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The ultimate freedom of mind that comes with responsibilities
How should we define a philosopher?

As of old age, it was someone who asked the clever questions, then took the questions apart, shook the pile of new questions up and defined answers to each one.
The principle of thesis, antithesis, synthesis is not that easy to fathom in the first place, but in the hands of the Existentialists it gets even harder.

Sarah Bakewell takes the reader gently by the hand and walks him/her through the basics of Existentialism, where it came from, how it worked, its background in Phenomenology and the early sources of inspiration.
We also get a good knowledge of the people circling around Sartre and Beauvoir, how they were influenced or repelled by the many changes that were significant of the Existentialist period.
I am judging a solid 4 stars for the performance and the massive effort it has taken to sum up all sources, clear up all the built-in contradictions and end up with a consistent book and even making it edible by throwing in anecdotes of the cast to soften up this otherwise rather dry topic.
Thumbs up for the full annotations as well.

Going back to my opening question, I can only answer it if I was able to go back to my adolescent years, before I acquainted myself with first the classical and then the 18th and 19th philosophers.

At first the questioning is directed at the being itself. What does it mean.
Not being satisfied with the simple answer; I´m born, I grow, I live, I´ll die, the early and mid-20th century philosophers took the speculations to extremes.
I may offend some, but there is a certain amount of overthinking involved in the philosophical thinking of this era.

The theories about identity, what forms it, how significant is it and does it change with social impact are everyday knowledge today.
Today we talk about reference frameworks, knowing well that we behave differently within different frameworks. You fill in one role in your family, another one on your job, a third one on your soccer team and so on. This does not make you a “false being� it only demonstrates that the human is a many facetted being, adaptable to many social frameworks.

The personal freedom which brought out such anguish, can be said to be what drives the ability to make yourself passable within all the frameworks of which you are part.
It is no coincidence that Existentialism was born and thrived in the years between WWI and the 60ties.

Having experienced to be unfree in mind and body there was a call to explanation of the sudden freedom after WWI. Today we would talk about coping strategies in a broader sense, but that term was not yet available and hardly established as a set of � relatively � predicable patterns.
So, we are presented to a group of people who sit down and think. “We have been through Hell. Some have come out alive but at a terrible cost. Many did not survive and our trust in our fellow human beings are destroyed. How will we regain our self-esteem, how do we look at the future. How do we see ourselves in this�.

To keep it simple, we have the reactive and the proactive.

Those who walk back to the beginning of all things, the days when the mind was open to any impression and you just had to learn to feel the world around you. A tree is not only a tree, it is the leaves, the flowers, the smell of a fireplace, the house you could build from it. The thought of expressing everything “technically� is repulsive and it barres the conscious mind and restrains it.
Interesting as Phenomenology is as a way of perception, it does not resolve everyday tasks, but in this time of history is a way back into oblivion and tends to romanticize rather than look for solutions to life´s big question.

The Existentialism is much more extrovert.
Essentially man only exist when absorbing the world around him, thus mirroring himself in the world. This mean you should take part, play an active role in your life in order to exist. I am sure you will agree that, without any interaction with an outside world a person will to the outsider seem shallow and almost nonexistent.
Having this established, the terms of interaction can be discussed. Being by definition free, your choices are infinite. You may choose anything that makes you happy and bear the consequences.

That said, one of Sartre´s favorite examples; the waiter balancing a tray with bottles and glasses expertly, is not freedom. The waiter is “in bad faith� as he only “pretends� to be a waiter to earn a living.
I once was a waiter, and quite good at it, I could easily balance a tray of bottles and glasses. At the same time, I was the son of my parents, I was a boyfriend, I was a student and filled in a lot of other roles

Maybe that is one of my pet peeves when it comes to Sartre. Advocating the total freedom, but not accepting it when he saw it with others. With exception of his lifelong relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre fell out with so many friends that took their freedom of mind seriously. Lesson to be learned; Do as I say, not as I do.

To value the core message of Existentialism, you must be unfree. This is why it hit nearly 4 decades so hard and attracted a lot of followers. When ultimate freedom is available there is no longing � instead you may experience the Kirkegaard anguish, faced with the responsibilities of so much freedom.

This could easily turn into something very long and boring �
I hereby set you free to read on � at your own risk and responsibility.