Existential questions

In the Everyday mode, we are overwhelmed by daily things that attract our attention: possessions, prestige, finances, appearance, status... In this mode, we are focused on tangible elements, visible to the naked eye. In other words, in the Everyday mode, we wonder what things exist in the world. This dimension of our existence is transparent and superficial.

The text before us focuses on the Ontological mode, the one that is not visible to the naked eye, which is "systemically" built into us and is an inevitable part of our existence. The Ontological mode is the part of a person that deals with existential questions.

Ontological Mode

In the Ontological mode, we are aware of existence, freedom, mortality, and other unchangeable characteristics of life. We are focused on existence per se—we wonder why things exist in the world.

This dimension is a unique motivator that encourages us to live more authentically and reject triviality, reorder life priorities, enjoy honest communication with others, and question ourselves. Although we are transient, we try to become good people and leave a trace of our existence on Earth.

Irvin Yalom, an American psychiatrist and psychotherapist, says that: "The inner conflict that troubles us does not arise only from our struggle with repressed instinctual tendencies, internalized significant adults, or fragments of forgotten traumatic memories, but also from our confrontation with the 'givens of existence.'" And what are these "givens of existence"?

If we allow ourselves to put aside our daily worries and think deeply about our situation, we inevitably arrive at the deep structures of existence (or "ultimate concerns," to use the phrase of the theologian Paul Tillich). The four ultimate concerns or existential questions are:

• Death
• Meaning
• Freedom
• Isolation

1. The Existential Question of Death

"In early youth, as we think about the life ahead of us, we are like children in a theater before the curtain rises, sitting there with high expectations and eagerly awaiting the start of the show. It is a blessing that we don't know what will actually happen. If we could foresee it, sometimes the children might seem like condemned prisoners, sentenced not to death but to life, and yet completely unaware of what their punishment means." — Arthur Schopenhauer

Although Schopenhauer's attitude was strongly colored by his personal misfortune, it is still difficult to dispute the built-in despair in the life of every individual.

To cope with life, we must deeply suppress death as its inevitable counterpart and create the illusion of our own uniqueness, hoping that death will somehow pass us by. However, confronting this significant question leads to great transformations.

Yalom cites numerous testimonials that shift a person into this mode of being, such as: an incurable illness, old age, the death of loved ones, or dates like birthdays, anniversaries, retirement... One of Yalom's clients said dejectedly: "What a shame I had to wait until now, until my body was riddled with cancer, to learn how to live."

Many novels and stories vividly describe these enlightening moments. In Tolstoy's story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," the greedy bureaucrat Ivan Ilyich confronts his death in the most mundane way possible, by awkwardly falling on his side while hanging curtains. And since the doctors are unable to help him and his pain spreads more and more, he stumbles upon a surprising insight: he realizes that he is dying so ugly and banally, just as he had lived. That insight gives birth to a huge personal change in him, and his life in the last days is filled with a peace and meaning that he had never achieved before. Scrooge in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" doesn't suddenly become a better man because of Christmas cheer; his enlightening change occurs after a ghost takes him to the future and then shows him his own death and strangers fighting over his property. The message in these works is simple and profound: Although the physical aspect of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us.

Yalom and Ernest Becker highlight the fear of death as the most prominent and tormenting ultimate question. The fear of death is embedded in our protoplasm and determines the way we will live. For centuries, people have developed a multitude of methods to alleviate the fear of death. Some methods succeeded, while others were ineffective.

Defending against the fear of death, people may try to defy it (by taking insane risks), to deny it by merging with a loved one, an idea, a community, a divine being... They may enjoy life too little so they don't have much to lose, they may become preoccupied with material things, power, wealth, compulsive sexuality... The question is just how much that "works." The intensity of anxiety about death is highly correlated with the feeling of an unlived life. The less life satisfaction, the greater the anxiety about death.

Fulfilling life tasks gives a feeling of a fulfilled life and reduces anxiety about death. Yalom emphasizes legacy as one of the most effective ways to reduce the fear of death. The idea of legacy, which is based on the belief that a person can persist not only through their individual personality, but through value and deeds that are passed on to future generations, can be comforting to anyone who is anxious about their own death. If we feel that someone is sending us a message: "I have built a part of you into myself. It has changed and enriched me, and I will pass it on to others..." we feel that such a message prolongs the life of a critically important part of us.

