What Are the Givens of Existence in Existential Therapy?
Image via Mahbube Baqeri
The architects of Existentialism did not succumb to the idea of human beings existing as the center point of the universe, with dominion above and beyond all else. Nor did they conceive of humans as being in a state of perpetual progress that was preordained and inevitable. Man is neither a being made in the image of God, with its implied superiority in comparison to all others nor is man destined for greatness in any field. Humankind is in all likelihood the result of an evolutionary process that if not completely random, is certainly a dispassionate one that curries no favor for any one particular group.
Rather than take a medical perspective, one can consider the issue from a philosophical perspective, which is what Existentialism aims to do. Life is a series of ongoing exchanges of meaning and profundity with human beings serving as the transmitters of these messages, but amidst the rabble there exists certain limitations. Humankind as it is constituted in the past, present, or future is never an inevitability, but certain conditions of life are constituted as such and exist outside of time. Irvin Yalom has dealt with and written on these conditions, calling them the givens of existence; I will restate and reappraise them here.
These givens of existence are matters of ultimate concern for human beings and in many ways affect how we choose to live our lives. Freedom is the first given, and I speak about it in terms that extend beyond an individual’s ability to act out their wishes. Freedom refers to a lack of solidity in all of the structures that human beings create and are thrown into. Lack of structure points to a world without external laws or moral codes to govern our behavior and dictate to us how we should think, feel, and behave. Every system is constructed, and consequently is untenable in the final calculation. The very laws that govern the universe have been revealed to be open to clarification and re-interpretation as the scientific process continues on.
Recognizing the groundlessness of existence turns out to be a dizzying experience rather than one that brings relief. To understand that there are no external rules that govern life and that the rules one follows are arbitrary is to acknowledge that one is free to choose whether or not to continue to follow those rules. The consequences of either choice fall squarely on the shoulders of each man or woman and cannot be handed over to fate or social forces, however large a shadow they cast. Stress and anxiety often accompany this realization, and maladaptive behaviors can arise in an attempt to cope.
One also deals with isolation as a given of existence, not in the sense of being lonely without the company of others or having to endure punishments such as exile or solitary confinement. Existential isolation cuts to the core of what it means to be isolated; no matter how close we get to others there is still a final unbridgeable gap that we can never close. No matter how badly we want to know and understand someone, and despite all the energy and effort we may devote to this endeavor, we can never get at the heart of another human being. Worse than that, we cannot fully understand ourselves, and if we fail at this then we cannot help but fail at the task of understanding the other. We seek merger with someone or something greater than ourselves as a means of achieving wholeness, but we shrink from this same merger out of fear of being overwhelmed and obliterated by the other. Successfully relating to others is a process of continuously finding healthy ways to balance this tension.
Though life is a process of becoming it is also a process of unbecoming and death is the biggest step in the latter process. Death is something that every individual must contend with and as such is an obvious given of existence. Every single person who lives will one day cease to be in a physical sense and eventually in a psychological sense as well. The difficulty is not the end result, but in knowing what one would rather not know, and having to find a way to live with a force that is indifferent to us, that for centuries we have imbued with layer upon layer of meaning.
Each of these givens of existence build upon and inform the final given which is meaninglessness. Because there are no external structures that exist outside of time or human invention and because humans are capable of and free to constitute the world in numerous ways, there can be no inherent meaning which applies to everyone in the same way. Tension lies in the fact that human beings are creatures obsessed with making meaning out of their experiences. We derive meanings where there are none and create them if we have to and this is a task we take up repeatedly throughout our lives as a way of making sense of things so that we can do live effectively.
It is important to approach these givens of existence carefully, absorbing and understanding them slowly, little by little until one is strong enough to bear the burden of these conditions. They are each in their own right difficult to comprehend, and doing so can lead to radical shifts in the way one engages with life. But understanding one’s terrain is much more useful than having no real grasp of the lay of the land.