Examples Of Transcendental Spontaneity

I have talked about how, because of the fortune teller’s spotless record, the people receiving her fortunes would live their lives exactly the way they were always meant to. By this, I mean that in world with a fixed construct of existence everything a person does is exactly what they were meant to, including going and seeing the mythical fortune teller. But how then would that affect the individual? Would they be able to continue living their lives authentically and in what Sartre would call “good faith”? Sartre says, “Transcendental consciousness is an impersonal spontaneity. It determines its existence at each instance, without our being able to conceive anything before it” (Friedman 89). A person who does not like the details of their death …show more content…
Let us revisit the case where a person chooses to try to change the outcome of their death. The amount of resistance it would take for a person to live their lives inauthentically just to try to change how they will die would be tremendous. At some point, it would be logical to conclude that they would come to realize all their actions would still converge to the same outcome. And at that time they would ponder if it was really worth trying to stop. They would come to realize that, because of their resistance to the way they are trying to live their life, they are trying to create a more authentic death by living a less authentic life. A paradox, to be sure, but even if it were possible, would an authentic death be more valuable than an authentic life? Kierkegaard believed that, “An existing individual is constantly in the process of becoming” (Friedman 115). With this respect, receiving the premonition from the fortune teller would become another event that would help the individual in the process of becoming. They will come to realize that any way they choose to live their life is exactly the way they should be living their life. It would not matter what the person thought of the premonition, the conclusion that they can live their lives more spontaneously would come either way. The act of receiving the premonition would not make a person less authentic at all. It …show more content…
Because of the implication of a Creator and a fixed construct of existence, everything that a person who were to receive her premonitions would do nothing differently than they should be doing. They were always meant to receive her premonition, and were always meant to die in the way that she describes. The knowledge of their deaths would also do no harm to a person’s authenticity. On the contrary, the knowledge of how their lives will end would encourage them to live more authentically, regardless of how they felt about the inevitable