Existentialism: God, Are You There?

A podcast host named Joey Degnan reflects on his childhood confusion about existence and his interest in non-physical aspects of life. He discusses how many people his age are turning away from traditional religion and seeking their own understanding of the world. Degnan explores the philosophical concepts of essentialism, nihilism, and existentialism, highlighting the ideas of Aristotle, Plato, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, and Sartre. He emphasizes the importance of being true to oneself, embracing personal experiences, and finding joy and purpose in life. He also discusses the significance of community and happiness in different cultures. Ultimately, Degnan believes that the meaning of life lies in being kind to others, finding joy in the present moment, and pursuing personal happiness. I don't know what's going on and neither do you, maybe we can talk about it and pretend like we actually do. Hey! Existing Existentially, a podcast of philosophies by Joey Degnan. When I was a kid, I felt so confused. While other people my age were worried about who was coming to their birthday parties or which new kid looked the cutest, I was constantly trying to figure out how I had gotten on this earth and what I was supposed to do here. I still noticed the cute kids, don't get me wrong. But my obsession with existence and all things non-physical from a young age made me somewhat of an oddball growing up, but it set me up nicely for the free-thinking attitude of my generation. Religion is the natural answer when it comes to understanding this conscious experience of ours, but its traditional restrictions have steered many of my peers in a different direction. According to Axios News, one-third of Gen Z identifies as religiously unaffiliated, in large part due to our disinterest in bandwagoning our spirituality. While religion provides community and love for many people my age, a lot of us no longer believe it when people tell us that God will save us because we can't see this God they speak of. But if God's not real, who made us? And why are we here? And couldn't it really be real? Let's go back to the basics from Aristotle and Plato at the turn of 300 BCE. They established essentialism, which states everything we witness has an essence that remains through time and space. In other words, each existing thing is its own thing. While you and I both have identical iPhones, same year, same color, my iPhone is not yours because they're two separately existing things. You could really use any object for this scenario, but ultimately it's like Oscar Wilde saying, be yourself because everyone else is already taken. We have to be ourselves, since it's in our essence to do so, and it's kind of our only option. Dostoyevsky took this idea a bit further in 1874 with Notes from the Underground, a fictional diary written by a man who has isolated himself from society as a result of being annoyed by humans and their unpredictability. The irony is that through ranting about his annoyance in this diary, he discovers how annoyed he is by himself. Dostoyevsky argues that humans cannot be inherently good because of our inevitable irrationality. Therefore, the purpose of life is to be authentic to yourself, because the more we try to plan or rationalize the way we should be, the more we drive ourselves crazy. Ultimately, he believes that our understanding of the world comes from our personal experiences and suffering, which is kind of hard to dispute. Around the same time, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche introduced a different dark but legitimate view on existence with nihilism. Nihilism is defined as the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. Nietzsche points out that the structure of the world only exists because we created it that way. The government would not have power if the people did not place it there, and the social expectations we hold for one another would not exist if we weren't around. A nihilist judges the world as it is and sees that it is supposed to be different, while also recognizing that the world as it should be does not exist. Therefore, nothing in this world matters because it's inherently wrong. On a far more positive note, philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre reintroduced hope into the existentialist discussion in 1946 with his book Existentialism is a Humanism. At this time, the Western world was making its way through the Industrial Age, and World War II had just been won, so there were a lot of reflections happening about existence and change and our role in it. Sartre made the argument that we are painfully and shockingly free, and only through self-realization can we come to terms with our ungoverned existence. We have an insatiable drive to achieve what we believe to be impossible, to understand our own insanity, and that drive is natural to our evolution. It is our role in this world to discover more about ourselves and then apply what we find through self-discovery to bettering our minds, souls, bodies, and communities. Sartre also introduced an important idea of holding ourselves accountable, because the world just ain't going to do it. Bad faith, according to Sartre, occurs when we justify not making a decision because we believe it is not in our power, when in actuality, we just don't want to suffer the consequences of choosing wrong. An example of this that he gives is a server who believes the best career they can achieve in life is to wait tables, despite being capable of more than they realize. The server won't explore other options because they're afraid to fail, and that fear keeps them where they are. Basically, self-limitation is the worst thing someone can do, because it disregards the freedom of choice that our consciousness gives us. My exposure to existentialism went radioactive when I met my friend Sahel. Although she's only a year older than me, she's lived around the world and, with the ability to speak three languages, she's had the opportunity to bond with people from countless backgrounds. She recently returned to the U.S. after living in Iran for much of last year, preceded by her residency in Cape Town, South Africa. If anyone has a grasp on existing in our generation, it's her. What's the meaning of life? I love that question, Jerry. Well, I think the more time that I spend around the world, the more that I grow up, I'm realizing that life's meaning comes from not the traditional goals that we find in society, but about finding joy within ourselves and within our community. So I think that, whereas so much of our childhood we hear that you need to go to college, and you need to graduate, and then you need to, you know, go on and do your master's, graduate school, whatever that is. Find a career. Settle down and choose a career. Get married. Have children. Like, the meaning of life is often defined by these timeline goals that you need to achieve. And when