⭐️sartre -fragility of meaning

“existence precedes essence”

essence - what something is

existence - that something is

• humans placed in a world were they define things through choices+actions; creating meaning and purpose

why is meaning fragile?

meaning is created through actions and are subjective (culture + language differences)

• humans try to define ourselves through fixed roles, societal expectations, and deterministic ideals that deny our freedom (heteronomy vs autonomy)

“true sea is cold and black…”

essentially illustrating the difference between what we want the world to be and what it truly is

• green film - comforting illusion produced from a structured meaningful world

• true sea - harsh and chaotic reality that is beneath human awareness (meaningless)

"veil torn away”

“veil” - the layer of structure and meaning that shields humans from the meaningless reality

“torn away” - faced to confront which produces nausea from its absurdity

what is absurdity?

the realization that everything has no purpose/justification

• things have no purpose, they’re literally just there

what is nausea

it is not a physical illness, instead it is the human reaction to the overwhelming reality of meaninglessness (illustrated as unsettling, and disturbing)

world of explanations and reasons vs world of existence

world of explanations and reasons - humans define things by actions/choices to generate meaning and purpose

world of existence - in reality, nothing has purpose nor meaning. things simply just exist. a chair is just wood.