By Emma Wilson
When I was younger, perhaps 10 or 11, I remember staying awake at night crying, thinking about the realities of life and the wackiness that comes with it, and I couldn’t sleep. I stood up and walked into my dads office space and told him that I was having an existential crisis, and he looked at me in amusement and questioned what I meant. Then, I explained I didn’t understand where life goes after we all die, and he acknowledged that he also deals with those feelings and that I need to get used to those feelings, because they won’t go away.
Going into existential conversations can be so grueling and depressing, but I want to get away from that feeling. Feeling existentialism, and thinking about the circle of life and how on earth, humans simply started existing; these are conversations that do not need to harbor negative feelings.
The big reason why I wanted to write about existentialism is because of the variety of things that can lead to going down this path, and frankly I find it pretty easy to open up about the amazingly terrifying aspects life holds.
On KRFH 105.1, Cal Poly Humboldt’s student-run radio station, I have had many show names dedicated to this very topic. Some examples are, Music to Make You Think, Let’s Get Existential, and now this semester, Pondering in the P.M. On my radio shows, I tend to play songs that express deep meanings.
I have chosen to pursue journalism, and with that, I find a lot of things to think about all the time. Everywhere I look, I can see an impactful story coming to life, and with that, I find life to be such a beautiful thing to discover.
But then, I look to Instagram — which, since having this thought, I have deleted instagram to take a mental break. Instagram gives me so much existential dread because of the mindless scrolling through thousands of different concepts, creators, professionals, human beings simply doing all this stuff. I often find myself needing to step away from the constant blur of content that people make, because there is sooooo much to see on social media and the Internet as a whole.
This brings me to what gives me the most existential freedom; Mother Earth, the environment, all that is alive within Earth and its complex features that make up our soil and soil being the foundation of the world. Climate, how temperature, precipitation and wind impact the ecosystem of our very planet. The circle of life. Bugs.
I will continue to hear the earth brew with ideas and concepts that face me, and every human. Not just humans either, the whole environment and what works in between.
Like I said in the beginning, existential dread is a really heavy concept. It is hard-hitting, mind-grueling, and you can end up drooling over the complex way life is and what comes afterwards. And that comes with the whole religious conversation and I choose not to go into that heavy conversation right now. That part of existentialism is not a part of this article.
Either way, that moment woke me up in understanding the full complexity life brings to anyone, and we all live a different one, experiencing those feelings differently of course, but this is just my interpretation of existential complexities. I’m finally trying to embrace those feelings, because they are so valid. Life is hard, and it really isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
What really got me thinking existentially, I believe, was growing up non-religious, without going to church or having a community of people in that way. I consider myself an atheist-agnostic, pretty much. I put the agnostic in there cause I really have no idea why we are here, but I would like to believe we are out here just being animals, working together with other animals within our ecosystem to keep it healthy and lively. At least, that’s what I hope we do.
Not growing up in a religious household, I’ve really delved into the existentialist thought bubble more than I can count. Having these thoughts has opened a lot of doors and perspectives into my life and how to go about things in the world. Whenever I think too much, I definitely do get pretty anxious about things, and I try to accept that there are some things we can never understand.
I get really stuck in the dread of life, but sometimes thinking about being alive actually does get me far. Seeing the beauty in things like clean rivers falling down a big ass mountain — that shit is so mind blowing to me.
Over time though, I wonder if these existential thoughts and big extreme awakings will slow down, and I will accept the complexities of life. I would like to think they will be so far into my life, I already know how to calm those feelings through meditation, grounding in the grass and doing yoga, and connecting with being alive. But, death and dying are very real things, very hard things to feel. Loss will never be easy, but knowing everyone feels and knows that too, makes it all a little easier.
Emma Wilson is a public relations journalism student at Cal Poly Humboldt minoring in envioronmental ethics. Wilson is an environmental reporter and science editor for the lumberjack. She is also the president of the Journalism Club of Cal Poly Humboldt. Wilson likes swimming, playing music on the raido, and making collages.