts that would tear groups apart.

These aren't universal truths about the cosmos. They're survival strategies that we've inherited biologically and culturally.

# The Tension Remains

The irony is that we now live in societies and circumstances vastly different from those that shaped these genes. We can intellectually ask: "Should I act for the collective good, or for myself?" But we're asking this question with a brain that was literally designed—through millions of years of evolution—to prioritize both.

We have instincts for cooperation and instincts for self-preservation. We have drives toward fairness and drives toward advantage. These impulses aren't contradictions; they're the complex result of surviving in social groups where both strategies mattered.

# What This Means

So when you feel the tension between doing what's right (collective good) and doing what's good for you (self-interest), you're not experiencing a cosmic moral dilemma. You're experiencing the echo of evolutionary trade-offs that kept your ancestors alive.

Your sense that "right and wrong" exist? That's real—but it's a human construct, encoded in your genes and your culture, forged in the crucible of survival. It's not less valid because it evolved rather than descending from the heavens. If anything, it's more grounded: it's tested by millions of years of real-world application.

The genes we carry are the genes of those who survived. And that survival was built on knowing—instinctively, biologically—what works. What keeps us alive. What holds communities together.

That's where morality comes from.

# How It Connects

This connects back to your earlier reflection: you exist because your ancestors existed. You think about collective good and individual flourishing because those tensions were the conditions of human survival. These aren't abstract philosophical puzzles imposed on you from outside—they're wired into you because they mattered. They kept people alive.

And now, with consciousness and the ability to reflect, you get to choose: Do I honor that evolutionary inheritance? Do I act as my genes "want" me to? Or do I forge something new?

But even asking that question, you're using a tool evolution gave you.

# The Dilemma of the Righteous Path

But here's where it gets complicated. In the real world, there is no single "right way."

Consider the Hindu epics: Rama embodied unwavering moral integrity. He never told a lie, not once. He lived by absolute principles—dharma without compromise. Hanuman, too, was a symbol of perfect devotion and righteousness.

Then there is Krishna.

Krishna lied. He schemed. He manipulated. Yet his actions benefited the collective good. He did what was necessary, not what was perfectly righteous. In the Bhagavad Gita, he tells Arjuna that sometimes action—even morally ambiguous action—is required for the greater good.

So which is the right way?

Rama's path: absolute moral principles, never bending, always honest. Krishna's path: pragmatism in service of collective good, bending rules when necessary.

We never truly know. And that uncertainty is maddening.

# The Problem of Consequences We Can't See

Consider criminals who never get caught. They break moral laws, hurt people, yet face no earthly consequences. Justice doesn't touch them. They live comfortable lives while their victims suffer.

This is where karma—the idea that the universe automatically punishes wrongdoing—would provide comfort. I want to believe in it. I hold onto it. It would mean the universe is fundamentally just, that no one truly escapes the weight of their actions.

But I don't actually believe in karma. Not really. And that makes me a hypocrite.

Because I want to believe that:

* Rama's righteousness will be rewarded

* Krishna's pragmatism will lead to good outcomes

* Criminals will eventually face consequences

* The universe has a moral ledger

Yet I rationally know none of this is guaranteed. The universe is indifferent. An uncaught criminal can live and die in peace. A perfectly moral person can suffer unjustly. There is no cosmic accountant keeping score.

# Living With the Contradiction

So what do we do? We hold contradictions:

* We want to believe morality matters, yet we suspect it doesn't.

* We admire both Rama's integrity and Krishna's pragmatism, yet can't fully embrace either.

* We want to believe the criminal will be punished, yet we know they might not be.

* We want karma to be real, yet we don't actually believe in it.

This is the human condition. We are hypocrites not because we're weak, but because we're conscious beings living in a universe that doesn't confirm our moral intuitions.

We evolved to crave justice, to believe in fairness, to want the guilty punished and the virtuous rewarded. These instincts served our survival. But the modern world—and existence itself—doesn't guarantee these outcomes.

