Existentialism Explained: Finding Meaning in a World Without Rules

What Is Existentialism, Really?

Existentialism is the philosophical belief that you, and only you, are responsible for creating purpose and meaning in your own life. That meaning is not handed to you by gods, religions, parents, governments, teachers, or any other authority. It is a radical, sometimes terrifying idea. And it starts with a simple question.

Have you ever stopped in the middle of your day and asked yourself: "What is the meaning of my life? Why do I even exist?" For thousands of years, humanity answered those heavy questions with a comforting thought: your life's purpose was decided before you were even born. Then a group of thinkers called existentialists came along and said, "No, not quite."

To really understand existentialism, you first need to meet the idea it rejects: essentialism. Founded by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, essentialism argues that everything, including people, has a fixed essence, a core identity that defines what it is. When applied to humans, this view implies your purpose in life was locked in before you took your first breath. It was a wildly popular belief, one that gave tremendous weight to religious thinking about an all-powerful God who created every being with a predetermined plan. If you bought into that, there was no need to challenge life's meaning or search for your purpose. Your God had already sorted it out for you.

Existentialism flips that entire script. It asks a revolutionary question: "What if we existed first, and the meaning came later?" In this view, you are born as a blank page, and the task of discovering, or rather creating, your life's meaning falls entirely on you. No divine intervention, no fate, no outside forces are actively pushing you in specific directions. Every decision you make is yours, and with your actions, you build your own purpose.

The Old View: Essentialism and Its Ancient Roots

Before existentialism could ask its radical questions, there was Aristotle. The Greek philosopher, working in the 4th century BCE, built the foundation of essentialism: the idea that everything, including human beings, carries a fixed essence that determines what it is. That essence, he argued, causally shapes identity and properties, meaning a thing's nature is settled from the start.

Applied to people, this view suggests your purpose is written into your very being. You are not a blank page; you are a creature with a predetermined role, and your job is simply to fulfill it. This way of thinking dominated Western thought for thousands of years, and religion gave it enormous weight. An all-powerful God, the logic went, created every being with a deliberate plan, so your place in the world was settled before you drew your first breath. If you accept that, you never have to wrestle with life's meaning or go searching for a purpose. Your God already handled it for you.

That certainty is precisely what later thinkers would come to distrust, and it is the backdrop against which existentialism would eventually rebel.

The Existentialist Turn: From Kierkegaard to Sartre

In the 19th century, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche each began chipping away at the old certainties. They questioned the idea that human beings come into the world with a fixed essence, a predetermined nature that defines who we are and what we should do. These three men were the restless precursors who prepared the ground for something entirely new.

But the figure who truly carried existentialism into the mainstream was Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher whose ideas exploded across Europe in the middle of the 20th century. The catalyst was the horror of World War II. The sheer scale of destruction, the mechanized slaughter, and above all the Holocaust raised a question that seemed impossible to answer: how could atrocities of this magnitude possibly fit into some predetermined divine plan? If an all-powerful God had designed everything with purpose, what purpose could Auschwitz possibly serve?

Existentialism offered a different kind of answer, one that placed the responsibility not on heaven but squarely on human shoulders. Perhaps these events did not come from an all-powerful divine will. Perhaps they came from human beings themselves, from our own choices, our own freedom, our own failures. The movement asked a revolutionary question: what if we exist first, and only afterward do we create who we are?

That idea landed like a thunderclap. You are not born with a script already written. You arrive as a blank page, and the task of discovering, or rather inventing, your life's purpose falls entirely on you. No divine intervention, no fate, no external force pushes you in any particular direction. Every decision you make is yours alone, and through your actions you build your own meaning. It was a terrifying kind of freedom, and Sartre did not pretend otherwise. He argued that liberation is painful, because once you fully grasp that your purpose is your own responsibility, there is no one else to blame and nowhere else to turn.

The Burden of Freedom and the Pain of Choice

Existentialism hands you the keys to your own life, but those keys come with a terrifying weight: there is no divine intervention, no fate, and no external force pushing you in any direction. Every decision you make is entirely yours, and you create your own purpose through your actions. That personal responsibility for shaping your life's meaning carries significant weight, and it causes anxiety.

Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher who popularized existentialism in the mid-20th century after World War II, proposed that liberation or freedom is "painful." To fully grasp your freedom, you must accept that creating your personal purpose, or failing to create it, rests solely on your shoulders. Without religious or societal guidelines to lean on, you are flooded with so many options that the sheer abundance becomes overwhelming.

Many of us experience the so-called existential crisis, finding ourselves questioning our choices, careers, relationships, and their purpose. We have too many choices. How do we choose the right ones to create a meaningful and fulfilling life? Sartre warned against turning to authority for guidance and answers about life, because those answers do not exist in anyone, and there is no single truth to reach.

According to the original account, Sartre introduced the phrase "living authentically," which reportedly means living with the awareness of your responsibility to control your freedom despite the absurd. Sartre defined "bad faith" (mauvais foi) as living inauthentically by escaping the responsibility to discover one's true self and denying one's innate freedom. The absurd, as existentialists define it, is seeking answers in a world without answers, being born into a meaningless place and then being required to create meaning yourself.

Living Authentically: The Absurd, Bad Faith, and Creating Your Own Rules

Existentialists define the absurd as seeking answers in a world that offers none. It is the collision between your deep desire for meaning and the universe's stubborn silence. The absurd assumes there is no single divine truth, no innate rules, and no guidelines waiting to be discovered.

Being born into a meaningless place means the work of creating meaning happens afterward, entirely on your terms. This is where the practical weight of existentialism becomes real. You are a blank page, and the responsibility to fill it belongs to no one else. Every decision you make is yours alone, and through your actions, you build your own purpose. That kind of personal responsibility carries an anxiety that many of us feel as the so-called existential crisis, that moment when you question your choices, your career, your relationships, and what any of it adds up to.

Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher who popularized existentialism in the mid-20th century after World War II, warned against turning to authority for guidance about life. The answers simply do not exist in anyone else's hands. There is no accessible single truth, no priest, parent, or politician who can hand you your purpose. Sartre argued that liberation itself is painful. Freedom sounds wonderful until you realize that creating your purpose, or failing to create it, rests solely on your shoulders. With no religious or societal rules to follow, the sheer number of choices becomes overwhelming.

Sartre reportedly used the phrase "living authentically" to describe living with the awareness of your responsibility to control your freedom despite the absurd. According to the original account, this means recognizing that any purpose or meaning in your life is something you created. In contrast, Sartre's concept of bad faith, or mauvais foi, is living inauthentically. It means escaping the responsibility to discover your true self and denying your innate freedom, often by succumbing to society's external pressures. When you let others define you, when you pretend you have no choice, you are living in bad faith.