you achieve those goals, then your life will have purpose. When you're in college, you have purpose because you're working towards your career. When you're dating somebody, you have purpose because you're making strides in your love life, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas, I think the more that I live and the more that I see different ways of living, especially in Cape Town or in Iran, where it's an underdeveloped country, I'm seeing that when these structures or this traditional path of life is not so easy to accomplish and to achieve because, you know, pressures of society, the inability to have access to certain resources, people start to stray from these paths because they have to find other means of survival. And if we look at it through the lens of this American lens of, you know, these steps are the steps that you need to take in order to have a purposeful life, then you have to find other ways of being happy and having a purpose in your life, right? And I think that purpose is actually much more beautiful than the purpose that we find here. Like, the meaning of life in those underdeveloped countries is much more niche and joyful almost than the meaning of life that we find here. And I think that a lot of that comes from community. Like, in so much of these underdeveloped countries or countries around the world, people are reliant on their neighbors, their friends, their family to, you know, have a joyful moment, live moment to moment. Like, be in the present, enjoy the present. And when you look at life, life is just comprised of a series of moments, right? It's not about, you know, my life doesn't start when I go to law school. My life doesn't start when I go to college. And it doesn't end when I, you know, get married and have kids. My life, it goes on day to day to day, moment to moment until, you know, it stops. And if I find the meaning of life in certain goals and achievements, then am I really living at all? It's true. So, yeah. So, I think the meaning of life, in my opinion, is found in being kind to your community, being kind to the people around you, the people you have interactions with in your day to day, and trying to find joy and feeling alive at every second of life. Yeah. We were born not for ourselves. Exactly. I know. Beautiful, yes. And it's so, I know it's interesting because America has ranks like lower on, you know, global happiness scale than a lot of like northern European countries where community is so ingrained in everything they do, you know? Like, it's just, it's a change in culture, but that it goes to speak to a higher experience that we have. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, there's a difference between like our relationship with society and our relationship with our consciousness, the fact that we're alive, with dealing with the fact that we're put into this framework, whether we chose to be or not, you know? Totally. So, going on from that, you know, and you did touch on this with community and everything, but how are some other ways that you determine value in your life? Well, I think a lot of it for me is when I look at, you know, when I look at my friends or I see like what my friends are doing, how joyful they are, how much I am able to help them be joyful in their lives. I think happiness is key there, right? Like, in the last year as I've spent more time abroad, I think I have shifted out of the American societal mindset and it is about, I found that really life is about being happy. Like, I want to be happy. I want my friends to be happy. That's it. Period. That's the end of it. And I don't know if that answers your question. It does. No. Totally. Yeah. Because it's not about the goal. It's not about the goal. It's about the journey. It is about the journey. Yes. It's all about the journey. Exactly. Because that's how you're spending most of your time anyway. Exactly. Making your way through big things. Yeah. And I think that finding happiness comes in different shapes and forms, right? Like, for me personally, it can come from meditation. It can come from taking time away from like the material world, as like I like to call it. And, you know, people do that in different ways. They do yoga, whether it's art or some people like to go hiking, they find that peace there. But we have to realize that we as humans are not just like the physical body. I think so. We're not just a physical body. Like, we are innately in tune with the earth. We're innately in tune with these higher things, whether you call it the soul or you call it God or you call it your emotions or you call it your heart, your gut feeling. Like, so many different ways to call this sensation that we essentially, we come from soil. We come from the ground. We come from, you know, evolution. And we can find our peace in many different ways. And, yeah, some people like to write. Some people do poetry. Some people, you know, do Reiki and meditation. Some people go into nature and they call it, like, that's their peace. And I think that finding meaning, those moments help you find meaning. Like, those, you know, you go on a hike and you find peace and you're just like, oh, my gosh, I feel so alive and so present. And that's life. You know, that's when you're really living. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And I know, going back to what you were saying as far as, you know, there being a higher self. And this is Descartes' argument, not mine. But there is an undeniable separation between mind and body. Because sleep, for example, you know, dreaming. The fact that we can be transported to completely different worlds where we have full agency in our dream, right? Or not full agency, I shouldn't say, because that's like lucid dreaming. But most of the time we experience a lot of what we experience in the waking world, but our body is lying down. Absolutely. It's like, and yet we're still experiencing these things, even if it is in a dream state, you know? And so, yeah, I guess it's like... 100%. Interesting. Yeah. And your dreams impact your waking world, too. You know, you have a, like, a very impactful dream about someone or something or an event. And then you wake up and you spend the whole day thinking about it. Exactly. And it influences how you speak. It influences your conversations. It influences your feeling, your emotions that day. So you're right. There is that very close connection between our higher self or, you know, subconscious and our conscious. Yeah. That's awesome. Existence is a funny little thing that has thrown scientists, artists, theologists, and everyone in between into a never-ending echo chamber of questions. As humans, we need answers, which is understandable from a survival standpoint. But just like fish might wish they had feet, or dogs certainly long for disposable thumbs, there are some things that humans will never be capable of doing. And agreeing on our purpose is at the tippy-top of that list. Over and out.