You will prepare and submit a term paper on The Whole Idea of Existence. Your paper should be a minimum of 1250 words in length. All of a sudden, they existed, and then, all of a sudden, they no longer existed: I slumped on the bench, dazed, stunned by that profusion of beings without origin: bloomings, blossomings everywhere, my ears were buzzing with existence, my very flesh was throbbing and opening, abandoning itself to the universal burgeoning, it was repulsive. (Sartre, p., 190).
The context of this quotation stems from Sartre’s effort to understand existence when he was struggling with a physical problem of nausea. As he lay down and began to contemplate the universe, things, surroundings, and the general environment around him, the true idea of existence began to dawn on him. According to him, “All of sudden they existed, and then, all of a sudden, they no longer existed” (Sartre, p. 190). This represents the bulb moment when Sartre realized that all he had thought about the universe, and existence was actually limited to his thinking and perception. From this realization, Sartre understood that understanding existence begins when we stop seeing the world through a specific focal lens in which we define it ourselves. For example, he began to see the diversity of existence by just looking at the inanimate objects around but by trying to understand everything from an open mind full of possibilities.
Although understanding existence is difficult for the common man, existence is superfluous. This implies there exist billions of relations between physical and non-physical entities that collectively make up the universe. However, each one of us defines existence based on a personal perspective. For instance, we are aware of human existence and the physical infrastructure around us. However, existence is much more than what we can perceive with our five common senses. From Sartre’s bulb moment on superfluous existence, it can be argued that existence, .existence just like the universe, is infinite.
