existence before essence..
I opened with the question, what is knowledge. Why are we so concerned with the meaning of things? Knowledge is ambigious, it is "we" the individual that give life its meaning. So what is true knowledge? I say that knowledge of self, no matter how hard it is to attain, is the most important discovery that a person can make. Because if we give the universe it's essential meaning, then what better way to understand the universe than to understand ourselves?
We must take ahold of our individualism, and let it cry out as if it were a bell. But, because of social pressure, most individualism is rejected by people in favor of conformity. When we give up ourself for the sake of others we the individuals rely mainly on the deeds of others and forget the meaning of our own person life. Our lives become meaningless, and we fall into the existential vacuum.
What we must also understand is that in most cases nothing can explain or rationalize human existance. Often times there is no answer to "why am i?" Humans exist in a meaningless world, an irrational universe and any search to derive meaning from it will lead to personal anguish.
We are free creatures, free to make choices, it is the greatest gift man has ever been given, and the worst curse to ever be set on him. Unlike most speices in our world we have complete free will, and only we can make our own choices, and by that we are totally free, but we are sadly limited because with every choice we make we must also accept full responsibility for it. We have to make choices, and in the end most of those choices will bring with them negative ramifications.
But with the constant distractions of the world we lose sight of the true us, and thereby commit ourselves to live lies, pre-reflexive lived lives, living for the sake of living, as if to adhere to some unattainable social norm.
Jon