… Beyond Eastrod Redux: A most unusual Trinity: Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, and God.
I'm no fan of Sartre. Being and Nothingness is one of the worst books I have ever read. Cheap imitation Heidegger (not that bottled-in-bond Heidegger is much better). And isn't No Exit where we are told that "Hell is other people"? What a charming thought. I studied existential phenomenology under my Jesuit mentor Father Gannon. It has been a formative influence on me throughout my life.
But unlike Sartre's phony notion of creating oneself ex nihilo, my existential project has been to conform as best I can to whatever God's intention was in creating. Regrettably, I don't think I've done anywhere near as much as I could in fulfilling that project. But I do keep trying.
Satre's sin was pride, after all. I understand what he meant when he said that about hell being other people, as interactions with people can often feel like an eternal damnation, but then pride is also my sin. At least I know it's a sin and can work on it.
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