EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE

TOUCH DIGITAL VERSION CHRYSSA VELISSARIOU 2014

I know I am not

Important

I never will be

And I do not wish to be

I came and I'll go

Everyday

Arrives to a little death

Everyday is

a short living

I used not to

sleep

I wanted perhaps

not to stop

living

but that way I

never met the morrow

Well now

I will SLEEP

I will dare to sleep

And forget everything

As if I were

a newborn baby

I do not need nor the past

neither memories

I will be perhaps too alone

though I should not

I know you love me...

But I did not find

the one yet who

will love ME

for what I am

not for what I become for him

I thought you were the one

Perhaps I was wrong 

I do not know

The thing is

If you love ME

you will find the way to reach me

I tried hard

I won't try more

I've lost myself

I must find him again

I was the one

who should love ME first

as I am

I do not think I did

I have my other half life 

one more chance

just to try

I won't let myself die

without daring this try

I do not know

if and when I'll find you again

in my new life

Thank you for making me 

Aware of all this

By ignoring me

I was too attached to your being

I almost forgot

who I was...

Anyway I stopped searching myself

devoted to the quest of you

This is your job

If you'll need help or love

you know where to find me

In fact I've never moved any single inch

away from you

I even will sleep now just by you...

But I won't try to touch you again

I dare to wait 

If this is worthy for you

you WILL take the initiative to 

reach me by yourself

I am sure I did already 

too many steps towards you

in my life before sleeping...

Other way

I will never remember 

anything

I will accept you were

one more mistake I must avoid

to experience again

because it 

puts my existence in danger.

NOTE: Essence in this case refers to the ancient philosophical idea (most closely associated with Plato) that all things have a predefined, ideal set of characteristics. For instance, the Essence of a chair is that it has four legs, a back, and people sit on it.

However, not everything matches its Essence. You might have a chair with three legs, or a broken back, or that no one sits on. The actual details of a particular chair make up its Existence.

The idea that Existence precedes Essence is that –for human beings –there is no predefined pattern that we must fit into. We live our lives, and that in turn defines what we truly are, not any idealized set of characteristics. This idea is the heart of Sartre’s version of Existentialism.

The implications are that we must create our own meaning, place our own value on our acts, and that our individual freedom is absolute and unbounded.

As a side note, Sartre, although an atheist, gave what I consider to be one of the best ever descriptions of God, as the “Union of Existence and Essence”, meaning that God is the full Existential realization of every perfect, ideal or Essential attribute of God. Sartre, of course, described that as an impossibility, but it is also a good description of what a believer believes God to be.(SOURCE: http://yes.kitoba.com/2010/10/existence-precedes-essence/)