Is Existentialism Important?

     Existentialism is often associated with a few things: new age spiritualism, pretentious college kids, pretentious intellectuals, and most often outright confusion. In my experience, it is generally passed of under a negative connotation and disregarded as anything worthwhile. It is met with a similar reaction as telling someone you have a degree in philosophy. This begs a question of, why?

Could it be the “self” reflection that comes from the questions posed by Hume? The anti-theistic concepts of Nietzsche, Sartre, or Theodorus the Atheist? Perhaps it is something more simplistic, like indifference. I could very easily presume answers to these questions and make a compelling argument as to why I am “correct”, which in turn would negate the entire purpose of the actual question asked. Instead, I will simply ask the reader to apply empathy to a scenario of my past, something that lead to my journey into existentialistic thought, life concepts, self bullshitting, you decide where my past takes you.

     I came from a catholic family, and from a very early age, the concept of god didn’t make a lot of sense to me. However, I quickly learned in church and CCD that questions got me in trouble. So, I simply asked them to myself silently and just went through the motions to be able to leave on time. This changed in November of 1989 when a tornado hit East Coldenham Elementary School in Newburgh, NY. I was in 1^st grade and we had mixed lunch (1^st – 5^th grade) which was split into 2 “periods”, so roughly half of the school was in the cafeteria (including myself). There was a real bad thunderstorm and incredible wind, which was particularly bad but not exactly uncommon for the north east. What was odd however was when it went dead silent and still with an insanely dense feeling of air pressure all around us, and a single loud “creek”. The creek was the sound of the rather large brick wall that supported the cathedral ceiling and very large columned windows falling. It started fairly slow and then quickly became an explosion of rubble and glass shrapnel, which I could only describe as similar to depictions of the shrapnel slicing through soldiers during the storm on Normandy. I survived, as you may assume from reading this blog; however, my first friend and 6 others were killed while 19 other were severely injured. Unfortunately, those numbers only accommodate a notion of physical injury, as the mental trauma lead to a high suicide and drug addiction rate for the rest who made it out “unscathed”. Many of us in the “unscathed” margin that did not acquire any form of dependency or commit suicide wound up with other issues; for me, ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ which lead to nightmares, almost crippling anxiety in increment weather and a few seizures 3 years later. 

     You may anticipate that we received psychiatric evaluations and help from the school, and you would be very mildly correct. We were given a few 5 – 10 minute exams at the school and a few “counseling sessions” that felt more like an adult telling us we were “fine”. Some of the kids had good healthcare and were able to get some help, unfortunately, my family was poor and my father lost his job shortly after this, so I did not have access to insurance. This lead to a lot of depression and tension in my home, I had 2 older brothers, both of which were out of the house as often as possible, my mother worked as much as she could to accommodate the loss of income, and my father and I had a terrible relationship as he was heavily depressed and reactive in a verbally, and occasionally physically abusive manner. As you may imagine, we had a high rate of moving from house to house. Roughly 1 house per school year. This left me to deal with most of my problems on my own at a time when the library was our internet.

      At this point, be empathetic. Put yourself in this position and consider how the events and situations would affect/effect you? How might you feel? What choices do you think you would have made? Ultimately, what questions might you have asked of yourself, to others, to god(s)?