BASICS OF EXISTENTIALISM: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PHILOSOPHY OF EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE

Abstract

Amid an abundance of studies that probe the applications of Existentialism, few venture back to its origins, which are often neglected. For this, present research paper dares to return to that primal soil—where meaning quivers, freedom weighs heavy and existence begins without apology. Grounded in the raw tension between absurdity and purpose of life, it explores Existentialism not as a finished doctrine but as a living, breathing question. Tracing its intellectual evolution from the meditative inquiries of ancient Eastern and Western traditions to its defiant articulation by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, this study uncovers the philosophy's beating heart: anguish, freedom, authenticity, the Other, and death. Through a deeply interdisciplinary approach that blends textual interpretation, philosophical critique, and literary analysis, it examines not only canonical texts like Being and Nothingness and The Myth of Sisyphus but also the existential tremors found in Dostoevsky, Kafka, and Beckett. The silenced voices—non-Western, religious, and feminist—are brought into the fold to complete the portrait of philosophy too often framed narrowly. This research does not merely describe Existentialism—it embodies it. It speaks to a fractured age, offering not comfort but courage. In a world of masks and mechanisms, it calls individuals to live awake, to live deliberately