Sunday, November 25, 2012

No Exit, No Worries

While reading "No Exit" I found myself thinking about what my hell would be like quite a few times.  After a lot of thinking time, I came to the conclusion that my hell would consist of close-minded people that always thought they were right when, in reality, they had it all wrong.  I would also hate to be in a room with people who eat annoyingly, don't clean up after themselves or those that are uncontrollably lazy.  After I thought about everything I would hate to deal with for the rest of eternity (I came up with a lot), I thought about the whole message that Sarte was proposing to those who read his play.  "Hell is-- other people" is only possible if one is not living a "pour soi" life.  He represented every other existential lifestyle in "No Exit" (en soi (Estelle), commitment (Inez) and bad faith (Garcin)), and that's how/why they were in hell together.  If one of those people were living the pour soi way, 1) they probably wouldn't be in hell in the first place, 2) there would be some way to defeat the purpose of hell.  So basically, if one chooses to live the pour soi lifestyle, hell will never unintentionally enter their life.  This is simply because these people have the ability to chose any life they want to live, and I couldn't see why anyone would choose a life where hell is a possibility.
This being said, living the pour soi life is much more complicated than Sarte proposes it to be.  Some situations don't leave much leeway to how one responds to it.  Of course there is always a choice, but there might not always be a GOOD choice.  In the case of picking the lesser of two evils, one can lead a fairly miserable life.  But, if one is truly living the pour soi way, technically nothing should be able to bother them.  This is where I have a problem with the philosophy.  I don't believe that people should be so lenient that absolutely nothing bothers them.  It's unnatural.  Pet peeves, as petty as most are, are defining characteristics.  They represent what someone stands for, what someone enjoys and what someone dislikes.  If absolutely nothing bothered someone, they'd be living the life!  But I wouldn't consider them an individual.  Some things in life will bother you, it's basically inevitable.  And if it's actually come to the point where nothing can get under your skin, congrats, but maybe rethink your true core values.

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