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MARBLE COLUMNS AND REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
THE EXISTENTIALIST'S GUIDE TO WASTING TIME & NAVIGATING THE COVID LOCKDOWN
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Over the past two years each of us have had to undergo a long period of solitude due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Without a doubt, this prolonged solitude has changed how many of us view our own reality by stripping away the many pastimes that we are used to filling our days with.
The graph below illustrates the mental health crisis that COVID 19 created in the United States. The numbers are pretty shocking. Between January of 2019 and December of 2020, the reported symptoms of anxiety or depression rose from 11% to 42.4%.
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(Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/21878/impact-of-coronavirus-pandemic-on-mental-health/)
On the bright side, this abundance of spare time which troubled many of us may have turned us all into master philosophers. Questions regarding the meaning of life, the value of time, and the human craving for socialization were all unavoidable pillow thoughts over the last two years. Sleepless nights have led to a radical shift in our perception of reality as each of us have been forced to reflect more deeply on our own existence than ever before. While we continue to process the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, existential thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Soren Kierkegaard have already created a useful blueprint to guide our mental recoveries. Luckily for us, these thinkers have already considered many of the same troubling thoughts that have been stirred up by the pandemic.
Existentialism is all about reflecting on who we are and how we are continuously working on our own identities. It's a life long process. The existentialist believes that we must create our own identity and never base ourselves upon societal expectations, or rules for life created by another. The reality is that many of us behave in just the opposite way. We go through the motions of life but are fearful to question our actions. We blindly trust the societal system we are born into. See if this sounds familiar: Move through the educational system, find someone to marry, and lock in a half decent job that will ensure the necessities of life. Maybe enjoy a vacation or two along the way. If it does your not alone!
Before we begin applying an existential lens to the COVID-19 Pandemic let’s first get on the same page about what existentialism really is.
In a broad sense, existentialism is about taking control of our identities and giving far less power to the systems that try to constrain us. The existentialist doubts all things that are not discovered using our own subjectivity. Each thought and value we develop must come from within rather than be fed to us by a religious doctrine, or an imposing parent. By accepting the pre-established beliefs and values of others we shy away from embracing our own intellectual freedom. In a nutshell, existentialism requires us to be responsible for our own freedom and be bold enough to develop our own essence. The famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre explains existentialism well, “Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.” It all sounds pretty cut and dried on the surface, but in practice existentialism requires that we grapple with the thoughts that we are far more comfortable avoiding all together.
One great example is Soren Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety. We all believe that we have experienced anxiety to some extent, but rarely do we stop and consider exactly what anxiety is. Anxiety of what, or from where? The early Danish Existentialist Kierkegaard proposed an interesting perspective on the human relationship to anxiety. Kierkegaard believed that anxiety results from an unhealthy relationship with our own freedom. Anxiety is the fear of nothingness that we experience when we just don’t know what to do with ourselves. When there seem to be a hundred different options, but we don’t have the conviction to fully commit to any of them. Freedom is amazing, but it also creates a sense of helplessness because we may never be sure we are spending each moment correctly given such an immense range of choices. Over the pandemic, many of us came face to face with our own freedom in a more intimate way than ever before. The fear of “nothingness” that can fuel anxiety took center stage in our lives. Free time became abundant and so did our choices of how to spend it. Anxiety is often felt most strongly when our lives are unstructured and devoid of commitment. During these times we can create a healthier relationship with our freedom rather than allow the repetitive nature of daily life to pull us away. I believe we can use this period of enhanced anxiety to pinpoint which uses of our time feed our developing essence best, and which lead us to a state of heightened anxiety. By being forced to stare anxiety in the face, we can find clarity on what uses of time help to create our identity.
Another great way of promoting self-growth post pandemic is by applying Albert Camus’s concept of ‘mechanical life’. Mechanical life is the idea that we as humans often become removed from our daily actions and lose a sense of intimacy with our reality. Our daily habits can become mundane and robotic. It is common in today’s world to drive the same route to work, eat the same food, complete the same tasks, and interact with the same people every single day. The ‘spice of life’ evades many of us to the point where we ironically find comfort in the repetitive nature of our realities.
