The 83 Most Existential Memes
Can we ever get enough memes ?
In addition to creating existential videos on a YouTube channel (see here), I’ve also been asked to moderate a couple existential groups on social media.
So I’ve seen some excellent stuff.
Right now I’m reading The Stage on Life’s Way, which does get into some very deep (very detailed !!) aspects of existentialism, but with a meme, you got to get in and get out.
Unlike life itself, these critters are very digestable. Or you can quickly digest how indigestable they are, in the absurd sense.
To make it on this list, the meme had to have at least 50 reactions. A couple had around 45 and there were two they I just couldn’t stand leaving off of this list. How’s that for having a non systematic way of scoring these guys?
Okay, without further ado, let’s start with number 83.
Number 83 — Stating “Reality”
This one speaks to the way people are ashamed of their opinions and then try to disguise them as something other than their opinion.
Which is indistinguishable from having less than an opinion.
Number 82 — Differences
I run into a lot of people on social media who say things like “good and evil are just two sides of the same coin”.
Nope, not true.
Everyone could be a farmer and live off their own crops. Not everyone could be a thief. There wouldn’t end up being anything to steal.
See Kant.
There are clear choices in life, and they are not going to make themselves.
Number 81 — Consciousness Is Not A Skill
There’s a lot of interest in consciousness, and how it can’t be explained scientifically.
Well okay, yes. That’s worth looking at (see below), but let’s never confuse a streaming river of sense perceptions that comes running into our brain for an understanding of what we have chosen to live by.
That takes choice.
“Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you.” As Sartre puts it.
Number 80
Unlimited ambition and thirst for acquisition is not an expression of decisive living.
Decisive living says: “this matters to me more than that”.
It’s time for us to make up our minds.
Number 79
Humanly speaking, there are a lot of things in the physical world that could seem to bring us assurance (on one level), but these streams never truly satisfy.
Number 78
The more intently you seek the approval of others, the less you understand why you are living your own life.
Number 77
I think people reach for the banner of “don’t hurt others” when they want to get the broadest number of people to agree with them.
But no one is talking about how not hurting others brought them to life or brought them out of despair.
Number 76
I find it sad that a lot of people miss out on the assurance of yielding to those who people have been determined to be in authority.
Of course, it’s also terrible to look to authority to live your life for you. Even heaven isn’t going to do that for you.
Number 75
A lot of people are passing out the truths that just come flying into their brains and not the ones they have treasured and stored deep within.
Number 74
I see a great many people on social media saying that their mediocrity keeps them away from committing villainies, so snoozing their life away is somehow an achievement of greatness.
No it isn’t.
Wake up.
Those villains are going to find more meaning in their lives than the people who completely check out from life.
Consider what Kierkegaard said about how demons are more spiritual than the people who live in mediocrity.
Number 73
Science is just a fancy way of judging by appearances.
Don’t confuse that with greatness.
Number 72
Sad that people only allow themselves to find as much meaning as the text book writers allow them to :(
At a certain point it stops being the fault of the text book writers.
Number 71
Kierkegaard gives us a solid reminder in Fear and Trembling that while earthly goods and treasures occasionally go to those who do not deserve them, inward treasure does not.
And this is his prelude to discussing faith.
Number 70
Kierkegaard wrote in a letter to his friend about how passions transcend feelings.
Yet here in this era we content ourselves with feelings.
Or we call ourselves “content” anyway.
Number 69
There’s something greatly dishonest about how the people who claim to be without bias are the ones burning down the world with their (disguised) opinion.
Number 68
When you are unable to see with your human eyes people that continue living after death, then you need spiritual eyes to see it.
Number 67
A big part of the obsession with looking to the government for everything is the mandate people feel obliged to grow safety to new levels, often at the expense of personal freedom.
It’s worth reminding ourselves about the cost behind everything we do.
Number 66
When someone explains a joke to you, it’s less funny. So too when someone chews your food for you. How much moreso when someone else tells you that something matters and you just go along with it?
Number 65
The promises of rationality are broad and shallow.
Do what matters to you in the deepest sense.
Number 64
I don’t feel like we understand tyranny because we just see the political dimension of it, and not the way people treat their own lives like despots.
But this one works on several levels.
Number 63
This is a good little reminder to have from time to time.
Some times the crowd favors something because it works on the surface, and often times the surface is the only place it works.
Don’t just by appearances !
Number 62
A big part of understanding a super hero is digging into their back story.
Like how Bruce Wayne learned how to overcome the deceit of riches when he lost something that truly mattered to him (his parents).
In the same way, your backstory (and what you do with it) is tightly related to God. Who can truly say they were made without him or have nothing to learn from His perfect ways ?
Number 61
If people were willing to see how their own choices have shaped their lives, they would feel less disconnected from their own lives.
Number 60
If you swat all the truth out of your life, don’t be surprised if you are left with nothing.
Number 59
Kurt Gödel proved that there are an infinite number of unproveable truths.
Which means insisting on proof is necessarily going to separate you from a lot of truth.