# The Choice Remains

And yet, we still choose. We choose to live by principles even though we can't guarantee they'll be rewarded. We choose to act for the collective good even though we can't be certain it will matter. We choose to believe in morality even though we suspect the universe doesn't care.

That choice—to act morally despite the uncertainty, despite the meaninglessness, despite the hypocrisies we can't resolve—that might be the most human thing about us.

For those of you read till here please comment lemme know your thoughts coz yeah I will know maybe I helped you get a perspective or maybe interesting enough to capture your attention !!!

I often wonder how Sartre perceived the act of self annihilation or suicide. Any opinions?

Going through some family drama right now, disputes over sharing property with a sibling and I could use some existential philosophy that would give me some hope. I remember discovering existential philosophy in college and it was so refreshing it changed my whole outlook on life. And Camus' quote about how a man should know himself inside and out by the age of 30 has been an idea I have lived by since I first read it.

Quote from CBS News Today RE: latest round of AI Assistants: "...allowing our skills and knowledge to deteriorate, and surrendering our critical thinking to AI, poses an existential danger to humanity." Thoughts?

I’ve been trying to understand how my conception of identity, duty, and existential justification relates to existentialism, but I’ve found that some of its common premises seem difficult to reconcile with how I understand myself. I’d appreciate perspectives from people familiar with existentialist philosophy, particularly if you think I’m misunderstanding a concept or making an unjustified assumption. I’ve outlined a few sections for coherent reading below.

1. My background and relationship with existentialism

I was raised in a religious environment that combined elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Sufism, and Sant Mat. During my early adolescence, I gradually abandoned my religious beliefs after questioning their metaphysical foundations. When I was religious, I regarded submission to God and devotion to His creation as the only genuinely worthwhile orientation towards existence. The individual self, particularly when motivated by personal desire or self-interest, seemed insufficient as a basis for meaning.

However, leaving religion did not entirely resolve the underlying questions. I continued to experience a separation between myself and humanity, alongside a persistent suspicion of self-interest and a tendency to judge myself by my capacity to serve others. I have come to suspect that some of these dispositions predated my current philosophy and may have contributed to my earlier alienation.

Existentialist thought has consequently interested me because of its treatment of alienation, meaning, responsibility, and the problem of continuing to exist without an externally established purpose. Yet I’ve struggled to identify with approaches that seem to begin with an individual who must create meaning, affirm their freedom, or rebel against an absurd existence. I don’t necessarily reject those approaches, but I’m uncertain whether they address the problem as I experience it.

2. My ontology: the Husk, Author, and Chhāyō

I’ve developed a tripartite conception of the self that I currently regard as an account of my actual constitution, rather than merely a metaphor for different psychological states. I recognise that this is my own framework, not an objectively established ontology, and I’m interested in whether its premises are coherent.

The Husk is the physical organism: the embodied being with its biological needs, capacities, and limitations. I regard it as incomplete and contaminated, rather than as the ultimate self or an entity whose intrinsic worth I can affirm.

The Author is the mediator responsible for governing the Husk. It organises and directs the Husk’s conduct, maintains its integrity, and attempts to prevent the Chhāyō from consuming it to the point that the Author can no longer effectively govern it. I do not identify the Author as my true self; it is another false self whose legitimacy depends on its capacity to perform this role.

The Chhāyō is the consuming, contaminating presence with which I identify. Its defining orientation is anti-selfhood and malicious harm. Its fundamental axiom is that the Husk has no intrinsic worth. If its consumption becomes sufficiently extensive, the Husk may regress towards more primitive, immediate behaviour, while the Author loses its ability to govern it effectively, potentially imposing harm or burdens on others.

These are not three interchangeable personalities. They have different roles within the ontology: the Husk is the organism being governed, the Author is the mediator responsible for that governance, and the Chhāyō is the consuming presence that threatens it.

The central difficulty is that I identify with the component whose governing principle denies the Husk intrinsic worth, while maintaining a duty to preserve and govern that same organism. I do not regard this as a resolved contradiction.

