Existentialism Archives - Mike Polischuk

What does it mean plague? It's life, that's all

I have been putting off reading this novel by Albert Camus for a couple of years now. Back in Haifa I had 2 hard copies of the novel – one that I purchased myself a while back, and one that I received as a gift from a friend. But I just couldn’t bring myself to read it. An isolated city going through an epidemic of plague. To settle in such a bleak world for weeks was something I never felt quite ready for. I thought I needed to build up resilience to get through it, or wait for some especially sunny period in my life, to offset the burden of reading. And this time has never quite come. Continue reading “The Plague”

We Are Empty Vessels

Philosophy

Mike07/11/201502/11/20185 Comments

I’m an empty vessel. There is nothing inside me that is unique. My aspirations are ordinary for my generation. My views on life are shaped by the people around me. The closer I look at myself, the less I find. So who am I? Continue reading “We Are Empty Vessels”

Being Young but Feeling Old

Personal

Mike17/08/201305/11/20172 Comments

On my 18th birthday I felt pretty bad. Even though everyone was telling me that it was a special date, and that I am supposed to be excited about it, I was confused, anxious and depressed.

I felt old. Continue reading “Being Young but Feeling Old”

A Cure for our Fear of Death

Philosophy

Mike10/07/201102/04/20168 Comments

In Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris”, the protagonist complaints that he doesn’t know whether he should marry his fiancee, and whether he loves her at all. The reply he gets from a fictional Ernest Hemingway contains the most brilliant lines in the movie Continue reading “A Cure for our Fear of Death”

Birthday Neurosis

Personal

Mike06/01/201005/11/20172 Comments

Birthday has always been a sad business for me. Surely you get to feel ‘special’, you get greetings and presents, your friends come to your party – all those nice traditions we grew with, lift your spirit. But something inside always brewed and disturbed me during this time of year. Continue reading “Birthday Neurosis”

How I Have Come to Face Freedom

Personal

Mike20/12/200905/11/20178 Comments

Lately I have been thinking about the burden of freedom. What I mean by freedom is not the civil freedom of being out of jail, but an existential freedom: freedom from unfulfilled desires, from debilitating illness, from time-consuming commitments, from limiting beliefs. The kind of freedom that makes you wake up on Saturday morning, have your breakfast, come into the living room and think to yourself “no one expects anything from me today, I have the whole day to myself, to do anything I want. So, what should I do?” Continue reading “How I Have Come to Face Freedom”