Existential Nihilism

“Existence precedes essence” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his essay Existentialism and Humanism. But what does this phrase mean in reality.

Existence precedes essence means that you were created before your life’s purpose. For instance, Martin Luther King was not placed into this world to become a civil rights leader, that purpose came after he was born and after the life he had lived.

One part of Existential Nihilism that is hard to grasp is that religion and metaphysics are both instruments humans use as a way to cope with their fear of death.

“There is no justification for life, but also no reason not to live.” Existential nihilist claim that one who claims his life has purpose is absurd and does not understand the nature of reality and how useless all humans are in the sheer existence of reality.

In the scale of time and size of the universe humans are actually nothing, our existence is but a spec on the timeline of the universe and we are but a small being in a massive existence. Humans as a whole may have innate purpose but no individual is born to save all of human kind or to be the best baseball player.

Why contemplate ideas so grim as this? Well to that I respond, why not contemplate ideas that are unprovable either way and just as valid. There is a one in two chance this theory is correct so why not find the ins and outs to bring humanity close to the innate truth of our universe.