3. Duty, moral responsibility, and existential justification

Duty is the organising principle of my conduct. I have obligations to people I care about and to society more broadly, and I regard these obligations as having genuine ethical grounds independent of my self-concept. I don’t believe that an action becomes morally good merely because it is useful to me, nor that my ontology is the sole reason I consider these responsibilities binding.

However, duty also serves a distinct existential function.

I experience little to no positive reinforcement from fulfilling my responsibilities to committing to acts that may be considered ‘good’. I generally act because I believe the obligations are worth fulfilling, rather than because doing so makes me feel fulfilled or gives me a strong sense of personal worth. At the same time, fulfilling these responsibilities provides a basis for justifying my continued existence within my ontology, whose fundamental axiom denies the Husk intrinsic worth.

The Author is therefore continually evaluated according to its ability to govern the Husk and fulfil its responsibilities. Its legitimacy is not established by whether I feel happy, find life satisfying, or recognise intrinsic worth in myself, but by whether it can still be trusted to perform its function.

This also creates an asymmetry in how I evaluate myself and others. I do not generally require other people to justify their existence through the same standard of usefulness that I impose upon myself. I can recognise the ethical importance of their interests and obligations without demanding that they earn the right to exist through their contributions. Yet I struggle to extend that same latitude to myself.

I have been questioning whether this asymmetry is a necessary consequence of my ontology or whether it preserves an older hostility towards myself that I have incorporated into it.

I also recognise that the ability to fulfil responsibilities fluctuates, and that a failure to meet an obligation does not automatically establish that the obligation was meaningless or that the person who failed has no worth. How that recognition fits within my own framework remains unresolved.

4. Where I struggle with existentialism

My difficulty becomes particularly apparent when considering absurdism and the question of rebellion.

In reading about Camus, for example, I’ve struggled with what I perceive as a tension between the rejection of ultimate meaning and the continued affirmation of the individual who confronts that absence of meaning. I understand that Camus does not simply propose inventing an arbitrary purpose, and that rebellion can itself be a way of living without appeal to transcendent justification. Nevertheless, I am uncertain how that account applies to my conception of the self.

The problem, as I understand it, is not simply that I cannot find meaning. It is that the entity with which I identify is characterised by the denial of the Husk’s intrinsic worth, while the Author’s role is to maintain the Husk through governance and duty. I don’t readily recognise an authentic or intrinsically valuable self that can simply choose to affirm its existence.

This leaves me uncertain about what rebellion would mean within my framework. Would it be the Author rejecting the standard by which its legitimacy is evaluated? Would that be an attempt to establish a different relationship between the Husk and the Chhāyō, or would it require abandoning the ontology’s central premises? And if the Chhāyō itself is characterised by anti-selfhood, would identifying with it make rebellion against its governing principle incoherent, or does identification not entail endorsement?

I am not convinced that my ontology necessarily invalidates existentialism. It may instead expose assumptions I have failed to examine, or reflect a misunderstanding of what existentialists mean by the self, freedom, and responsibility.

Overall, I’m not looking for reassurance or agreement simply because this is a personal framework. I would appreciate critical engagement with its assumptions, alternative interpretations of the experiences that led me to it, and recommendations for philosophical works that might help me examine these questions.

I thought long and hard about hypocrisy, and masks, and well... Lies... And I came to accept it or understand it as an intrinsic part of human nature, because for all we know? A human's own conscious nature might be built upon the deceit of its own self.

But I mean... Why would humans build a world of masks, and games of pretend and lies if it wasn't our intrinsic existential nature? Same way even if you have a dog be vegan, it is intrinsically a carnivore and it'll show eventually. Now? You have, say on the low end, 20-15 thousand years of accumulative small lies that built the reality around us, because our own intrinsic nature influenced the environment rather than the otherwise.

That's why it's beautiful. Genuinely so. Because morals, good, gods, bad and everything in between comes from the most on the nose, behind the eyes and simultaneously smallest and biggest lies of living. Your own self. Qualia.

