Creation and Destruction, the essence of Existentialism

2020, Would you rather drown in the same river or die and be reborn?

by Filippo massariol

As Heraclitus said, we never bathe in the same river, but I believe that we can drown. I have chosen to deal with this topic because I believe that in today’s world we often take too many things for granted, relying on appearances, which in addition to leading us down the wrong path, in some cases hide the true reality of things.

The obstacles of self-realization: us

In the history of thought, appearance is often interpreted as what veils reality, while reality is the concrete condition of what exists. Starting from Descartes, the thesis according to which men know only ideas, i.e. mental representations of things, was affirmed. But if our knowledge is made only of mental representations, who can guarantee that they are the object of truth? Often our subjective vision becomes a barrier against the true reality.

Luigi Pirandello, influenced by spiritualistic philosophies such as Henri Bergson’s, argues that life is made up of a free flow, continuous and independent. Everything that detaches itself from this flow takes on a distinct and individual form, beginning to stiffen and, according to Pirandello, to die. So it happens also with the human being: in reality we are nothing but an indistinct part of the eternal flow of life, but we tend to focus on a fictitious reality that we give ourselves, in a personality that we want to be coherent and unitary.

And it is society itself that traps the individual according to Pirandello, with its conventions, its rules and its prohibitions. Isolating him irreparably, to the point of impoverishing him, blocking him in a rigid scheme. In 2020 many of us have become even more detached from the flow. Many of us have remained slaves to the vicissitudes. And many of us have drowned in the same river. The river in this case is not a stream of water, but a symbol, that represents our own mental convictions.

The presumption that everything needs to go smooth and follow logic. The illusion that our lives should be free from injustice and suffering. And a society that tries to convince us to believe in rules that go against our nature. This existential paradox is often the biggest obstacle to self-realization. We can wash it off, deal with it. Or on the contrary, drown with it until we learn how to swim.

What if disorder was the key meaning of the flow?

I know that many of you will not agree with me, and so be it! There is no unity without opposition. Many of you will have doubts, and so be it! Doubt is the seed that generates certainty and without doubt there would be no truth.

Many of you will say we are not the same and have different perspectives? So be it! Diversity is what makes us alike, because we are all equal in being different.

Many of you will think that we can avoid disorder and tragic events, and so be it! Because what we avoid today will return tomorrow.

If we are different but alike and we all live in this existential paradox, and you don’t take things for granted but question them, then ask yourself this: “ Can there possibly be life without death? Creation without Destruction?

We would love and try hard with all our might to put an end to suffering, death, war and disease. But I ask you now, have you ever seen a day without a night? Or a summer without a long winter? Looking at human history, have you ever seen a historical era without wars and evil kingdoms, or totalitarianisms?

And looking at your own life or that of your acquaintances, have you ever seen a life without problems? I guess the answer is no, and there is a reason for that. The world is irrational. It is chaos, it is conflict, it is war. And the balance lies in finding its own harmony in the disorder!

What if time was cyclical?

What if what we are experiencing now is the repetition of a universal pattern that repeats itself eternally in space and time in the same but opposite circumstances? If this were the case, death, pain and disease would not be anomalies to be defeated, but simply elements that are part of the cosmic flow and that serve to ensure a rebirth.

As the philosopher, E.H. Smith, says in his book about irrationality: “Correlatively, a sober assessment of human history suggests neither progress nor degeneration, but an eternally fixed balance of problem solving and problem creating.”

© V for Vendetta

Eternal return (also known as eternal recurrence) is a concept that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.

If every age has the same pros and cons, every day and every moment can have the same pros and cons of any other moment. What we are facing now are not dark times, but simply times. And the more we try to give a coherent and rational form, the more it will turn against us. What we avoid today, will return tomorrow!

Just accept life for what it is, which doesn’t mean giving up, but being so strong as to understand that we can’t change what happens, but our attitude towards it.

Change yourself and change the world

It’s impossible to change the world and understand how it works, if we can’t change ourselves and our attitude first. I know that at the beginning you might feel uncomfortable and confused, as if you were sitting on a rocket flying towards space. Without having a safety button that would bring us back home to a safe place. But this is life, and this is 2020, a year like all the others in which nothing new and nothing old happens. But only the same events that repeat themselves in the same and different ways. Whether you are scared or not, and whether you like it or not, we are surfers who are riding a very big and dangerous wave and unfortunately we can’t stop it, but ride it.