An existential crisis is all of those varied feelings and emotions that are related to asking about the meaning of life, or asking what the point is, or what the purpose is for our being here. These questions come up all the more when we are faced with events that push the reality of our limited existence right in our face where we can no longer avoid them with work, substances, activity, or delusions.
When the pandemic stopped the world in early 2020 it shook the earth under many people who witnessed their lives, and the lives of others, change. It brought the kinds of life changes that typically trigger an existential crisis, such as the loss of a loved one, changes in one's health, job loss, lifestyle changes, or any number of things that heighten our awareness of human limitations and unpredictable change.
Psychologically and emotionally an existential crisis can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression. During the pandemic many people were left with great levels of uncertainty about where things were going to go, and now that the pandemic has morphed into a vaccinated and tolerable level for many, that uncertainty lingers mostly because of the fear and observations made during the core happenings of these events.
During the heart of the pandemic (which many might argue we are not completely out of yet), we didn't just witness the death of loved ones and acquaintances, but we witnessed the behavior of human-kind as it coped (sometimes poorly) with the disease and several coexisting events that were happening (and are still happening) at the same time of the disease.
One thing that really helps with an existential crisis is grasping the truth about impermanence. First of all, nothing you observe or wonder about will ever stay the same. Even the pandemic has changed and morphed into various presentations over the last several years. But everything else that has coexisted with it continued to change as well. Jobs, relationships, levels of health, where and how you work, how we dine and shop, and our views about life and career.
Most of our suffering comes from wanting everything to stay the same when it's good. When it changes it rocks our world and we feel upset and anxious about when the next change will come and rock our world again. The depression comes from things not going the way we want them to, and our inability to go back in time and change them. The anxiety comes from our awareness that we can't know what's coming all the time and can't control bad things from happening at every turn.
Understanding and accepting the reality of impermanence helps with an existential crisis because it brings some relief in knowing that we are aware and accept that change is inevitable, as opposed to being so attached to things as they are that we expect them to stay that way. In fact, it might be most predictable thing there is to know that change will happen no matter what the situation is.
If we have something, we could lose it. If we lose something, it could be found. If we are healthy, that might change. If unhealthy, we could get better. And yes, the pandemic will change, and there could be others. We humans adapt and change as we roll with these constant changes on an ongoing basis, but the biggest gift we can give ourselves is to not hang on so tightly to things as they are in any given moment. Being fully present means to also be a part of a "changing" present moment.
What this means is that in order to be this fully alive and aware, we also have to be fully conscious about what is real in any given moment. Happy joy will not last forever and is not something we "get" and never lose. But just as equally true, is that depression and sorrow will also not last forever, and they will break through to other emotions in time.
Unfortunately, life itself does not last, but in accepting this reality we can learn to be fully alive in the moments we live, as we live them. Albert Camus felt that life was quite absurd as it is, and he referred to the example of Sisyphus who was condemned to roll a stone to the top of a hill only to have it roll back down repeatedly as he returned to the bottom again and again to senselessly roll it back to the top. But Camus also felt we should stay in the game of this life and find our way regardless of its seeming meaninglessness. He admitted it is quite an "absurd" life we are handed by the universe, but that just because it is absurd does not mean it's not worth living.
Jennifer Michael Hecht, the author of Doubt, and more directly the author of Stay (an in-depth look at the subject of suicide among human beings who lose their sense of meaning in this life), wrote that "the feeling of meaning is sufficient to the definition of meaning, just as the feeling of love is sufficient to the definition of love." She adds, "I believe this question of suicide allows us to see ourselves as more profoundly connected to others, and able to relax our need to each generate the entire meaning of life on our own."
Hecht's conclusion in the end was that we should "Stay" in this world and see the relevance of our importance to one another. She concluded that we generate our own meaning for this one precious life and live that ever changing life to the best of our human ability. I would add that we must recognize the changing nature of this life and never fall under the spell that it should stay the same from moment to moment. If we can grasp this, we will never again be surprised at temporary or ongoing disappointments.
Thanks to AK Rockefeller for the great photo, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
