School has been out for nearly two weeks and the rainy season has arrived with a fury along the Ventura coastline and I stayed at home to avoid the crazy drivers and flooded gutters, driveways, canals, and roads.  The benefit of staying indoors is that I have had time to ponder and reflect on a variety of subjects.  In addition, my practice of zazen has helped the day-to-day clutter be swept away allowing for a deeper reflection.

In that regard, I want to share how a person’s conscious self is a collection of experiences which have both willingly and unwillingly created experiences from childhood through today. In the words of the philosopher and writer Jean Paul Sartre, “we are condemned to be free;” he had a different viewpoint on existentialism than others of his time.  Sartre’s brand of existentialism believed that the traditional philosophy and religions of the west see the world as essence precedes existence while he believed that the world and especially human beings existence precedes essence.

My conclusion is that too many times people have allowed others dictate their personal choices. We make the mistake of thinking other’s opinion is more important than our own.  We need to take responsibility and find our own essence.  We are free to act but realizing that we are also responsible for the consequences. As Sartre says we are condemned to be free.  We are free to choose and it is reflected by our attitude and actions.  When we allow others to create a construct and define our life, we are living a heterogeneous life rather than living an authentic self determined existence, an autonomous life.

As one my professor’s described consciousness in Sartre’s  world of existentialism is that consciousness is a perpetual mound of clay, you can form the clay but when you stopping form it the clay goes back to its formless state; food for thought.

The reflections have given me food for thought, what thoughts do you have?