Existentialism is a Neuroticism

"What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism."

-- Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

Here is how we could conceive of our lived reality:

Essentialism: We are the future of the past. We have created ourselves.

Existentialism: We are the past of the future. We have yet to create ourselves.

If you are an essentialist, you risk losing the world. If you are an existentialist, you risk losing yourself. Left-right-left-right.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/soren-kierkegaards-struggle-with-himself

Masochism is longing for the past when it is no longer accessible. Sadism is dreading the future that you don't know yet.

So we get the following:

"Life presents itself as a continual deception in small things as in great. If it has promised, it does not keep its word, unless to show how little worth desiring were the things desired: thus we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped for. If it has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows us paradises which vanish like optical illusions when we have allowed ourselves to be mocked by them. Happiness accordingly always lies in the future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark cloud which the wind drives over the sunny plain: before and behind it all is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. The present is therefore always insufficient; but the future is uncertain, and the past irrevocable."

-- Arthur Schopenhauer, "On the Vanity and Suffering of Life"

I no longer agree with this (if I ever did... never mind...) because we should at every moment say "what project is it that I will be glad to have started in five years time?" The worst deception is always that the future will not come. I am always extremely grateful to have kept this blog from my time in South Africa: https://philosophyisfashionable.blogspot.com

So this is part of why I am writing. Ideas that I would like to collect. That I will thank myself for in the future. Bass guitar. I'll thank myself in the future. I will have more things to do. Art and music. Schopenhauer was correct about that. He took many of his cues from the Vedas and Upanishads. When coming across this often while reading Schopenhauer (probably not the best philosopher to start with...), I didn't think too much of it. I recently found out that when he was writing, these works had only started to be translated. So he was essentially the first Western philosopher to consider the Hindu search for meaning.

Art and music are timeless. They are reminders that you can create for yourself. Everything requires an investment. So it's good to think "what will I thank myself for starting when I become myself in the future?" Continuity is key.