Existentialism

Being a particular individual within a particular space and time and making choices and thereby specific commitments within a concrete and historically determined situation that limits or conditions those choices. Living: 1. As an individual continually confronting diverse possibilities among which choice must be made as the basis from which to live. 2. In the conditions that dominate individual existence including: the relationship between the individual and things and other people upon which he is dependent in that situation; the dread of death or failure; the inherent limits of situations; the guilt inherent in the limitation of choices and in the responsibilities of making them; the boredom arising from the repetition of situations; the absurdity of dangling between infinite aspirations and a finite set of possibilities. 3. In the midst of an intersubjectivity inherent in existence that is either personal relationship with another person or with God, or an impersonal relationship between an anonymous mass and the self without the possibility of communicating. 4. Without a general grasp of the meaning of being. 5. Liberated from the beguilings or debasements which to which daily life is normally subject; and directed toward an authentic relationship well grounded in itself, with other individuals, with the world and with God.

Existentialism as a way of thinking can be traced back through Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Pascal, Montaigne and others.

Existentialism is a way of being more than a way of thinking.