Because even the connotation of the lie, the concept of its meaning, we built it from the same society we built upon accumulative small lies. So that nobody looks, because lies are ugly. But... Deceit or a lie isn't intrinsically bad, it just is what it is for it serves a purpose. A lie? Never has no purpose. You can do good for the sake of doing good, but you can't lie for the sake of lying because it always serves an underlying purpose. And that's why it's beautiful. Because qualia is a lie. It's our own biggest lie, to forget that we're just... Atoms, on atoms in a vacuum of a void.

See that's the thing. People cannot escape being hypocrites even at a non-malicious level. Because it's our nature. Same way a wolf's nature is to eat meat, a flower's nature is to photosynthesize and so on so forth. As the Lithuanian saying goes: a human does one thing, says a second, and thinks a third (vienaip daro, antraip sako, trečiaip mąsto) - and a person who isn't a hypocrite like that isn't a person at all, they're simply a mirror of their environment. To be a hypocrite without a mask that concedes to the lesser lies than your own existential one? Is to find "meaning of life" because then? You simply get to live and exist. And in a billion billion years or so, you'll do it again but maybe different. Let's hope atoms remember aye?

Because the human mind cannot easily function without masks, after all to have no mask is to be authentic and to be authentic? The big lie needs to be the one acting directly with both the ugly and the beautiful.

But like that's the thing ye? I thought about hypocrisy - what it means, what it is, why it is, and why it is so popular - and I simply came to the conclusion. That hypocrisy isn't a mask. It's someone's true nature peering through the cracks thinking it's unseen.

But here's a unique personal paradox. The more open and non-delusional I was about my own hypocrisy, the smaller and smaller its range of effects had grown. Like how do I explain this? It's like being aware of your bigger hypocrisies ye, still acting them out, but as time passes on those hypocrisies get actually smaller until you stop noticing them. As if, to notice your own hypocrisies is to look at yourself inwards via a filter of some kind?

Yeah, they simply shrink to small, genuinely small things that I entirely miss out on until someone mentions. And I think - that's the perfect state of hypocrisy. You don't have to flagellate your own self, your own lies or truths to find the fact. Think of your own I's mechanisms as a perfect camouflage defense system?

Well, I simply found it hilarious that a lot of philosophies include self-flagellation, yet ultimately serve no other purpose than the purpose being a hypocrisy in of itself - the self-flagellation as the purpose and meaning behind the philosophy, so as to give a person something concrete to blame, to follow, to hate or love so that they don't have to face themselves even if the philosophy says they do.

Anyways. But that's why the defense mechanism is so great. Morals have aesthetics, but beyond that. Concepts have aesthetics. And imagine how ugly, how repulsive one would feel if they heard that their self-flagellation is a hypocrisy in of itself, even if it's not a bad one as long as the lie works as intended.

\-----------------

Nietzsche once said in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil that untruth is a condition of life, yet warned against the "last man" who just blinks, shrugs at the lie, and says "we have invented happiness" just to live in lazy comfort instead of suffering to create greatness and meaning. So if he asked whether accepting our own hypocrisy without self-flagellation is just being a "lazy last man" who shrugs because "everything is a lie", this is my answer: (Which is actually brought up from a discord chat because I've never not once in my life read a single philosophy book.)

It's easy to call it 'lazy last man' when what is greatness? Why seek meaning when we know we can't answer the questions. We won't. I don't think it should be answered. We create comfort because self flagellation for ideals or ideas is the same kind of lazy thing you described. Just another set of clothes to justify being. I don't shrug at everything because"i know everything is a lie" because truthfully? I don't know. Maybe not everything is a lie, but can I differentiate? No. And that's the thing. I simply experience. Not exist. Live. Live to experience, and experience to live whilst being a hypocrite - a human because I can't be anything more or less than that. And so I ask you instead. If you know nothing has meaning, then why continue existing? You can't live for nothing, and nothing doesn't live for you. But you are. That's a fact. And you experience - subjectively? Objectively? Do you know? Do I know? Does anyone know the answer to which is it? No. And that's the sad, hard and beautiful truth. A conception of deception that is belief in of itself. So believing that my view is the correct or yours is the right answer to living is a deception of your own consciousness because it's a non. A no answer dilemma that only questions but never answers - instead what answers is the collective lies and interpretations of reality filtered through our own very beings.

