What am I doing? Why am I here? What's the purpose of all this? These are the burning questions that a branch of psychology called existentialism seeks to provide answers to. Existentialism is often seen as a revolt against traditionalist philosophy (History). Existentialism says that the only meaning in life is the one that each individual gives to it; everyone is free to choose their own meanings to their sufferings and that there is no meaning outside of this context, certainly not one sent down from heaven (Ratnaningsih 3). But this one sentence summary, although thorough, still leaves many questions unanswered about existentialism. A proper way to better understand existentialism is through a review of its history by understanding the people that shaped this particular way of thinking, and a discussion of five general themes of existentialism. There is a line of ancestors that gave birth to existentialism in its current form, starting with the work of Soren Kierkegaard, which inspired both Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, and the post World War II work of Jean-Paul Sartre.
Soren Kierkegaard was a strange, captivating, and quite unclassifiable Dane; whose important writings appeared in the 1840's (Barrett 20). He believed that his own life, his freedom, developed in stages. First was the Aesthetic Stage in which he solely enjoyed himself and his freedom but it turned out to be an illusion. His second stage was the Ethical stage, where he found himself bound by absolute and universal laws, but these laws were just an illusion derived from human requirements, and social standards (Warnock 6). His third stage was faith, he himself was converted to Christianity, this third stage required a belief, a non-rational commitment. The point in time that his self-realization of his existence occurred is documented in The Point of View: .
So there I sat [at the café in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen] and smoked my cigar until I lapsed into thought.
