# Where do existentialists go for comfort when the going gets REALLY tough?? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264 "2014-08-10T20:15:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/21 "2014-08-11T02:32:43Z")
I’ve been dying all along and it has been great. ---
**Author:** ![Obnoxious\_Hood\_Ornament](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3be4f8/32.png) [@Obnoxious\_Hood\_Ornament](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/22 "2014-08-11T19:13:25Z")
The existentialist’s only comfort is that they need no comfort. What I tell myself when I have my rare 3 A.M. moments: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Dunno why, but that does it for me. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/23 "2014-08-11T19:24:27Z")
Death is something I don’t have to worry about if it ever happens to me. In fact, I _can’t_ worry about if once it happens to me, so if I just don’t think about it at all-no worries at all. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/24 "2014-08-11T19:38:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > How about “At least there’s no God/afterlife to make things even worse”? **DT** , you are ever a joy to me. Seriously. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/25 "2014-08-11T19:46:15Z")
> [@](#): > > what do existentialists tell themselves when they wake at 3 a.m. in the dark? I tell myself I should go to sleep, or at least turn the light on. That is a serious answer, by the way. There is no comfort or reassurance, but more importantly, none is needed. Everyone dies; there is no escape. No need to worry about it. To face my cancer, I put my health in the hands of medical science and the doctors who get their kicks from saving my life. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/26 "2014-08-11T20:51:36Z")
When things get tough, I usually tell myself to get my shit together and focus because nothing but hard work is going to make things better. Mostly, though, I just try to live in the moment. There are things I really enjoy and I try to enjoy them to their fullest because they will all go away one day, and no invisible man in the sky is going to change that fact. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/27 "2014-08-11T21:34:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > > what do existentialists tell themselves when they wake at 3 a.m. in the dark? > > I wake up at 3 am in the dark all the time. Usually I just roll over and go back to sleep. Uusually, I go to the bathroom and urinate. After that, I can sleep soundly. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/28 "2014-08-11T21:54:52Z")
A better question would be how one can be comforted at 3am by the idea of some god or afterlife one has no compelling reason to believe in. Not everyone wants or needs some sort of pleasant happy-warm-thoughts to get through the night, and the point of philosophy, theology, or metaphysics is not to provide a comforting worldview. ---
**Author:** ![AnaMen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@AnaMen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnaMen)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/29 "2014-08-11T22:17:35Z")
> [@Mr.Natural](#): > > gee. That reminds me of Roy Batty’s final monologue. > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDlTGd7Y9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDlTGd7Y9U) Yeah, really bad stuff is all just made up for movies. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/30 "2014-08-11T22:21:05Z")
The thing about non-existence is, you don’t _know_ that you don’t exist. It’s not like you die, and then sit around going, “I don’t exist any more! Damn, this sucks!” So, I’m not scared of that, because it’s not anything. What scares me is suffering - when I’m awake at three in the morning, and deep in the slough of despond, I’m more worried about things like getting cancer, or being homeless, or being severely disabled in an accident. They are, broadly, concerns about the nature of my existence, not its continuation. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/31 "2014-08-11T22:39:42Z")
“All that is transitory is but metaphor” - Goethe ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/32 "2014-08-11T22:43:19Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The thing about non-existence is, you don’t _know_ that you don’t exist. It’s not like you die, and then sit around going, “I don’t exist any more! Damn, this sucks!” So, I’m not scared of that, because it’s not anything. What scares me is suffering - when I’m awake at three in the morning, and deep in the slough of despond, I’m more worried about things like getting cancer, or being homeless, or being severely disabled in an accident. They are, broadly, concerns about the nature of my existence, not its continuation. Exactly. There were millions of years before my birth when I didn’t exist and that period of non-existence doesn’t bother me. There will also be millions of years after my death when I don’t exist but why should my post-death non-existence bother me any more than my pre-birth non-existence? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/33 "2014-08-12T02:02:17Z")
