.begin by talking about the kind of existentialist chaos that exists in our own lives and our inability to overcome the sense of alienation and frustration we experience when we try to create bonds of intimacy and solidarity with one another. Now part of this frustration is to be understood again in relation to structures and institutions. In the way in which our culture of consumption has promoted an addiction to stimulation - one that puts a premium on packaged and commodified stimulation. The market does this to convince us that our consumption keeps oiling the economy for it to reproduce itself. But the effect of this addiction to stimulation is an undermining, a waning of our ability for qualitatively rich relationships. Cornel West
About This Quote

In his book Existentialism and Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, "Before we can break with the world we exist in we must try to understand it and see it as it is, and this is difficult since we are immersed in it and its meanings and values seem to us to be objective." Sartre believed that there was no simple way out of the problems that plague us as human beings. He said that we must try to understand the world as it is and as it appears to us. If we continue to live as though the world were just as it appears, then we will continue to experience existential angst. This angst is inevitable because we will always feel disconnected from what we perceive as reality.

The only way out of this problem is for us to become aware of our alienation and frustration and see them as part of life's reality. Only then will we be able to deal with our reality like a grown-up instead of like a child.

Source: Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life

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