The Optimism of Existentialism

Abstract

“I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who was shot. I want to be remembered as the girl who stood up.” – Malala Yousafzai. These words of a seventeen year old girl from Pakistan who survived a targeted Taliban attack that nearly took her life, advocate for girls’ education. In 2012, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head. But she had survived and had stood again for the same cause. Her courage is unparalleled. In 2014 she won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Malala Yousafzai speaks in the true spirit of existentialism. She lives her life in its full measure and enjoys each ounce of it because she takes her own decision and her own action. She lives in it no matter what the consequences are, for she is made of courage and enthusiasm. This paper attempts to bring out the optimistic bend of existentialism that pronounces the supremacy of man over his own life. The paper speaks about the effect of war (the major disaster made by man) and its everlasting impact on the psyche of man. And it also shows the superb flexibility of man that enables him to adapt according to challenging circumstances and his fine capacity to fix those challenges.