Existential Challenges

We hear the term "existential crisis" thrown around in pop psychology fairly often.  According to Urban Dictionary, an existential crisis is a deep, obsessive concern with unanswered questions about the meaning of life and existence.  Existential psychology identifies four "existential challenges."  These "ultimate concerns" are the "givens" of life.  They are the fundamental truths that capture the essence of the human condition.  Our lives are defined by how we respond to these challenges.  A "crisis" occurs when we become overwhelmed by these truths and can no longer cope.

The four "human givens" we must all face are:

1. Death: The curse of human consciousness is an awareness of our eventual death.  We must live while knowing we will die, yet not despair.  We must love others with the knowledge that we will ultimately lose them.  Even long life is a mixed blessing, as we gradually lose everyone who matters most. 

Most of us use denial to cope with the inevitability of death.  We refuse to think about it.  We focus instead on staying healthy and living longer.  As a society, we relegate death to certain places (e.g., hospitals), where we don't have to see it.  Denial becomes less effective as we get older.  At some point, we are forced to confront death, either our own or someone else's. 

2. Meaning:  Most of us are not content to simply exist; we need a purpose in life.  "Why are we here?"  We must each answer this question for ourselves.  Your purpose might be different than mine.  We can choose to spend ourlives however we see fit.  Those who thrive devote their time to things they find meaningful.  They feel fulfilled.  Those who lack purpose find their lives meaningless.  They tend to feel empty and lost.

3. Freedom: We each have the freedom of choice.  We are free to make decisions about our lives and to determine our own paths.  With freedom, however, comes responsibility.  We are responsible for whatever choices we make.  We cannot blame others when we are unhappy.  If we want things to change then we have to change.  Freedom can sometimes feel overwhelming.  It can be tempting to ask others to make decisions for us and to hold them responsible for the outcomes.  This too is a choice - a choice to hand over freedom and to allow others to control our destiny.

4. Isolation: We come into this world alone and that is how we leave it: alone.  We can never completely share an experience with someone else; it is impossible for one person to know exactly how another feels.  And yet, humans are innately social creatures.  We long to connect with others.  Every connection comes with the risk of being abandoned (which is inevitable - see number one).  We are alone and yet we fear being alone.  So we do things that make us feel less alone. 

These four truths really do capture the essence of what it means to be human. 

Chronic boredom

Boredom is a state of disengagement from your environment and/or whatever activity you happen to be doing.  Boredom involves desire in that a person who is bored wants to do something that will fully engage his attention.  Unfortunately, the state of boredom renders him unable to identify a sufficiently satisfying activity that will alleviate his condition. 

We all experience boredom from time to time.  For most of us, it is a transient condition that passes the moment we find something that absorbs our attention.  There are some, however, for whom boredom is more pervasive.  For whatever reason, these people are consistently unable to find activities that hold their attention.  For this reason, many are regular thrill seekers; they spend a considerable amount of time searching for something exciting to relieve their inner monotony.  Of course, excitement provides only temporary relief.  No matter what they do, the boredom always returns.  Thus, they find themselves caught up in a never ending quest for the next thrill.

What causes this condition and what can be done about it?  Bernstein attributes chronic boredom to loss of the ability to feel.  This occurs, he argues, as a result of early childhood experiences.  Specifically, chronic boredom occurs when a child is forced to hold his emotions in before he has developed socially acceptable outlest for discharing the tension these emotions arouse.  With no means to express his emotions, he simply learns to repress them.  A chaotic, over-stimulating environment will mask his absence of emotion.  However, when faced with a less stimulating environment later in life, he begins to notice his lack of emotion.  He feels under-stimulated, a condition that manifests itself as boredom. 

Kohut likewise attributes chronic boredom to childhood experiences.  He ascribes chronic boredom to the consistent failure of parents to be responsive to and to provide stimulation to their child.  Consequently, the child comes to crave stimulation and to seek it out in any form. 

Many believe that boredom masks an underlying sense of emptiness.  According to existential theorists, this emptiness is caused by lacking a purpose or meaning in one's life.  (This may or may not be due to childhood experiences).  Without a clear purpose, everything seems pointless.  If there is no purpose to a particular activity, why do it?  For one with no purpose in life, all activities are meaningless. 

So what can be done to help the chronically bored?  I will suggest a few techniques, but these are by no means exhaustive.

In researching ways to alleviate chronic boredom, I discovered that boredom is more prevalent among people with an external (versus internal) orientation.  To be externally oriented is to be habitually focused on the external environment.  When an externally oriented person feels bored he attributes it to an under-stimulating environment.  Because he sees the external environment as causing his boredom, he looks to the external environment to relieve it.  Unfortunately, this strategy is almost always ineffective, at least for the chronically bored. 

The conclusion I draw from this information is as follows: if the external environment doesn't hold the answer, perhaps it would help to turn one's attention inward instead.  What would happen if sufferers of chronic boredom adopted a curious stance towards their condition?  What if they attended to the physical sensations that accompany their boredom and observed how they change over time?  I suspect they might begin to see through (or perhaps beneath) the boredom.  If nothing else, they'd learn to tolerate the emotion and to simply be with themselves.  This alone would go a long way towards quieting their eternal restlessness.

De Chenne suggests that chronically bored people lack knowledge of their emotional and psychological needs.  Consequently, he suggests helping the chronically bored to clarify their needs and interests.  Once they determine what they need, they are better able to seek out activities that will satisfy and  fulfill these needs.

Now for my final suggestion.  If everything seems meaningless (and therefore boring), it seems logical that creating, discovering, identifying, or clarifying one's purpose in life would be beneficial.  This is admittedly a large task and it might seem too daunting for some.  If this is the case, start by simply taking the focus off of self and doing something kind or helpful for someone else.