Existential Cry!
Are we supposed to ebb and flow like the ocean tides? Live a repetitious life and follow the patterns etched out by all other living things? Are we so animal that we live and die with only survival as our goal? I'm really terrified that this must be true? In my Utopian dreams, I truly believed that something unfamiliar might lead the world into
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Existential "angst" is a definately a thing we all must face (some sooner than others); according to the major existentialists (Kierkagaard, Sartre, De Bauvoir, Heidegger, Nietzsche) we have an opportunity in life to become self-aware (a difficult task indeed) by reflecting (including on our own mortality). This is a positive thing (although unsettling - as your post alludes to). Most of these thinkers think that by CONSCIOUSLY making choices, we are exhibiting our freedom as individuals (true freedom - which must originate from awareness). Of course, most of this is only useful to ponder on an individual level; the global problems which we now face are admittedly a constant frustration (where to start? environmental catastrophe, nuclearization? or extreme inequalities?) But even Camus (the one who thought of daily existence as pushing up a rock to a mountain only to watch it fall down every night and push it up again the following day) claimed that there was reason to live out ones life - although to him everything was meaningless. Jaspers was a more positive one; he said that we all face certain stressful border situations and must help one another attach meaning to them and move on ("the elucidation of existence"). I realize that this is going off on a bit of a tangent and it would really be useful if you had the chance to read some of their ideas on your own (but the disease of our age (as my philosophy prof puts it) is overwork -so I understand if you don't have much time.
You comment about being merely animal and having to focus on survival...Aristotle argues that true (lasting) happiness is a life in accord with virtue through contemplating the mean (middle) (living a balanced life basically and excericising human rationality. He would likely reject the animal suggestion. Be strong and hang in there!!!
-S
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