Learn more about Gödel here.
Number 58
There’s a lot of superficial reasons to make good choices, sure.
There’s also a lot of deep and profound reasons to make good choices.
Number 57
Nieztsche had some good wake up material for the 19th century, but this quote that he is most celebrated for is hardly existential in the way people think he meant it OR in the way he probably did.
Suppose God became unpopular in Germany in the 1800s. So what ? What kind of a death is it to become unpopular ? It isn’t. Existentially speaking, siding with the crowd is a liability.
What is existential about God (somehow) dying or disappearing or whatever ? No one can explain it to me.
Number 56
There’s a sad side to the lives of most comedians, so I will permit their art as long as they can succeed in reminding us how much vanity steers the world.
Number 55
College professors are saying any time you say “ought” or “should” you are imposing a belief in God on people.
And that this is judging people.
And those professors should be asked if people should not do that.
If they say “yes” they shouldn’t do that, then aren’t they breaking their own rule ?
If they say “no” it’s fine to do that, then the professors who say this have permitted us to disregard them.
Number 54
Doesn’t this sound like a description of the world that captures 99% of its activity ?
Maybe 100% of what I see on the streaming options out there.
Number 53
“Politically correct” truth is just the “wisdom” of the herd.
Allow yourself to be personal about how you live.
Number 52
People go so hard on others and so easy on themselves.
We should always keep in mind our own shortcomings and failures.
More on entitled thinking below.
Number 51
When I was a kid, I thought being wild was so great and awesome.
And it does prevail over the dead formalisms that society has to offer us.
On the other hand, a wild person has very little say in their own life.
Number 50
It’s very easy to go from one day to the next without confronting what it means to live or what one is after.
This is why reflection and self examination were so critical for Kierkegaard.
Do you insist on them?
Number 49
Frequently when I challenge people to examine and commit to their ideals regardless of what the crowd says that gets spot analyzed with psycho babel about how that’s socio pathic or whatever.
Life has far more to offer than fitting in with society.
If you want to hear from a solid psychologist, check out Dr. Jordan Peterson.
Or Søren Kierkegaard.
Number 48
Water (and epistemology), looked at in three different ways.
Just like how there are different ways of viewing and living your life.
Number 47
Insisting on proof is something people do when they want the truth to be forced on them.
And even then, they don’t actually want the truth. They just want license to live in conflict with themselves.
Number 46
I don’t think people understand how unscientific meaning is.
Value is a profoundly subjective quality.
And how would you measure meaning scientifically ? What would the units be ?
Pounds per square foot ? Or kilo somethings ? Or what ?
Life doesn’t come out of a labratory. It comes from living it.
Number 45
I often see people affirm the practice of selling out and checking out from life on the basis of how we don’t have any say in it.
You don’t have any say in your own life if you don’t say anything to yourself in your own life (and live it out).
Number 44
People worship the approval of others so much in this generation, and it’s more pitiful than any of the other false religions out there.
A house of horrors.
Number 43
I find it difficult to swallow how Nietzsche is looked to as an icon of human freedom while denying that humans could or should practice moral freedoms for themselves.
At least in his criticism of evolution, he understood that nobody improves by slumping with the species en masse.
Number 42
Instead of all these little pathetic coping mechanisms for goods and services to “enhance” our lives, they should start making good choices personally.
Number 41
Hopefully Carl Sagan was trying to do more than become an icon for mediocrity, but I’m not sure he offered us more to see of himself than this.
Number 40
Entitled thinking has been a problem for many millenia, and a problem that creates problems deep, deep inside.
Number 39
Do you want to be a deep person ? Then find your deepest longings, and stick with them even if the world disagrees.
Number 38
I feel a great amount of sorrow for people whose highest expectation in life is nothing more than getting laid or having many friends.
Number 37
People apply higher levels of verification for the stuff they don’t like.
Number 36
This is the note the Stoics played all the time, and I have never gotten tired of hearing them do this.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this motivated Descartes Meditations and all of modern philosophy.
Number 35
If the first thing you reach for is a laugh, don’t be surprised if your life becomes a joke to you.
Number 34
Bertrand Russell actually said he would tell God that there wasn’t enough evidence to believe in Him.
Which reminds me of what Job said he would tell God, or when criminals tell each other what they would or would not say to the police.
But in the hour of confrontation, vanity goes flying out the window and the truth is unmasked.
“God will not be mocked.”
Number 33
Reminds me of how Kierkegaard said “God desires primitivity”, a theme you can find throughout the Bible.
“God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise.”
Number 32
An overeducated generation thinks they are superior because of their many reasons, and then they wonder why nothing seems to matter to them.
This meme didn’t do very well on social media, but it has tremendous significance to me personally so I not only included it, but ranked it higher than many of the other ones.
Number 31
How much do you want your influences to control you ?
Because that’s how much they will control you.
Number 30
Just because someone pitches something to you, doesn’t mean you are innocent of going along with it.
Number 29
Widespread are the voices on social media claiming that science can explain everything.
