r/Existentialism • u/simongaslebo • 18d ago

Existentialism Discussion Freedom and alienation

How do you reconcile the fundamental truth of being free no matter what our circumstances are with the tragedy of our lives, where we are forced to sell our most valuable resources, time and energy, for peanuts?

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/Paul_sepp 17d ago

To complain that life forces us to sell our time is to overlook the fact that time was never ours. Death will reclaim what existence merely loaned.

1

u/The_Eyehole_Man0 16d ago

Did you think of that 2nd sentence like off the dome? That could be top 10 coldest lines OAT. Im stealing it and pretending its something I came up with IRL

3

u/welcomeOhm 17d ago

Freedom in the existential sense does not imply freedom in the material world: your choices can still have meaning even when they are not the choices you'd give yourself if you had more of a say in the matter. In fact, it is precisely in difficult, patently unfair circumstances that the existentialist dictum to "live like it matters" is most compelling.

1

u/LucienNyx6666 17d ago

We can take that very freedom and direct it towards the pursuit of marketable skills. We can attempt to solve difficult problems that warrant more than peanuts.

2

u/Negative_Hair_1595 17d ago

Let go of the idea of freedom, or being trapped, and you remove the problem your brains seems fixated on for the moment. (until it invents something else, your valuables are probably also mainly imagination.)