And so  what happens when the comfort rips away and you are hit by real tragedy, grief, betrayal, and black bitterness that doesn't shrink? Do you finally curse existence when the lie stops feeling sweet, or try to force yourself to love fate without flinching? My answer to that would be:

I do curse. That's the point, that's the reaction. Pain, tragedy or betrayal... Those are all intrinsic parts of existing and experiencing, yet when you do experience the loss of a loved one, do you not also experience the deepest kind of love and gratitude that they were? When you're betrayed and bitter do you not also learn how to not be deceived by the same kind of treachery? Without bitterness you won't know how truly sweet is sugar. Without sugar you won't truly know the depth of repulsion when that bitterness hits your tongue. That is experiencing. That is the deceit. When a curtain of something is, and when it's drawn down what happens is you find another layer, another curtain that shows you the back end of it. I dislike many things, I get depressed every fall and winter, and I think... How peaceful it would be to end it all, yet simultaneously I'm reminded of the beautiful things. And I think to myself. What more is there that I missed? Just how much more sweetness I can draw after this bitterness subsides. And if it doesn't? What if that bitterness doesn't go away? Then it eventually becomes the new sweet. If life goes only down, then the old worst is the new good. A drowning man looks at the surface until their eyes close and they sink to the bottom. They don't look at the bottom before that, because they already know what's down there - more water. But what's up? Air. Help. Survival and continuation.

So I ask you. Am I delusional to think this way? Or...

I recently read René Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, and his idea of “I think, therefore I am” really got me thinking. I was just scrolling through some philosophy stuff when I came across Martin Heidegger's name. One thing led to another, and somehow I ended up reading about existentialism.

Now I'm a little confused. From what I understand, Heidegger had a very different approach to existence than Descartes did. Descartes starts with the thinking self as the foundation of certainty, while Heidegger seems to question the way we even understand existence in the first place.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, so I might be getting some things wrong here.

For those of you who are into philosophy, how do you see this difference? Do you think Heidegger was actually rejecting Descartes' idea, or was he approaching the same question from a completely different angle?

I'd love to hear how you guys understand it.

The Theory of the Soul

The soul is one, and it exists throughout the entire universe. It isn't limited to humans or other living beings; even inanimate and nonexistent things have a soul.

The vessel gives individuality to the soul. Since everything is part of the same soul, the part of the soul that exists within my vessel is the part I have the most control over. This makes me, as a vessel, responsible for what happens to that part of the soul.

The soul has existed for eternity, without a beginning, but it does have an absolute end. Its ultimate goal is to break free from the endless cycle of existence and reincarnation. However, a soul cannot free itself while it remains a soul. It needs a vessel to achieve liberation.

The Cycle of Reincarnation

When a vessel dies, the soul gets attracted back into the cycle of reincarnation. This happens because the vessel dies with unfulfilled desires, and since the soul was connected to that vessel, those desires influence its journey.

The soul doesn't actually carry these desires with it, but they prevent it from completing its ultimate objective.

When the soul reincarnates, there's an extremely small chance that it will become human again because there are almost infinite possibilities for what it could become. It could return as another living being or even an inanimate object.

This cycle continues endlessly until the soul manages to break free.

The First Path: Ending Desires

Having a human vessel is the best opportunity for a soul to achieve liberation because humans can become aware of their true nature.

However, becoming aware that you're part of one universal soul isn't enough. You must also overcome your desires.

Even if you abandon material desires, the desire to love and be loved might remain. And even if you overcome those desires, there's still one of the hardest desires to overcome: the desire to remain an individual.

