Existentialism vs Absurdism vs Nihilism

You find yourself walking down the street with your morning coffee in hand, as your brain is flooded with the dozens of issues and problems you need to deal with. Maybe it's a relationship that's on the rocks, a pet that needs to go to the vet, but you know that paying that bill means you might be short on rent this month. Or the fact that the very coffee you're drinking is probably going to keep you up all night worrying, but you kind of have to drink it anyway, or else you can't survive the day.

You're working a job you hate just so you can make ends meet. You're experiencing an existential crisis, and it's in moments like this that we start to question everything we've been taught about life. Why are we doing any of this? Like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, life feels like we're forced to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll right back down. How can we live a life of meaning when it feels like nothing in the world makes any sense?

If you find yourself grappling with these questions, there are different philosophies that can help provide answers. The first is existentialism, which challenges you to embrace your newfound freedom and use it to create meaning amidst life's unending uncertainties.

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Back to our story, highlighted by philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, existentialism never truly found its way to mainstream acceptance until the emergence of the 20th-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Through Sartre, we've come to understand existentialism as a way to confront life and its fundamental absurdity. It's a belief that urges us to embrace our individuality and forge our own paths in defiance of an indifferent universe.

You'll see more of what Sartre meant by his words that open this video as we get further along in outlining what all these isms mean in our lives. To fully grasp existentialism, we'll first need to examine the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Both believed in individuals born with attributes intrinsically linked to that person's identity, which they deemed to be their essence.

Even objects we share this universe with, like trees, possess an essence. A tree has roots, a trunk, branches, and leaves. Although many kinds of trees exist, these qualities define an individual tree's essence, which makes it very different from every other tree on the planet. Essentialists like Plato and Aristotle believed that essence exists before we're even born.

For example, essentialists from the Industrial Age would tell you that the essence of a man is in his role as a provider and protector, even though many today no longer believe that to be true. Similarly, on a cultural scale, essence plays a significant role around the world. In Japan, the concept of "otaku," or serving others wholeheartedly, is a form of essence. Essence gives us a purpose. It's the idea that something exists outside of us that we have to live up to. We are tasked with living...