Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death

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.
B. Subjectivity.
C. Freedom from Bad Faith.
Interlude: Portrait of the Insensitive, Non-subjective Man of 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.
B. History.
C. Art.
D. Looking Inward.
Other Inner States-of-Being

III. THE INNER STATE-OF-BEING CALLED EXISTENTIAL FREEDOM

How Do We Transcend Our Existential Predicament?

A. Becoming Convinced of Our Existential Predicament.
B. Giving Up Self-Sufficient Striving to Liberate Ourselves.
C. Becoming Existentially Committed.
SUMMARY

Introduction

Transcending Our Existential Predicament

     This book offers an inside account of our Existential Malaise and its solution
—a phenomenology of our Existential Predicament and Existential Freedom.
It will be a guided tour of our dark dungeons, searching for openings to the light.

     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.


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James Leonard Park—Free Library