For example, I love being Yash. I want to remain myself, experience life as myself, and continue existing as an individual. Even if I overcome every other desire, this one might still hold me back.

That's why monks meditate and detach themselves from the world. They're trying to let go of their individuality and free themselves from the attachments that keep them trapped in the cycle.

Deep meditation can also allow someone to temporarily detach their soul from their vessel. By forgetting their individuality and becoming one with the universe, they can supposedly surpass the limitations of their physical body.

This could allow them to access knowledge beyond their physical limitations, manifest things into reality, or travel freely throughout the universe through astral projection.

However, this separation is temporary because the vessel is still alive. True liberation can only happen when the vessel dies without leaving any desires behind.

What If Every Soul Achieved Liberation?

What if every soul managed to break free from the cycle?

It's almost impossible because not everyone becomes aware of the soul's true nature, and the process of liberation is extremely difficult.

For every million expansions of the soul, perhaps only one vessel manages to achieve liberation through this path.

But hypothetically, what if every vessel succeeded?

If every soul became free and all desires disappeared, perhaps the universe itself would cease to exist.

The Second Path: Selling Your Soul to the Devil

There's another way to achieve liberation, but it works in the complete opposite way.

Instead of abandoning desires, you fulfil them.

When someone sells their soul to the devil, the devil grants them their desires, giving them fame, money, power, and everything else they want.

The first path involves ending desires, while this path involves fulfilling them until there's nothing left to desire.

Both paths lead to the same goal: breaking free from the cycle of reincarnation.

However, there's one major difference.

When someone achieves liberation through the first path, their soul becomes free.

When someone sells their soul to the devil, their soul also escapes the cycle, but the devil takes possession of it.

What happens to those souls afterward is still unknown.

The Devil's True Purpose

Perhaps the devil uses these liberated souls to transform the universe into something worse.

As mentioned earlier, only one vessel out of every million soul expansions might achieve liberation through the first path.

However, the devil's path could allow far more souls to escape the cycle.

This means the devil could potentially collect an enormous number of souls, far more than those who achieve liberation naturally.

And if every liberated soul has the potential to affect the universe, then the devil might be gathering these souls for something much bigger.

Perhaps the path that promises to fulfil every desire is actually the beginning of something far worse.

(polished my language a little using chatgpt sorry)

While the majority of people are flying around like headless chickens, I’m here afflicted by my own consciousness by how ridiculous everything is.

This world is an awful place, and it’s humans in particular that make it such. This generation is absolutely degenerate. It feels like im living in a dystopia, its such an absurd experience you can’t help but feel existential dread.

The things society values and advocates for. The toxicity of social media. How bitter and cold people are nowadays. The trivial things people concern themselves with. It’s so surreal, and honestly feels comedic.

There’s a huge dissonance when i walk out that door and into the public, i feel a weight of loneliness when surrounded by people. And i feel like people are so immersed in their daily lives, just subconsciously living on autopilot, that they don’t take the time to look around and realize the absurdity of it all. Or at least they don’t have the capacity to.

I am curious about this philosophy as I believe that since humans are purely free to practice and pursue what they want to, and even influence their destiny or purpose as they are born without one. (I believe that if God exists, then God could be rational and chose not to interfere with the creations God made) And I would like to know more about this philosophy, the only thing I know about this philosophy is that we choose our own purpose. I'm curious and I wanna know more about Existentialism. So, what further more does Existentialism teach?

I don’t feel satisfied with myself. I did get in good shape and worked on myself by setting goals for myself, and telling me I will be fulfilled after that, but still I feel an emptiness that is filled with past regrets, and I always keep telling myself what if I had this or that. Do you believe it is possible to reach full satisfaction over your existence, or our human condition just forces us to strive for more, or the goal is to accept the way things are and move forward, a bit like Sartre would say, responsibility of our life.