Camus describes the effects of this phenomenon as follows, “Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening”. Mechanical life eventually wears us down until eventually our consciousness is awakened. We begin to question what purpose our repetitive tasks really have. During the pandemic-imposed detachment from our work, this becomes increasingly obvious until the detachment ignites a moment of awakening. At this moment we long to restore a sense of passion and intimacy in our daily lives.
The pandemic has given each of us the chance to break out of our own ‘mechanical lives’. Instead of driving the same routes and repeating the same tasks, we have been forced to completely recreate our daily lives. This has given us space from old routines, allowing for exploration into which aspects of our lives extend beyond mere mechanical life. Our passions and inspirations begin to blossom as they are taken out from under the shade of our ordinary daily burdens. Many of us are now returning to our mechanical lives and perhaps struggling to accept our realities more than we ever did previously. The pandemic has proven to each of us that many aspects of our lives that we once viewed as necessary are actually a choice. As a society, we are reconsidering whether work must be done in an office space, or if filling our day with as many commitments as possible is a good choice. The heightened sense of awareness to our daily lives may hold the key to discovering which aspects are truly valuable to us. We can now move forward more aware of the many daily choices we are presented with, rather than motivate ourselves through another robotic week. I suggest we all keep a watchful eye on which parts of our old lives we allow back into our new reality. The lockdown may be over, but that doesn’t mean we must blindly return to our mechanical lives.
Not only has the pandemic changed the way that we structure our time, but it has also had a dramatic impact on our relationship with other humans. Prior to the loneliness induced by the COVID lockdown it was not uncommon to avoid alone time all together. Spending even a few hours by yourself could begin to feel out of place in such a fast moving, socially oriented society.
Without a doubt, this prolonged period of isolation has impacted the way that we socialize just as strongly as it has impacted our relationship with time. To make sense of this large change let's take a deep dive into Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea of ‘The Look’. According to Sartre, the creation of our identities is heavily dependent on our interactions with other humans. To Sartre these interactions can be as simple as gazing upon another being, and receiving a gaze in return. It’s this exchange of perception which proves to us that other consciences actually exist.
Sartre elegantly explains, “Observe while truly being ‘looked at’, this transcends perception as you become conscious of your state as an object instead of subject”. The concept of ‘the look’ is all about realizing yourself as an object that is subject to another’s perception, while also being a subject who perceives the world around you. We live in constant oscillation between these two distinct experiences, and without either of them our self-identity is jeopardized. Put plainly, when we are aware of another looking at us, this proves we are not alone and there are other conscious beings which we can compare ourselves to. Sartre believes that self-creation is a communal pursuit since we create an example out of ourselves for other to be influenced by. It follows that others have also created a being in which we use to guide our own journey of self-creation.
What happens when we are forced to live primarily in our own subjectivity, robbed of our counter experience as an object? I believe that the ratio between our subjectivity and objectivity may have benefitted from the lockdown. In this hyper-stimulating world it is rare to spend even a few minutes considering the person we have become. These moments are usually cut short by the temptation to scroll through Instagram, or by the ping of a text, which quickly brings our attention back to the beings around us. Even those on the other side of the planet can grab our attention at any given moment in the modern world. Could it be that the unprecedented amount of time that we spend in our subjective state is ruining our relationship to ourselves as an object? If that’s the case, then the lockdown may have provided a much-needed reset in how we interact with these two states. During the lockdown, our Instagram feeds dried up, and our perception of each other’s lives dramatically changed. No longer were we forced to view each other’s overstated and unrealistic lives as they were shown on social media. Everyone was in the same boat for the first time since social media were created. In a strange way this allowed us to feel closer to our fellow humans, even though we were more physically isolated than ever before. Now, as we step back into reality and ‘the look’ begins to resume its old tendencies, our relationship to ourselves as an object and subject remains healthier.
Making sense of the COVID lockdown has been an extremely difficult task. Each of us has questioned which aspects of our life were authentic prior to the pandemic. We were forced to question how we had resigned to spend our time, and how much passion was involved in our everyday pursuits. For some, this may have culminated in gratitude while others felt lost and disconnected for their lives. I hope that by viewing the lockdown under an existential lens you may find the clarity that you need to draw something positive from this daunting time.
