The Existential Election
The election passed, and many of us spent the last few days processing what this means for us. Articles were written, Instagram stories were posted, friends were called, therapists were unloaded too. Whatever your politics, there was strong emotion around this election. And with the deepening polarization in our country, these emotions seem to get stronger every time we have an election. Was Kerry vs Bush in 2004 seen as an existential choice around the future of our country the way the last few elections have been presented?
As a therapist, it’s not my professional role, or expertise, to delve into the externalities of these societal changes. What I am more interested in is how my clients respond and process these events in a way that can offer some perspective, and draw on the forces of support, resilience or optimism that lie within them. How can we make some here and now meaning and purpose in the face of external events, and act accordingly. The word existential comes to mind again in a different sense, that of a philosophical and psychological approach to being. It is a difficult approach to sum up concisely, but I defer to the following quote from Viktor Frankl:
“Everything can be taken from man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitudes in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”
Frankl was writing from personal experience in a Nazi concentration camp, where he observed the even in the gravest, most brutal and dehumanizing circumstances that there were still choices available to people and he saw the contrast between those that gave up in the face of this, and those that still managed to hold on to even the faintest shred of meaning and optimism.
Last week many folks have felt disheartened, scared, pessimistic, and other negative emotions in the aftermath of this election. Zooming out from the election, modern life has uprooted us from the natural world, traditions and anchors that have long supported us, and it can feel disorientating, and sometimes lacking in meaning or purpose. Those feelings should be processed in the ways that feel appropriate for you. They are part of our human experience. But it may be beneficial to invite some existential thoughts into your processing. Life sends us challenges and we have choices of how to respond and make meaning out of them. We have a responsibility to question how to live in a valuable or authentic way in our environment. And ultimately, that we are here for a finite time, and that this awareness can allow us to appreciate more greatly the present moment, whatever the challenges we may be presented with.
