Why I hate existentialism

And why your friend who's deeply into Kafka, Camus and Dostoevsky is going through it.

At some point in everyone’s life they realize that life isn’t fair and you realize that a lot of life is out of your control and there’s nothing you can do to change that.For most this happens in their teenage. So what do you do? You start believing that nothing you do matters because things will probably not turn out the way you want them to. Turns out there is an entire belief system based on it and it’s called ‘Existentialism’. It seems to have all the answers. “Life is absurd,” they say. “There’s no inherent meaning in anything, nothing matters so why bother?”.

You get the feeling of finding an indie band and feel special about it. But here’s the thing: you’re like this buzzlightyear meme finding about existentialism.

There’s nothing special about your discovery and it’s not reality shattering. What you found out is just a shitty reason to justify being miserable.The ideas behind existentialism aren’t revolutionary; they’re just a way to wallow in despair.You and every author you read about were probably depressed. Dostoevsky, for example, lived most of his life in prison, battling mental illness and despair. Camus and Kafka didn’t have everything figured out either.

Theres nothing new to your shitty discovery. Life has always been like that. You’re not different from anyone else. And your “discovery” isn’t anything new. Life has always been like that—uncertain. But it doesn’t mean you should sit back and let it consume you.

The reality is, life does matter. Suffering is real and you can’t ignore it. It’s easy to think that life doesn’t matter when you’re sitting in your room, overwhelmed by an existential crisis, but there are people out there who are really suffering. People who face poverty, war, illness, and loss every day. It’s an insult to them to say that life has no meaning or value. You can’t sit in your little bubble and convince yourself that nothing matters when the world is filled with so much real, tangible pain.
Life doesn’t make sense if you see it has a single-player game. Everything that everyone does is compounded and adds up to our worth as a civilization. I’ve always thought that life is a multi-player game where everyone has a set of objectives they fulfill so that the game itself moves forward.

So go out, live life and experience everything. Because life is an experience. Experience love, heartbreak, pain, joy, suffering and everything there is.
Experience life.

ps: There is a personal reason for the generational hate I have for Existentialism.