So many things are coming to an end. The cold weather, the semester, my existentialism course… everyone’s lives. But back to my existentialism class. I have looked forward to taking it for a long time and am extremely thankful I got the chance. It has been a journey. Dark at times, but it’s not like I didn’t already go there myself. I’m going to miss it so much. If you’ve taken an existentialism course, or dabbled in the concepts of one, this list is for you!
1. You’ve finally read the titles you’ve only been hearing about your whole life.
Now you can totally understand that two-minute conversation about Jean-Paul Sartre that happens in every Independent French film.
2. You get annoyed when people misuse “existential” or the words related to it.
No, no it does not mean big. No, it is not the feeling you get when McDonald’s shake machines are out.
3. You learn that people assume your class is super depressing.
Try freeing. At times, it really can be. There’s no grand universe scheme that you can mess up by not being a proper puzzle piece. There is no capital T, Truth you might be missing. You have the freedom of choice to create any meaning of life that you want. Yes there can be some depressing themes, but hey, we’re just acknowledging some of the depressing aspects of life that are already there. They are there regardless of if you acknowledge them, sorry.
4. The more you take the class seriously, the less you are able to take your life or anything else seriously.
It’s all just too absurd. You might even mentally punctuate people's happy or sad news with "yeah, but you're still going to die."
5. You’ve said something so dark you were afraid they were going to throw you out of the classroom.
You think I told my class the reason Ivan Ilyich’s life was put into pieces of several years was because that’s how time actually feels? Haha, no. I value their stability more than whoever is reading this I guess.
6. You feel kind of pretentious in the best possible way… but then the more smug you feel the more you also realize how none of it matters in the face of a temporary existence.
But yeah, seriously, enjoy being pretentious if you can.
7. You love the amount of literature, instead of the heavy abstract reading like in other philosophy classes.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s both. But it’s not like you have to tell people that. Let them hear the name Tolstoy, and think your reading must be super intense like you thought it was going to be. But, yes sometimes the only reading for the week is a handful of easy-to-follow stories in novellas, and it’s awesome.
8. You’ve read pieces of literature that pushed you right along with a character up to the emotional breaking point of experiencing their death.
It was The Death of Ivan Ilyich (SPOILER ALERT: Ivan Ilyich dies), and Sartre’s “The Wall” for me. Either way you’ve wondered if you’ll ever be able to mentally come back from these.
9. At any moment you might connect something from your subjective experience to the concepts of class and feel super-duper completely alone.
sometimes. “No one can share my pain,” you think as you stub your toe.
10. No, really. You feel so very alone.
You have weekly revelations. You have concepts you want to sort through. Sometimes you just really want to vent about the human condition. None of your friends really want to have these conversations at brunch.
11. Lol, remember how you used to joke about your own mortality?
Haha, not anymore. It’s all too real now.
12. You and your classmates got really close.
classmates aren't. It tends to happen
in a small class when talking about the things society tends to forbid. I
mean, what a rare common interest too. This one’s for you guys in room C302!
13. You learned about the “other,” or similar pieces of mass mentality against individual subjectivity and you can’t stop seeing it in real life.
Hell really is other people, though.
14. You really appreciate existentialist cartoons, memes, and jokes now.
Now that you know you have absolute unavoidable dreadful freedom in a completely absurd and indifferent world, why not throw in a little humor about it? That’s what this lisiticle did, I guess. I don’t know if you noticed, but it was totally all over the place.
15. You will admit that it’s one of the best classes you’ve taken.
I am so sad that this is going to be over. I know the class isn’t for everyone, but it was exactly what I needed, and what many people need as well. It gives morbid pleasure, intellectual pleasure, and the usual kind of pleasure. But fear not, my friends. You can read Existentialist essays, and literature all year round, for the entirety of your short existence.