I agree that one’s own death is something each of us won’t be around to see (or maybe we will-- who knows?). So there is no point in worrying about that. Harder to bear is being with a loved one who is suffering over a period of weeks, months, or even years. Harder still if that loved one is a child. Yes, you endure it. Because you have to. Although I understand that some people do bail. At such moments, it’s human nature (IMHO) to look for something somewhere to ease your own pain, for some solace or meaning. Connection with others can help. But according to some of you, for some reason, existentialists can do without this sort of comfort, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/34 "2014-08-12T02:26:20Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I agree that one’s own death is something each of us won’t be around to see . . . Alas, many of us will be around to witness a good portion of the process of dying. Not everyone is fortunate enough to die swiftly. A hell of a lot of us are going to suffer through the preliminaries, at least. It is an essentially graceless exercise. (“The advantages of a swift death have always seemed overrated to me.” Peter O’Donnell.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/35 "2014-08-12T02:33:54Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I agree that one’s own death is something each of us won’t be around to see (or maybe we will-- who knows?). So there is no point in worrying about that. > > Harder to bear is being with a loved one who is suffering over a period of weeks, months, or even years. Harder still if that loved one is a child. Yes, you endure it. Because you have to. Although I understand that some people do bail. At such moments, it’s human nature (IMHO) to look for something somewhere to ease your own pain, for some solace or meaning. Connection with others can help. > > But according to some of you, for some reason, existentialists can do without this sort of comfort, eh? I remember all the good times my grandmother and I had when we were to together, and all the wonderful tales she told me of her life that I will remember until the day I die. Comfort enough to last a lifetime without having to imagine things that may or may not be. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/36 "2014-08-12T02:38:19Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The thing about non-existence is, you don’t _know_ that you don’t exist. ROSENCRANTZ: …Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? GUILDENSTERN: No. ROSENCRANTZ: Nor do I, really…It’s silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account that fact that one is dead…which should make all the difference… shouldn’t it? I mean, you’d never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I’d like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air. You’d wake up dead, for a start… and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That’s the bit I don’t like, frankly. That’s why I don’t think of it… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/37 "2014-08-12T02:45:23Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I agree that one’s own death is something each of us won’t be around to see (or maybe we will-- who knows?). So there is no point in worrying about that. > > Harder to bear is being with a loved one who is suffering over a period of weeks, months, or even years. Harder still if that loved one is a child. Yes, you endure it. Because you have to. Although I understand that some people do bail. At such moments, it’s human nature (IMHO) to look for something somewhere to ease your own pain, for some solace or meaning. Connection with others can help. > > But according to some of you, for some reason, existentialists can do without this sort of comfort, eh? I, for one, would be much happier if I believed that lost loved ones were still existing in some happy afterlife and I would someday meet them again and we’d all hang out for eternity. But I lack the capacity for self-delusion that such a belief would require. Faith in a loving God and a happy afterlife would be a nice thing to have but I don’t have it. I agree that one of the worst things a person can suffer in a lifetime is the loss of other people - especially when you believe those people are gone forever. But the pain of that loss, like every other form of suffering, will end with my death. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/38 "2014-08-12T03:53:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I, for one, would be much happier if I believed that lost loved ones were still existing in some happy afterlife and I would someday meet them again and we’d all hang out for eternity. . . . Among all the other problems…what guarantee do we have that it would be happy? I’m thinking of Philip Jose Farmer’s “Riverworld” novels. Maybe the afterlife is just a nasty echo of this one, and the wars, rapes, murders, and hatred just keep on and on and on. Also… Well, I’m not really sure I want to see my father again. We didn’t get along too well. Can I have an afterlife where reunions are optional, and only by mutual agreement? Maybe he and I could write letters to each other for a while before we meet? So… Yeah… The very best of all possible interpretations is kind of nice… But think how much better this world could be if we all worked to make it so. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/39 "2014-08-12T07:25:43Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Existentialism seems like a useful and functional pov for dealing with life’s practical problems. But what about when facing the Big Dark Void (death, in some form or other)? This could be a terminal diagnosis-- yours or a loved one’s-- advanced age when there seems to be nothing left, the apparently deteriorating state of world affairs, especially if your or loved ones are smack in the middle of them… what do existentialists tell themselves when they wake at 3 a.m. in the dark? In a way, I can’t understand the question because it never was a comfort to me, back when I was ostensibly a believer, to think about heaven or God or religion or anything. I didn’t turn to God when the going got tough. Some portion of my brain thought I should, but I didn’t. So now, I still don’t turn to God and that portion of my brain no longer feels any weird guilt about my self-sufficiency. I don’t turn to anything for comfort. I cry or rage or sulk or try to fall back asleep with my heart pounding out of my chest. But I never really seek comfort. I just endure. These moments are pretty rare for me. Death is a bastard but, well, there it is. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264/40 "2014-08-12T08:07:00Z")
A slightly more humorous version of my answer, in musical form: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtroMS3K5zc) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-existentialists-go-for-comfort-when-the-going-gets-really-tough/695264.md?page=3)