[wsprague]

The existentialists (well, at least the one that matters, Heidegger) would say that to be human means that one never forgets a deep "uncanniness" or an emptiness, and that part of the drive to succeed (or do drugs or find god or stay busy driving the kids to soccer practice) is a desire to fill up this fundamental emptiness.

This emptiness stems from the fact that you consciously wonder who you are ("consciously" meaning with words in your head), and, in the long term, no final answer seems to be forthcoming, even though you may tell yourself otherwise, or go to church to hear someone else tell you, etc. The emptiness is part of the human condition and can't actually be fixed or filled. We all feel it very deeply, and there is a huge industry around making us feel sure of ourselves, and/ or keeping us so busy in the world that we don't have time to contemplate the ever-present internal void.

The only "authentic" (Heidegger's term) way forward is to just embrace the "uncanniness", and quit wasting time worrying about how you can't "just enjoy life" or "live always in the moment". I think of this as the way of life that is "un-selfconsciously selfconscious" (tm). Look for my new book in the Self Help section soon!

Or, one could also say that Nietszche, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard just had A LOT of bad days and wrote some books about it...

[wsprague]

Why would anyone downvote this entry? Not that I care, just curious...

[access_denied]

Putting the dumbheads who upvote to express agreement aside leaves us with the real reason to upvote: you want to highlight worth-to-read stuff.

I've read your text and frankly it didn't give me much. I thought the Heidegger == 'The existentialist datapoint interesting for my internal map of everything.

[wsprague]

What I meant was "why would you downvote my comment?" Is not giving you much a good reason for downvoting? Seems ok if it is, but I only would downvote things that are stupid or obnoxious, and I don't think my comment was either....

[access_denied]

Ups, sorry. Huhm, well, maybe they "disagree"? I don't know. My guess is they don't get the conncetion between Zeldman's blogpost and your comment here. You posted something unrelated, they think. Or maybe you are just an asshole who comes over here mentioning a writer and his philosophy, go away with that book-crap.