2. The Existential Question of the Meaning of Life

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

The existential question of death is followed by the question of the meaning of life. Limited by the lifespan that the average human body dictates, we ask ourselves: "What is the meaning of life?" Dr. Viktor Frankl dealt most with the topic of meaning in his practice and created the therapeutic approach of Logotherapy, which literally means "healing with meaning."

Frankl states that one of the basic human motives is the will for meaning, and this is what makes us human. He says that a large percentage of clients come to therapy because of the loss of all meaning in life. Human beings are "thrown" into this world, devoid of inner meaning, and in a perpetual search for it, they seek to fill that void. Yalom claims that one of the biggest tasks is to find a meaning that is strong enough to sustain life and "perform the deceptive maneuver of denying that we created that meaning ourselves. Instead, in this way, we conclude that it existed out there and was waiting for us to discover it."

The meaning of life is not the same for everyone, or collective, but is unique to each person, and no one can offer it to us or trade it; rather, we must find it ourselves and fill the vacant place within us.

There is no scientifically validated evidence that speaks in favor of what the meaning of life is. Some find it in altruism, some in hedonism, art, spirituality... Frankl, as someone who survived the terror of the Second World War in the Auschwitz concentration camp and lost his entire family there, emphasizes that a person can find meaning even in the most difficult life circumstances. The emphasis of existential psychotherapy is on overcoming anxiety, apathy, alienation, meaninglessness, shame, addictions, depression, guilt, and anger; and on promoting a meaningful and fulfilled life in which a person is able to love, care for others, care for themselves and their environment, establish significant relationships, and learn to enjoy the charms of life.

3. The Existential Question of Freedom

"People, incapable of freedom—who cannot endure the horror of the sacred being shown before their open eyes—must turn to secrecy, must hide... the truth." — Carlo Levi

The connection between "freedom" and anxiety is not intuitively obvious, because at first glance, "freedom" seems to have only a clear positive connotation. After all, haven't we longed for and fought for political freedom throughout the history of Western civilization? However, freedom also has its dark side. Viewed from the perspective of creating oneself, of choices, of will, and of actions, freedom is deeply permeated with anxiety.

In the deepest sense, we are responsible for ourselves. We are, as Jean-Paul Sartre said, "the authors of ourselves." Through the increase of our choices, our actions, and our failures to act, we ultimately create ourselves. We cannot escape that responsibility—freedom. In Sartre's words, "we are condemned to be free."

Our freedom goes even deeper than our life plan. More than two centuries ago, Kant taught us that we are responsible for providing form and meaning not only to the inner but also to the outer world. We experience the outside world only as it is processed through our neurological and psychological apparatus. Reality is not at all what we imagined it to be in childhood—we do not enter a well-structured world (nor do we leave it as such in the end). Instead, we play a major role in creating the world—and we create it in such a way that its existence appears independent.

And what is the significance of the dark side of freedom for anxiety and clinical work? One answer can be found by looking down. If we are the creators of the primal world, where is the solid ground beneath us? What is below us? Nothingness, Das Nichts, as the German existentialists say. The abyss of freedom. And with the knowledge of nothingness at the very core of being comes deep anxiety.

Therefore, although the term freedom is not found in therapy sessions and psychotherapy manuals, its products—responsibility, will, wanting, deciding—are extremely visible inhabitants of all psychotherapeutic endeavors.

4. The Existential Question of Isolation

"Man is born alone and dies alone."

...the saying goes. Through the game of evolution and its constant development, man becomes the first species cast out of its connection with nature. Of the animal interactions, guided primarily by instinct, only a trace remains in him, and what happens to him through life is no longer determined by the secure bonds of nature, but by his own strengths and struggles.

The awareness that nothing is predetermined for him (except death), that his existence is not secured and lulled in the arms of nature, the awareness that this life, insecure anyway, will inevitably end, and he will not be able to do anything about it, the awareness that he is alone in his existence—all this causes fear and loneliness in a person, which Fromm calls "isolation."

Irvin Yalom We can divide isolation into two parts: Everyday and Existential.

• Everyday isolation—estrangement from people (shame, fear of intimacy, guilt...).
• Existential isolation—an insurmountable chasm between the individual and others. a) We are born alone and die alone. b) Our world is known only to us.

Existential isolation is strongest before death. A mature capacity for work reduces a person's sense of isolation, gives a sense of meaning in life, and provides freedom.

Author: Nemanja Kurlagić – psychotherapist using the O.L.I. method