The concept of bad faith by Sartre emphasis on the idea that we as humans often use real external circumstances as an excuse in order to avoid any kind of responsibility. This idea is very illuminating to me since I have noticed this pattern inside of me. I guess the best way to avoid having "bad faith" is being absolutely honest which I heard from Prashant who's one of modern philosophers. Do you think it'll work? Or is there an another way? Sometimes we're being dishonest subtly and we avoid checking our intentions. Only honesty can break that pattern. Maybe have a litmus test, a question which checks into that pattern?

I am curious about this philosophy as I believe that since humans are purely free to practice and pursue what they want to, and even influence their destiny or purpose as they are born without one. (I believe that if God exists, then God could be rational and chose not to interfere with the creations God made) And I would like to know more about this philosophy, the only thing I know about this philosophy is that we choose our own purpose. I'm curious and I wanna know more about Existentialism. So, what further more does Existentialism teach?

Living within the absurd has, at times, seemed meaningless to me. And these were not fleeting moments; sometimes, that feeling lasted for months. Once, during my short life, it even lasted for years

This absence of meaning grew increasingly stronger. However, my consciousness evolved in such a way that my vibration would no longer remain sustained solely by suffering, which was nullifying the possibility of living

Obviously, I read extensively so that my consciousness could withstand the complex concept of existence. Here, I want to share that, among everything I read, I obviously read Camus. Everything I am writing sounds a great deal like The Myth of Sisyphus. But what I was ultimately able to do was not merely understand through reason and intellect, but truly feel and experience through my emotions, when my will genuinely attempted to show me that life possesses a hidden meaning

For a long time, I felt that my own existence resembled that endless movement: searching, questioning, trying to understand, and returning to the same point. However, something began to change when I stopped approaching the problem solely through reason and intellect. Although philosophy had provided me with concepts through which to think about my existence, I needed to experience what I was trying to understand in a different way. I needed the question of meaning to cease being exclusively a mental operation and become a lived experience

As a musician, I have always had a relationship with sound that goes beyond its structure: sound is also a way of being in the world, of perceiving it, and of relating to that which I cannot always express through language

When I tried harder to feel connected to life, I thought that connection would come in the form of a romantic partner, but it came in the form of any living being itself. In my particular case, it was through plants

It was then that my relationship with music and plants acquired a particular meaning

By translating certain electrical variations in plants into sound, I found the possibility of establishing a sensory relationship with another living organism. Through sonification devices, signals that normally remain outside my auditory perception are transformed into a sonic experience that I can hear, interpret, and experience musically

This is not about claiming that plants necessarily possess a musical intention or produce sounds with existential meaning directed toward me. What matters is that this translation opens up a form of encounter between two organisms whose ways of perceiving and inhabiting the world are different. The plant does not need to answer my questions about existence for its presence to transform the way I experience it

In this encounter, something fundamental changes: I am no longer merely an individual attempting to solve the enigma of my own life, but also a living being who listens, participates, and establishes a relationship with another form of life. Music ceases to be merely a human creation and becomes, in this context, a space of mediation between my experience and the biological processes of another organism

Sisyphus does not discover a transcendent explanation that justifies his condemnation; his freedom lies in recognizing his condition and continuing to live without resorting to a definitive answer. In a similar way, the sonification of plants does not offer me an ultimate truth about the meaning of existence. What it offers me is something different: a concrete experience that allows me to stop demanding an answer from life before granting myself the possibility of living it

Perhaps meaning was not hidden in the form of an answer I had to decipher, but rather in the possibility of participating in existence without fully understanding it. Listening to a plant, translating its variations into sound, and experiencing what emerges from this process allowed me to shift the question. Instead of constantly asking myself why life exists or what its ultimate purpose is, I began to ask myself what it means to be alive, here and now, in relation to other living beings

I do not claim to have resolved the absurd or that suffering has disappeared. Rather, I discovered that uncertainty did not have to nullify my ability to experience the world. Existence could remain inexplicable and still contain experiences capable of moving me, connecting me to others, and making me choose to remain within it

If what I’ve written has resonated with you in any way, and if you’d like to hear about and see the process behind the electrical circuitry, synthesizers, and frequencies I used to create this experience, I’ve posted the details on my profile to avoid spamming! Love to all!

