“The aim of life is self development”

Oscar Wilde

The function of existential thinking is the essence of philosophy, which is to get to the truth, to know thyself, and of course the unexamined life is not worth living. We can see the influence of existential thinking, in literature, music, poetry, art (painting and sculptures) and even in film. Such is the example I put forth- in the movie I Heart (heart spelled with an actual heart shape) Huckabees by director David Russell. The movie shows two characters in existential crisis, whom have made the choice to hire existential detectives to help them solve this problem. The two protagonist’s lives have lost meaning, and they are feeling the existential absurd. The detectives help the main characters through their crises, as detectives that could easily be confused with existential psychotherapists. After all what is a detective but someone who helps you to find something out, and these detectives help the characters find something out about being in the world, life, and about themselves.

In the opening scene of the movie we have the protagonist Albert Markovski pontificating about his existential dilemmas as we hear him asking (in internal monologue) “What am I doing?” “I don’t know what I’m doing… I’m doing the best I can” “Is it hopeless to try and change things?” He is an environmental activist/poet who is trying to save a marsh, and he wonders if his efforts are doing any good. He is frustrated following a cause beyond normal conventions- which lead him to start questioning the meaning of his cause, and the meaning of his life.

He states, (a bit crassly perhaps), an existential feeling that comes over us sometimes “I’m fucked… Maybe I should quit”. But he vacillates again telling himself not to quit. Albert is concerned with the question of nothingness. This opening scene is analogous to the individual’s dialogue with himself. At the beginning we are nothing and in death we are nothing. Existence is a task, with all human possibilities, but we will never reach these possibilities- so the existentialist, (as well as Albert) is left disillusioned at never being able to reach all these possibilities, leaving us again at nothing. He is thrown back at himself.

Once thrown back at himself Albert starts to feel the absurd, or what Sartre calls anguish. Albert feels this anguish out of his freedom. He is the one who has chosen to fight these battles for the environment. Without an ethics to fall back on (such as God) he is now responsible for his actions. As Sartre says, “Man is nothing else than his plan; he exist only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life” (Sartre, 32). As Albert has fully devoted himself to this cause, he is now scared at what he has been unable to accomplish.

The existential detectives take on a very existential psychoanalytical approach. Sartre tells us that every human has an a prior knowledge of his own existence, and can reach them if guided with some help.  They tell Albert that they will spy on every thing he does to learn about his situation. Albert ask the detectives if they will spy on him even in the bathroom, to which the response is: “There is nothing to small… We might see you floss your teeth or masturbate that could be the key to your entire reality.” Which directly correlates to what Sartre tells us “…man is a totality not a collection. Consequently he expresses himself as a whole in even his most insignificant and his most superficial behavior. In other words there is not a taste, a mannerism, or a human act which is not revealing.” (Sartre, 68)

The other protagonist in the story is going through the same crisis of meaninglessness. Tommy Corn is a fire fighter who is left wondering the meaning of life after 9/11. He is torn between his ethics on world problems, and confused by the meaninglessness of his existence. He rides a bike because he doesn’t want to pollute the air, but then wonders: if there is no meaning in life, then why does it matter if he uses a car that pollutes the air. His wife leaves him and he lets her go. He would rather ask the questions of existence, than live badly. He is an example of existence precedes essence, while his estranged wife is the example of the opposite. This shows Tommy’s commitment to existence. We begin to be when we begin to define ourselves. And while he has yet to figure out the answers to his questions of being, he has at least begun to question that being. By so doing he begins to realize the anguish of his freedom. The weight of the world that rest on his shoulders, by the decisions he makes (use a car, fighting fires, going to the detectives, letting his wife leave, etc…) He does not consider himself a hero for fighting fires. He is living with Sartre’s question in mind, “Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?” (Sartre, 20). Tommy Corn is beyond a hero in our modern day vernacular- by living in questioning his choices, and by then standing behind his choices- he becomes an existential hero for Albert to look up to. 

We see how the characters of the movie, throughout the movie slowly come to realize the responsibility of there choice, and of making there life. At the start they are both complaining about the life they have chosen. And, as Sartre tells us: “It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.” (Sartre, 53) Albert has an outburst at the detective’s office, blaming them for interfering in his job situation. But if Albert would take responsibilities for the choices he has made within his job, he would not be on thin ice in his job. Albert is about to get kicked out of the activist coalition he started, and instead of taking responsibility for the actions he has chosen that will lead to him being barred; he blames other people and surrounding situations. But, as Sartre tells us, “Thus there are no accidents in a life.” (Sartre, 54)

Albert essentially deserves the events that have befallen him. He chose to bring in outside help, who has now deposed him. It was his free choice to decide to fight this battle. He could always leave this coalition and start a new one, he could step back and hope that the new leader of the activist group does a good job, and if the new leader doesn’t, Albert could easily resume power. Albert is the foundation of his being. It is now his choice to live with his decisions and accept them. Albert begins to flee his anguish in bad faith. Albert is not ready to accept the responsibility of his freedom. It is Albert whom Sartre had in mind when he wrote: “I am abandoned in the world, not in the sense that I might remain abandoned and passive in a hostile universe like a board floating on the water, but rather in the sense that I find myself suddenly alone and without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.” (Sartre, 57).       

Sartre goes on to tell us that the method of finding this truth is comparative as each individual is different. We see this in the movie in the way the detectives go about gathering information on all their clients, and in the way they ask their clients to do things to help themselves reach some form of understanding. They teach Albert how to “deconstruct” his identity through meditation. They send Tommy a controversial book, and tell him that they would have never sent him the book. They put Tommy in a room with a chanting Andalusian widow. They tell another character to write poetry. And while they put Albert and Tommy together as each others- other; they never put some of their other clients together with an other.

Sartre explains the components of existential analysis, which unlike empirical psychoanalysis, is about finding the choice one makes. There is no subconscious in existentialism the way we see it in Freudian thought.  There are no symbols in existential analysis; we must be ready to forget these symbols and remember that they represent different things to different beings. As one’s own interpretation of life is the valid form to gain understanding of ones own life. The existential is constantly making his own meaning, and choosing his own life- unlike a Freudian, who imposes the meaning on the symbols of his life.

The characters reach a better understanding of themselves through themselves. With the friendship they have started they have grown and have come to understand their situation better. “… we reach our own self in the presence of others, and the others are just as real to us as our own self.” “In order to get any truth about myself, I must have contact with another person. The other person is indispensable to my own existence, as well as to my knowledge about myself.” (Sartre, 37-38)

Along with the help of the detectives, and through the bond they share with each other, constantly helping each other to reach a better understanding of themselves through the other.

In the end the characters realize that they must give the meaning to their life through the choices they make. That life is a self projecting project, and that they are constantly forging on with every choice that is made. They have learned that their destiny is within themselves. The self projecting project, and it is not what they are- it is not the past, but what they are yet to be. The future is what matters, and the choices that will be made to define their existence.

Works Sited:

Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism and Human Emotion. New York. Citadel Press. 1957, 1985

God is not dead but alive and well and working on a far less ambitious project."

Anonymous