Day 1 – LIFE IN PARENTHESES
Day 1:
Life in Parentheses
Live Like an Existentialist
Background
“Existentialist conversion should rather be compared to Husserlian reduction: let man put his will to be ‘in parentheses’ and he will thereby be brought to the consciousness of his true condition.”
– Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, Part I
The phenomenological method lies at the core of the existentialist theory of good living. Edmund Husserl famously inaugurated this method with his slogan: “To the things themselves!” Phenomenology tries to describe the way we experience things—the appearance things have for us. These descriptions are, ideally mutually intelligible––others should hear them and recognize their own experiences in them––and deep rather than shallow––they should move beyond immediate impressions towards the architectures, patterns, and conditions that help produce those impressions. Beauvoir follows Husserl in suggesting that the method of phenomenology looks like putting one’s experience “in parentheses”: that is, taking “the way things appear” as a data set and then, rather than trying to get under that appearance to “the way things are”, trying to simply understand that parenthesed experience on its own terms.
Today's Exercise
Today, you’ll try your hand at the phenomenological method. At three separate points today and immediately after or during a particular experience, find a quiet space to write for ten minutes (preferably on paper but screens will do). Spend that time simply trying to do one thing: describe the experience that just occurred. After three or four minutes, you might feel as though there’s nothing left to describe. Return to the descriptions you already gave and put them “in parentheses”: what deeper appearances, aspects, or characters hide below your initial shallow descriptions? Why did you use those words to describe, and are they in fact the right ones? What patterns or generalities of experience can you begin to glean from these descriptions?
Once you’ve completed the assigned exercise for today, click here to access the prompt for tonight’s reflection and to submit your 1-2 paragraph journal entry.