To Condemn Inaction

About halfway through Waiting for Godot, Estragon states, "Don't let's do anything. It's safer." Theodore Roosevelt said, "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."The notion that inaction is a solution even in the slightest sense is completely heinous, which is where I find my flaw in existentialism.

Humanity, as a race, has always been discontent. It is that discontent that drives us farther and leads us to incredible discoveries. Last night, watching the Kennedy Center Honors, Meryl Streep stated about Sting that he always looked "scowly," but that was due to his incredible innovation. He is never content just to accept his existence and achievement as it is, and that is why he is the best at what he does. The idea that there is no end game or meaning for him is notwithstanding- the meaning is created in the journey.

Any that would argue that the actions of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., or even Maya Angelou were voided by their death and ended in nothing would be wrong.

Embracing existence in nothingness and embracing death are two entirely different things; existentialism is defined so that there is no purpose or explanation and that the only way to counteract this nothingness is to embrace it. I defer: the only way to counteract the chaos of existence is to embrace chaos and act anyway.

The notion of embracing existence is a demotivator- those who believe they will not succeed and "accept their existence" will be as thus. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who work for what they want and stop at nothing to succeed will eventually and in most cases do so! If children entering high school were taught this, there would be no mobility within the tracking system. Kids in academic and CP would accept their existence and have no drive to reach higher! It does not mean all of them will succeed, but having tried is better than having done nothing at all. The same goes for the socioeconomic status in the States, especially. More often than not, kids who exist in inner city schools believe that they have no chance to achieve mobility of their status, and they don't know any different from their parents. They are content to drop out, get pregnant, and God knows what else. I am not at all saying that all kids will succeed if they believe they can- that is, sadly, unrealistic. But a high degree of mobility could be achieved in self fulfilling prophecy if the idea of "accepting existence" was not a notion that people had.