When the truth is there are many things it has bet it would solve in a small number of days, and many decades later it has found it hasn’t even started !
See this story if you haven’t heard about this bet with a scientist about consciousness.
Number 28
A lot of people play the odds in games where the odds are zero.
Be careful about how you identify your ideals.
Number 27
The thing about pleasure, existentially speaking, is that it happens often when one chooses it or not.
Pleasure is not wrong, but it is passive.
And you can’t derive meaning from anything passive.
Meaning is a choice.
Number 26
Reasons and syllogisms can become quite lengthy and difficult to move around in.
Number 25
Don’t let the good life escape because you thought you were too good for it.
Number 24
The consolations of the world always seem so impersonal to me.
You can have it better than that !
Even if you and I don’t deserve it.
Number 23
To be spineless for Kierkegaard is to limp around bending all over the place instead of standing upright.
And while that would be considered a deformity in the realm of physical health, it is considered highly desirable by society.
Number 22
If you never impose yourself into your own life, no one else will impose a personal existence into it.
Number 21
“Evidence” comes from the word “evident”, which is the same thing as “apparent” and inseparable from “appearances”.
Don’t judge by appearances.
The inner world is more sure than our perceptions of the external world.
Number 20
Solomon warned us about people who don’t want to do anything and justify it by saying if they try going outside a lion might eat them.
In the same way, passive, indecisive living is no kind of alternative for taking a chance.
Number 19
I see so many failures in life that can be attributed to people thinking they look bad or are going to be met with opposition and so they try to give up prematurely.
Do the things you have confidence in, and you won’t sabotage your own life.
Number 18
Your parents weren’t perfect.
Your teachers weren’t perfect.
But they didn’t force you to make any failures.
And it they pressured you to, you could have resisted.
Don’t blame your choices on other people.
Number 17
This author frequently wrote some of the best books of all time. I consider him to be an existential hero.
Whether it was his Wayside Story books or the movie Holes, this guy had a lot of things figured out that most people don’t because they want to be perceived as intelligent adults.
Number 16
People ask for proof before doing things they don’t like.
But you can’t live any kind of a life without taking risks.
Come on.
Number 15
Oh the reasons people carry to be cynics.
Those reasons can quickly become terrible burdens !
Number 14
When the ancient Spartans said “to know yourself” …
And when Shakespeare said “to thine own self be true and thou shalt lie to no man”
They weren’t saying it would be easy.
But you have to admit, it is simple.
Number 13
Stop trying to conform to others and start living out what matters to you.
Number 12
Kierkegaard wrote a lot about how dreadful (and wonderful) it is to be transparent with yourself, and he warned us about how his age settles for bad lifestyles and then obscures this from themselves.
Don’t get caught up into this trap !
Number 11
Such a simple, yet astonishing command.
This picture was taken in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the unversity there. The young, good looking people there were like, “What is that old guy doing trotting his many children through here for?”
Number 10
Full disclosure : I am a Christian.
And I don’t feel like I need to hide that any more than any other organization out there needs to avoid persuading others to their cause.
I find that society is always, always in a hurry. Like they are in a rush to escape the realization of who they are personally.
Time to slow down and reflect on life.
Jesus promises rest for our souls.
Study your thoughts to see if they are an advantage for you.
Number 9
It’s easy to condemn someone else without realizing how dearly we each wish to escape the condemnation we deserve.
This understanding is necessary to have an existing self that is not in conflict with itself.
Number 8
Might sound easy to be at peace with yourself, but this simple goal is rarely achieved.
Number 7
You can commit to a long term goal and succeed with it as long as you are living in the present and take it day by day.
That isn’t a deception about living in the future.
Putting off the Good is a deception about living in the future.
Number 6
A lot of people try to understand life by deferring to their feelings.
And then when they get overwhelmed their feelings are obviously unreliable and it’s hard to see what good their feelings are.
But that’s when a person’s spirit begins to unveil itself.
If you want to understand life, sometimes it helps to go to the edge.
Number 5
People frequently focus on how good the things outside themselves are.
And they are quick to forget, you only have control over yourself.
Number 4
This is the meme I have on speed dial every time someone tells me about how they have reasons for keeping their standards low.
Number 3
Is the latest information about the properties of quarks or the most far flung galaxies something that builds you up ?
If not, then how meaningfully can you call it “truth” ?
Number 2
If you’ve never read the story about Jesus and the woman at the well, then check it out.
He’s not offering a new understanding about how we can relate to dismissed minorities.
He’s promising life. Life that isn’t trying to erase itself like so many in this mental health crisis we find ourselves in and perpetuate ourselves in.
Number 1
This is my all time favorite.
The artist who made this (Jozsef Borsos) painting (entitled The Artists Dream) pulled off something amazing : he developed the skills of a commensurate painter and then proceeded to subjugate his entire field to the perspective of children.
I use it to remind myself about how the absurd triumphs over the plans of men.
Okay ! That’s all for now. Thanks for taking a tour of these memes with me.
Want to see these memes in a video ? Check it out on YouTube here.
