subject: on the subject of fear
time: 3:42pm
music: closest thing to crazy - katie melua
mood: exasperated

on the subject of fear

i'm afraid of losing the real virtues of living life passionately; misplacing my sense of taking responsibility for who i am and henceafter who i should become, and the ability to make something of myself and feeling good about life.

existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. but i reckon the truth is just the opposite. jean sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. but one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. it's like your life is yours to create. i've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. but when i read them, i always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. the more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses.