What is Existentialism (4)? Existential Affirmation

What I Wish I Knew about Existential Philosophy from the Start (Part 4)

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This is the fourth installment in a short paid series on existentialism.

If you missed the beginning, you can read the entire first post for free here.

You can view the previous post here (paywalled after first main section).

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Discovering Existentialism

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As I’ve shared in earlier posts, it took me years of studying and teaching existentialism before I felt ready to guide students through the core concerns of existentialist thinkers.

Part of this journey was not only academic. It was also a personal reflection on the role existentialism had played in my own life.

So today, I want to show you how existentialism might help you make sense of your own story by sharing a bit of mine.

During one of the hardest times in my life, existentialism helped me avoid despair and begin to find hope again.

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In my first year of college, I found myself in the middle of a deep existential crisis. I had become disillusioned with the fundamentalist religion of my youth, and I no longer understood who I was supposed to be or what my place in the world might be.

Around that time, I stumbled upon a used paperback of William Barrett’s Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. I picked it up hoping that existentialism might help me rediscover myself.

Existentialism resonated with me because it spoke to the despair I was facing and offered hope in the midst of it.