We talked about existentialism for over an hour in English today, and I don't know about you all, but I still don't really get it. The main idea is supposed to be that existentialists determine their own destiny. Here is the definition of destiny:
Destiny (noun): the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.
How are you going to decide what is already predetermined? If it's going to happen, it's going to happen.
What I think causes confusion is people take inevitability too far. You can't decide not to act on something and just assume destiny will take care of it. Destiny isn't going to take action for you. You can't be destined to win something or do something or accomplish something if you don't work for it. Your "destiny" is to win, do, and accomplish what you have worked for. So in a way, I both agree and disagree with existentialists. You determine what happens to you, but it was already predetermined that you were going to do that.
Here's a link to a further explanation of the existentialist mindset: http://www.thecry.com/existentialism/
What do you guys think? I'm obviously not an expert on this at all, and I feel like we didn't really talk about this today in class.
I feel this is true. Our destiny is probably already laid out in fornt of us, but we won't achieve it by just sitting there and thinking 'Well i'm destined to become president one day, so I can just lay here and chillax for now.' We may be destined to be president, but we still need to put effort and hard work into achieving our destiny. We need to show the universe that we deserve it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that you can't just sit around and wait for something to come to you. You have to go out and get it yourself. I feel like there are a lot of people who just expect something when they are doing nothing to earn it. I believe that we all have a destiny. Even the people that sit around and do nothing were made to sit around and do nothing. But, I'm not that person and I've gotten to where I am by doing and not expecting. I like that you included the definition of destiny in your blog because it makes part of existentialism a tad contradictory..you can't determine a predetermined course of events.
ReplyDeleteThere are many ways to define "destiny" or to think about it. I think most philosophers oppose the idea that you are "destined" to be X or Y. They would say you are X or Y because of actions that you participated in. They would oppose any futuristic sense of "destiny" because your actions are not yet known.
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