The elegant aftermath of an existential crisis

Abstract

In this dissertation I hold that an existential crisis, which I explain to be the anxious and distressed sensation that is brought about through the realisation that life has no ultimate and fundamental meaning, has the elegant aftermath of enlightening the individual and making him or her aware of the previous inauthentic mode of being. To do this, I present a theoretical ground work of an existential crisis by appealing to several themes found in ‘Existentialism’: such as human existence, freedom, the others, constraint, finitude and time, to mention a few. Thus my discussion will emanate through the works of several philosophers belonging to this school of thought while also appealing to various everyday practical examples in order to express my thoughts on the crisis. In short I shall argue that the aftermath of an existential crisis is elegant as it enables one to project and endow meaning authentically unto life by acknowledging that this is done within the preliminaries of context. In other words, I believe that the aftermath allows for a reinterpretation of our condition which is achieved through a revised reflection of death and time and gives way for a new and creative way of being rather than a mere conformist approach.