Existential crisis

"It is these very people, always harping upon realism, who complain that existentialism is too gloomy a view of things. Indeed their excessive protests make me suspect that what is annoying them is not so much our pessimism, but, much more likely, our optimism.

In the doctrine [of existentialism] it confronts man with a possibility of choice.

Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterwards...he will be what he makes of himself...Man simply is." - Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism & Humanism

We live in an environment where we can know nothing about it, yet understanding is what we most want. We want it to the extent that we lie to ourselves about all the 'knowledge' we think we have about ourselves, each other and everything around us. Each of us at this realisation feels and experiences solitude and isolation from the world we thought we once knew - we lose our innocence.

We can muster no reason to continue or to stop so we are bound to inaction, which is itself a logically forbidden path for the very act of choosing not to choose is a choice. We find ourselves in a situation where the choice between acting or not acting is an act in itself and by that very nature disallows a choice to be made. Yet we act anyway.
This conclusion derives from the uncertainty and lack of reasonable proof that anything exists or exists in the way we imagine it to. This has it's roots in Cartesian doubt where it is argued that nothing exists beyond the ego. In the end, we are compelled logically, emotionally and physically to make an inductive jump in reasoning and make a choice. We are forced to do so. It is my opinion that the direction we make a leap of faith towards is down to our natural inclination. We continue where we left off before doubt played us for a fool.
Growing up, one learns how to act before one learns how to think. We act instinctually out of hedonism and satisfaction as babies and children. Only after we have explored our personal world and learned a small bit about the rest of our planet do we begin to think.



It is out of ignorance that we assume the contrary when there is a lack of evidence supporting a claim. There is as little reason for choosing as there is against, both are inviable options. This shows us that although we must do something, there is no sound reason to do so and no sound reason not to do so. It is simply preferrential choice what we do and logic dictates that we are not justified for doing so.

Here we arrive: we have lost our reason and gained non-action. Our thoughts no longer control our actions, or at least not without the corruption of reasoning.

There are two realities at work. One of which is our inductive world, which is created out of the belief that things are intelligible. There is nothing certain here only the observation of results or consequences that occur after we act. From within this reality springs forth observational studies of which subjects like the sciences and natural philosophy are a part.
The second reality is indisputable, it is the world of the self: the ego - the study of all that we can reasonably know. Our thoughts, motives, emotion, actions, reactions, hopes, regrets are all things that only we can know and all that we can ever know exists here.

It is the error of the latter reality which spawns the former. Error of judgement and of reason. Yet it's existence is necessary for our own existence as a physical form - a concept which has no ultimate reason supporting it either. If not for this induction, we would see no reason to survive or procreate.
We are biased beings: we are the ones who benefit from our existence. It has become instinctual for us to survive as that is all we are accustomed to desire since being born before we began to think. This is all we know, or all we pretend to 'know.' It can be summed up thus; we would rather the devil we know, than the devil we don't. We only break this rule when we believe the only reality we can truly know is too great for us to handle and we wallow in absurdity, nausea and anxiety until our planned death. Alternatively, when we place faith in the world we do not know in order to escape our own mind we also break this rule. In this instance our thoughts are too dangerous for the self and scare our instinctual drives.

Therein lies the problem. We prefer what we know, or what we think we know. In the end all that this means is that we prefer what we have already, previously, experienced. Yet there is no reason to suggest that what we have prior experience of is at all justified, true or reasonable enough to support. There is the issue, again.

From what I have experienced, it is generally the case that what we have experienced before gives us a reason to stay alive. To stay here. And what we have not yet experienced stops us from wanting to leave.
Our reason for living is nothing more than a comfort from the past. The base reason for doing anything at all is that you have done something before, and you're still alive - which you assume is a good thing. To live for the future is to live for an aspect of your past. If you seek to gain or achieve something this desire rests upon your past experience of enjoying something you have desired and gained.

Logic commands us to accept that there is no reason to prefer one act over the other, or to choose in one way or another.
Our biased being prefers one way anyway, acting out of a crude hedonism or instinctualism.  It defiantly states that there is no escape from choice - freedom's cost is that we are forced to choose and regardless of any reason or lack thereof, a choice must be made. All we can know is the self, and all we can do is for the self's interest in one form or another. Be it physical satisfaction or mental comfort.

Reason leads us to the crossroads where a choice must be made, it is impossible not to choose yet there is no reason for taking one path over the other. Nor is there any reason or justification to just sit down.
In this sense, we are forced to be free.