by James Park
Outline and first page of the Introduction:
Transcending Our Existential Predicament
Inner States-of-Being
I. PRECONDITIONS FOR THE DISCLOSURE OF INNER STATES-OF-BEING
A. Sensitivity.Interlude: Portrait of the Insensitive, Non-subjective Man of Bad Faith
B. Subjectivity.
C. Freedom from Bad Faith.
Portrait of the Insensitive, Non-Subjective Woman of Bad Faith
II. MOMENTS OF VISION
Typical Contexts and Contents of Moments of Vision
A. Nature.Other Inner States-of-Being
B. History.
C. Art.
D. Looking Inward.
III. THE INNER STATE-OF-BEING CALLED EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM
How Do We Transcend Our Existential Predicament?
A. Becoming Convinced of Our Existential Predicament.SUMMARY
B. Giving Up Self-Sufficient Striving to Liberate Ourselves.
C. Becoming Existentially Committed.
Introduction
Have we felt lonely, depressed, meaningless, anxious, guilty, insecure?
For each of these psychological
feelings (which we can easily understand),
we will uncover a hidden
existential twin
—a much deeper problem
that only seems to be
psychological:
(1) Behind interpersonal
loneliness, we will discover existential
loneliness.
(2) Underneath psychological
depression, we will notice existential
depression.
(3) Below incongruity
& disharmony, we will encounter existential absurdity.
(4) Behind lack of
meaning & order, we will discern existential meaninglessness.
(5) Under ordinary
losses & deprivations, we will find the existential Void.
(6) Beneath ordinary
fears & worries, we will perceive existential anxiety.
(7) Behind ordinary
fragmentation, we will recognize existential
splitting.
(8) Below understandable
pangs of conscience, we will uncover existential guilt.
(9) Underlying our
ordinary fears of death, we will discover ontological anxiety.
(10) Behind ordinary
disappointments, we will decipher existential despair.
(11) And below ordinary
insecurity, we will distinguish existential
insecurity.
We will attempt to tune-in to our internal, subjective perceptions,
discovering what it
feels like to be gripped by
existential guilt, for instance.
A spectator's perspective
would never uncover our Existential Malaise.
Rather we seek to understand
our Existential Predicament and Existential Freedom
as we experience
them from the inside.
Each interior exploration (each chapter) begins with a careful
description
of one particular way
of experiencing our Existential Predicament
(also known as our
Existential Malaise or our Existential Dilemma).
Then, we explore our
usual ways of coping with this problem;
next, the Authentic
response to our Existential Predicament;
and, finally, how we
might open ourselves to Existential Freedom,
which means living
beyond our Existential Dilemma.
(These four key expressions
are capitalized because they are technical terms.)
This Introduction and the Afterword describe in even greater detail
the internal process
of change by which we move toward Existential Freedom.
'How we are' at the deepest levels of our beings
(for instance, existentially
anxious, depressed, empty) is seldom obvious to us
because we are usually
submerged in the activities of our daily lives,
usually preoccupied
with the demands that hourly impinge upon us.
If we are busy making
a living or caring for a family,
how shall we become
aware of our 'inner states-of-being'?
If our hours of consciousness
are all used up with
practical matters,
how shall we ever become
open to our deepest selves?
Introduction
TRANSCENDING OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT
by JAMES PARK 1
The rest of this
Introduction,
22 more pages,
will be found in the printed versions of
Our Existential
Predicament:
Loneliness,
Depression, Anxiety, & Death.
See the publisher's website for details: www.existentialbooks.com.
Return to the index page for Our
Existential
Predicament.
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the beginning of this website
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library