Existentialism is the one type of philosophy that has changed my life.

I studied philosophy in college, but no curriculum had existentialism for some reason --I also went to an Ivy league school.

Oddly enough, the best philosophy for my personal growth came from reading philosophy on my own, finding books that people like on reddit or goodreads, and digging into them. I was browsing the philosophy section of a book store --or maybe it was the library-- like I usualy do when I came across a book on existentialism.

The book claimed that unlike other schools of thought, existentialism isn't really a formalized category. Instead, several philosophers --notably kierkegaard, sarte, neitzche among others-- independently came to similar enough conclusions that then later became tied into "existentialism".

When I read that book, I was floored. It gave expression to something I felt in my bones since I was a kid but never could quite articulate. It showed me why I love the philosophers we now refer to as existentialists.

I was always so annoyed by people growing up who said that I was meant to be this or that. It seemed like people who didn't know shit about me were tellling me what I would amount to in a matter of minutes spent with me --many were well-meaning people too, like teachers, coaches and family.

But it seemed to me that over time, people lacking in courage or motivation will allow these voices of society to shoehorn us into certain jobs and identities that we never want to embody. I hated, absolutely abhorred, when I saw this being done to others because I hated when people did it to me, espeically when they envisioned that I would amount to become a person that I knew I didn't want to be.

I loved motivational movies, typically sports movies, that my football coach would show us at film night, esentially the underdog stories, where the protagonist must insist on a becoming more than what the world expect of them.

I always dreamed that I could say the same for myself. As I've gotten older, I've kept that mantra alive for myself, despite what seemed to be the universe consipiring to make me a loser. And now, when I see that all the people who doubted me are flipping the switch and saying they knew I'd be successful all along, I know that existentialism, the crux of it, is what allowed me to flip my narrative, to change the direction of my life.

I hate bullying because it is essentially telling a person they are nothing, they will amount to nothing, and many people start to beleive that over time and end up becoming exactly that. Existntialism reminds us that, no, we all that choice every day to beocme who we want to become. With it comes the responsiblity to choose wisely, to accept the sacrafices, and to be honest about what identities we value and who we are.

Please comment if any of this resonates with you, and if you want to know more about existentialism, please feel free to DM me!

A pigeon built a nest on my kitchen window and laid two eggs. They carry disease and their droppings are a health problem, so the practical answer is to remove them. But no rule or authority is telling me what to do here. It's just me, the eggs, and a decision that nobody can make on my behalf. This is the kind of small, ordinary choice where Sartre's "condemned to be free" stops feeling abstract.

What I keep wrestling with:

- Does worth come from essence or from existence? If life has no inherent value-ranking, on what grounds do I decide my comfort outweighs two unborn pigeons? And if I rank lives by "contribution to the world," I have to admit humans are not winning that contest.

- Bad faith. I could hide behind "survival of the fittest" or "it's just nature's cycle." But isn't that Sartrean bad faith, disguising a choice as a necessity? Nature doesn't make this call. I do.

- Outsourcing the act. I thought about paying someone else so I wouldn't carry the guilt. If I choose the outcome, is the responsibility still mine? Is wanting clean hands just an attempt to escape the weight of my own freedom?

- The absurd. I'm agonizing over two eggs, while the universe doesn't care what I decide. Do I accept that meaninglessness and still choose carefully, as Camus might say? Or does the absurdity make the agonizing pointless?

- Ambiguity and the other. We could coexist if I just cleaned the window more often. De Beauvoir wrote about acting within ambiguity, where every choice costs something. Am I obligated to the nest in any real sense, or only to whatever values I decide to create?

This quote and my understanding " i always feel incomplete and try to grab everything so I can feel complete , for this I change my identity every time "

But I wanna know the highest meaning of this quote , whoever has read the camus deeply can answer it because i have only read "the stranger" .

And I've heard a lot about sisyphus.

The comment section is all open , come and engage .