The phrase “existential crisis” has become very popular in everyday life. Why is a complex philosophical scientific term so comfortably located in everyday speech? And what, in fact, is hidden behind this term? Intuitively, every person using this term understands that we are talking about the eternal question “to be or not to be.”
What is an existential crisis
An existential crisis is an alarming state of a person, accompanied by reflections on the meaning of life (of an individual and in a broad sense of all mankind), of a person’s place in the universe. Personality is tormented by the questions “who am I?” and “why do I live?”, “what do I want?”, “what is my purpose?”
An existential crisis is based on the highest human needs, on the spiritual level. This is a sign of personality development. The crisis of identity and meaning of life (existential) is faced by young men and people of middle age. In the first case, a person first gets to know himself and is looking for a place in the world, in the second there is a reassessment of values, a rethinking of life and a new acquaintance with himself. In both cases, there is a crisis of the meaning and essence of life (from Latin existentia means “existence”).
Existential crisis is a form of personality crisis, so it is not necessarily age-related. The search for an answer to the question about the meaning of life is set by the development of the individual. But if the thought of the essence of being at least once overtakes every person, then not for every person it turns into a crisis. What factors influence this?
Causes of the crisis
An existential crisis can arise only in conditions that are safe for a person, if primary needs are satisfied. That is, a person is well fed, dressed, shod, healthy, protected – biological life is beautiful, there is no need to survive. Then the question arises about a higher level – the development of personality, organization and the meaning of a person’s social life.
There is an interesting opinion according to which the crisis of existence befalls those who have nothing to do, who have a lot of free time, there are no real life problems that need to be solved. By the way, very often a crisis does not develop, because a person immediately switches from thinking about the essence of life to everyday needs and real social activity.
An existential crisis develops against the background of:
- depression and depressive tendencies of the personality;
- social isolation;
- lack of sleep and overwork;
- dissatisfaction with your own life, work, family, yourself;
- psychological trauma;
- loneliness;
- adaptation to work, study, changing familiar conditions;
- awareness of the inevitability of death or meeting with it (death of a loved one, making a fatal diagnosis);
- lack of goals in life and independence, life “with the flow”;
- disappointment in previous ideals and meanings;
- deterioration in health, difficulties in life;
- creative thinking;
- awareness of the transience of life and loss of strength;
- frustrations.
An existential crisis makes a person think about the usefulness of life. Accordingly, the risk group includes people who have not been able to fully realize themselves in society.
By the way, each member of society is useful for society, if we are not talking about a dependent, a criminal, an asocial type. But such individuals are rarely concerned with the question of the meaning of life. So any member of society, a worker, is useful. The question is to what extent he himself evaluates his usefulness and the correspondence of reality to his capabilities and abilities.
Signs of a crisis
In an existential crisis, a person feels lonely in a broad sense (in the entire universe) and constantly thinks about the meaning of his existence. There are no characteristic signs of a crisis; the subject can either remain cheerful in public or withdraw into himself. However, at the inner level, an existential crisis is always accompanied by:
- anxiety;
- fear and tension;
- uncertainty;
- negative emotions (anger, resentment, irritation, sadness);
- impossibility of concentration;
- apathy, loss of previous interests;
- indifferent attitude to their appearance and condition.
An existential crisis is always going through very hard internally. This is a negative, oppressive state that provokes negative thinking. If you do not fight this and do not direct your thoughts in a positive direction, then the crisis will end in failure.
Outwardly, there are two variants of the manifestation of the crisis – a person is active, grabs onto everything, tries to do a lot and try; the personality closes in on itself. The second option is more useful, but at the same time more dangerous. On the one hand, in order to understand the crisis, you need to acknowledge it and talk to yourself, find out what exactly made you doubt its significance and usefulness. Maybe you envied a couple and realized your loneliness, or the success expected at work never came. But on the other hand, it is important not to get lost in the labyrinths of consciousness and subconsciousness, to find a constructive solution to overcome the crisis.
How to overcome
All researchers come to the conclusion that it is possible to overcome the crisis of being only by recognizing that the meaning of life consists in living the present moment. A person does not have a given mission and there is no objective meaning of existence, but everyone creates a subjective meaning of their life. Accordingly, to overcome the crisis, you need to find your own personal meaning in life.
What could it be:
- Work;
- family creation or family development;
- birth and upbringing of children;
- creation;
- social activity, charity;
- transfer of their experience, training of the younger generation;
- seeking love, building relationships;
- faith;
- caring for animals;
- other.
The media, family, stereotypes, attitudes and beliefs obtained from other sources in the course of socialization help to argue the fact of a person’s existence.
The feeling of total loneliness is the second element of the existential crisis. It can only be overcome by recognizing that even the highest level of empathy will not allow you to understand and feel the other person. The inner world of each person is unique, yes, it sometimes causes a feeling of loneliness, but you need to learn how to use it. Successful overcoming of the crisis presupposes acceptance of one’s own uniqueness and originality. If you single out a specific feature in this, develop it and use it in self-realization and the realization of the meaning of life, then the crisis will be successfully resolved.
It is necessary to overcome the crisis and find a goal in life, otherwise the state will turn into despondency, passivity, indifference to oneself and one’s life. Gradually, addictions, deviations, degradation and self-destruction will join this. Often a protracted crisis ends in suicide (since there is no point, so why wait for death).
Epilogue
The search for the essence of life is associated with human self-realization. Indeed, no one will like to hear that he is useless or that nothing will change from his existence and death. Sublimation, that is, self-expression in creativity, for example, in music, poetry, prose, drawing, has a positive effect.
Each person at some point tries to argue for his existence, someone says that “for all God’s plan,” someone gives birth to children and sees the meaning of his life in the prolongation of the human race, and someone creates new medicines. There are, of course, unique people who say that they were sent by higher powers that constantly communicate with the individual, say that he must convey something important to the whole world, or simply knows how to heal. But this story often ends with psychiatry.
