• Existentialism,  Time

    Fiction: An Existentialist Monologue

    Sartre The following is an imaginary monologue of a depressed existentialist who seeks therapy to overcome the dread of death: One of Jean Paul Sartre’s characters says, “Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that’s all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.” I shared the character’s mood until, that is, I sought psychotherapy. But let me first explain my neurosis. It was a problem with time. My time to be precise. How I am related to it. What, if any, meaning there is for a life lived in linear time which never…