Our Existential Predicament:

Introduction:
    Transcending Our Existential Predicament

    Our inner states-of-being are disclosed to us
at special moments of vision in which we see deeply into ourselves.
Some of the obstacles that prevent us from noticing how we are
in our deepest beings are lack of sensitivity,
lack of subjectivity, and being in bad faith.
These moments of vision may be triggered by
deep encounters with nature,
striking events in our lives,
by artistic creation and appreciation,
and by simply looking inward.

    Each chapter of this book deals with a different inner state-of-being:
existential loneliness, depression, absurdity, meaninglessness, etc.
But it is possible to live beyond our Existential Malaise.
We prepare ourselves for this new condition by
(1) uncovering and accepting our Existential Predicament,
(2) giving up the psychological methods that do work for coping with
the psychological twin of our Existential Malaise, &
(3) a profound re-orientation of being.

Chapter 1
Existential Loneliness:
    Deeper than the Reach of Love

    Our sense of incompleteness is deeper than love can reach.
It is more propound than all forms of interpersonal loneliness.
Our existential loneliness is really an incompleteness of being.

Chapter 2
Existential Depression:
    Deeper than Psychological Depression

    We feel 'down' without any objective cause.
And psychological methods of cure do not work.

Chapter 3
Existential Absurdity:
    Is Life Worth Living?

    Our existential absurdity might be discovered deep within ourselves
when the metaphysical systems that attempt to explain everything collapse.

Chapter 4
Existential Meaninglessness:
    The Collapse of 'Meanings' and Illusions

    For people who are asking for the ultimate purpose of their lives.
We may notice the existential meaninglessness peeking out
from behind the ordinary disappoints and discrepancies of life.

Chapter 5
The Existential Void:
    Discovering Our Bottomless Emptiness

    Another way to feel our Existential Malaise is The Void,
a dark hole in the middle of our beings, which threatens to engulf us entirely.
Could this be what sensitive artists and thinkers have tried to articulate?
An emptiness within—even in the midst of external achievement and happiness.

Chapter 6
Existential Anxiety:
    Angst

    Simple fears and worries are distinguished
from the free-floating terror that has no cause.
Here our Existential Malaise may be discovered
in the ways it distorts and exaggerates our ordinary fears.
In some ways angst might be the paradigm or our Existential Predicament.

Chapter 7  
Existential Splitting:
    Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death

    For a change of pace, this chapter is based on a famous book.
Kierkegaard describes the many ways
in which we might be split against ourselves.
And he shines a light in the direction of wholeness.

Chapter 8
Existential Guilt:
    Deeper than Moral Conscience

    People from moralistic backgrounds
are likely to feel their Predicament as an intractable guilt.
This deeper guilt is carefully distinguished from simple moral conscience.

Chapter 9
An Existential Understanding of Death:
    A Phenomenology of Ontological Anxiety

    Can we make sense of a terror deeper than death itself?
Kierkegaard and Heidegger figure strongly in this longest chapter.
Readers may find this the most difficult chapter,
but it is also the most original and profound.

Chapter 10
Existential Despair:
    Floating Down the River of Despair

    Another philosophical way of discovering our Existential Predicament.
We see thru the cardboard scenery to the bleak truth beyond.
But even below the deepest despair, there is hope.

Chapter 11
Existential Insecurity
    When all Security-Operations Fail

    For readers whose Malaise makes them feel insecure about everything.
When ordinary security-operations do not being security,
perhaps the problem is existential.

Afterword:
    Obstacles to Existential Freedom

    This conclusion to the book explores the many inward problems
that prevent us from opening ourselves to Existential Freedom.
And it makes clear how this new inner state-of-being
differs from a wide variety of psychological means of coping.