Eternalised

No Exit (Huis Clos) is one of Jean Paul Sartre’s most interesting existentialist short stories. The book is the source of one of Sartre’s most celebrated phrases: “Hell is other people”.   Sartre brilliantly emphasises that hell is not so much a specific place, but a state of mind. It is connected with his idea of the Look, which explores the experience of being seen, as we are always under the eyes of others.    The conflict of being a subject (an agent of one’s life) and being an object that other people are observing, alienates us and locks us in a particular kind of being, which in turn deprives us of our freedom, because we are unable to escape the “devouring” gaze of the other.    Sartre illustrates the difficult coexistence of people, as the entire social realm is based on adversarial aspects. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon

The Plague was published in 1947 and is widely considered as Albert Camus’s most successful novel. It tells the story of a plague epidemic in the Algerian coastal town of Oran, where thousands of rats are found dead all over the city.   Camus’ absurdist philosophy is at the background of the novel. He stresses the powerlessness of the individual to affect his destiny in an indifferent world.    Illness, exile, and separation are themes that were present in Camus’ life and his reflections upon them form a vital counterpoint to the allegory. This makes his description of the plague and the pain of loneliness exceptionally vivid and heartfelt. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:53) Part I (3:32) Part II (6:59) Part III (7:25) Part IV (8:58) Part V

The Metamorphosis is a book written by Franz Kafka and published in 1915. It has been called one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century as well as a classic absurdist fiction novella.   It starts off with one of the most iconic opening lines in literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”   Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis embodies an absurdist tone with ordinary daily concerns (such as being late for work) even after Gregor Samsa's extraordinary transformation into a monstrous vermin. It is an allegory of modern society's alienation and angst. The story mostly takes place in a single confined room.    The cause of Gregor’s transformation is never revealed, and Kafka himself never gave an explanation. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:44) Part I (3:38) Part II (6:33) Part III

The eternal recurrence is a central notion of Nietzsche’s thought. It supposes that you’d have to experience the same life, with the same events and same experiences, repeated for eternity.    Nietzsche suggests that most people would consider this a curse and that it would require the most impassioned love of life: to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal.   The idea is horrifying and paralysing as it carries the burden of the “heaviest weight” imaginable. However, it is also the ultimate affirmation of life, it is the rock the fills the emptiness and weightlessness void of nihilism. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon Watch Part 2/2

The Gay Science is one of Nietzsche’s most beautiful and important books. He describes it as “the most personal of all his books”.   Gay Science has the overtones of a light-hearted defiance of convention; it suggests Nietzsche’s “immoralism” and his “revaluation of all values”.  In Nietzsche’s own words, one must strive to be an “artistic Socrates”, a philosopher with both an intellectual conscience and with a feeling for art.  The book contains Nietzsche’s first proclamation of the death of God, as well as the eternal recurrence.  It also contains some of his most sustained discussions on knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience, and the miseries that accompany religion and morality, warning us against the “preachers of morality”. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (1:36) Content and structure (5:50) Parable of the Madman: God is Dead (7:30) Nihilism (8:00) Eternal Recurrence

Jean Paul Sartre’s first novel, Nausea, gave a name for existential angst. He considered it as one of his best works. It is a philosophical novel with existentialist vibes, that delves into the pure absurdity of the world with Sartre's wild imagination and explores the randomness and superfluity of the world.   Some of the most important themes include the sensation of "nausea", contingency, freedom, bad faith and Sartre's philosophical idea of existence precedes essence. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:30) Story (4:35) Contingency (6:55) Freedom (7:56) Bad Faith (8:38) Conclusion

The Antichrist was written in 1888 one year before Nietzsche’s descend into madness and immediately after his Twilight of the Idols. Both books should be read under the aspect of the last words of his final original book, his autobiography Ecce Homo: “Dionysus against the Crucified.”   The German title can be translated as either “The Anti-Christ” or “The Anti-Christian”. It was likely meant to mean both. Dionysus has two opponents, one worthy of him, the other unworthy.   The name Nietzsche gives to his worthy opponent is Christ – hence Dionysus is the Anti-Christ.   “In reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.” – The Antichrist §39   As Nietzsche discusses Christ, the tone becomes ever warmer and even ecstatic. It becomes one of the most moving and powerful parts of the book.   The unworthy opponent is the Christian, who is undeservedly dignified by being treated to such elaborate condemnation.   The book is directed to a minority and is relatively short composed of 62 sections, mainly devoted to attacking Christianity in its institutional form. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon

Fear and Trembling is a book by Søren Kierkegaard written under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio. Through the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Kierkegaard, as a great explorer of human psychology, looks into the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God commanded him to offer his son as a human sacrifice.    Kierkegaard coined the term angst to refer to the dizzying awareness of one’s freedom of choice. It is the anxiety of freedom when considering infinite possibilities and the immense responsibility of being able to choose. This proved to be very influential in Existentialism.   Fear and Trembling contains some of Kierkegaard most important concepts such as the knight of infinite resignation, the knight of faith, the leap of faith, the teleological suspension of the ethical and the stages on life’s way (aesthetic, ethical, religious). ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (1:00) Part I. Fear and Trembling. Preface (1:12) Part I. Fear and Trembling. Attunement (2:07) Part I. Fear and Trembling. Speech in Praise of Abraham (2:33) Part II. Problemata. Preamble from the Heart (6:54) Part II. Problemata. Problema I (7:31) Part II. Problemata. Problema II (8:53) Part II. Problemata. Problema III (9:13) Epilogue

The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius remains one of the great works of spiritual and ethical reflection, as well as one of the key works of Stoicism.   It is perhaps the only document of its kind ever made, the private thoughts of the world’s most powerful man. Today Marcus Aurelius is considered as the quintessential Stoic.    The Meditations can be best seen as “spiritual exercises” written as reflections against the stress and confusion of everyday life, a sort of self-help book. He had clearly no expectation that anyone but himself would ever read his Meditations. It seems unlikely that he gave the work a title at all. ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (3:35) Stoicism (4:52) Meditations (5:48) Perceptions of Good and Bad (6:15) Constant Change (6:43) Mortality (7:28) Living according to Nature (7:58) Stoicism and Epicureanism (8:16) Rationality (8:42) The Power of Our Mind (9:25) Pain and Weakness

Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophise with a Hammer is one of Nietzsche’s last books, written in 1888.    As Nietzsche was starting to become recognised, he felt that he needed a short text that would serve as an introduction to his thought.   In a letter, he wrote: “This style is my philosophy in a nutshell – radically up to criminal…”   The book offers a lightning tour of his whole philosophy, preparing the way for The Anti-Christ, a final assault on institutional Christianity, which would be the first part of his Revaluation of All Values. Which, unfortunately, he could not complete, due to his mental breakdown in 1889.  ☕ Donate a coffee ⭐ Support on Patreon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:50) Part I. Foreword (1:17) Part II. Maxims and Arrows (1:37) Part III. The Problem of Socrates (2:25) Part IV. ‘Reason’ in Philosophy (3:32) Part V. How the ‘Real World’ at last Became a Myth (4:27) Part VI. Morality as Anti-Nature (5:57) Part VII. The Four Great Errors (7:07) Part VIII. The ‘Improvers’ of Mankind (7:42) Part IX. What the Germans Lack (8:30) Part X. Expeditions of an Untimely Man (9:11) Part XI. What I Owe to the Ancients (9:34) Part XII. The Hammer Speaks