was taking a shower, and while I
was conversing with his wife in
their handsome living-room, he
kept crying out through the down–
pour of the shower: "Say, you
know it's mighty lonesome in
here." He wanted me to visit with
him and keep him company (note
the
aloneness
of the human situa–
tion as depicted by the existential–
ists), to converse with him. Con–
sequently, after he had shouted
his fourth appeal for my company,
I had to go in and point out to
him that we would have to shout
at each other because of the noise
of the shower and we shouted
at each other often enough for
more justifiable reasons.
In the upper class, as is well
known, it is customary (I am told
by friends who have soared to these
circles at times ho, ho!) to take at
least two baths a day, while in the
lower middle class and working
class this is less true, an observa–
tion I bring forward to show how
important social and economic
factors are, or, as the existentialists
say, how all being is being-in-the–
world, although they seem to think
that the social and economic as–
pects of being-in-the-world are not
so important as I am forced to
think they are. Of course, some
of the existentialists may have
changed their minds during the
second World War and . the re–
cent so-called peace.
The real difficulty in explaining
what existentialism means flows
1363
from the basis of this philosophy,
a basis which can be summarized
in the following proposition:
Hu–
man beings exist.
They have an
existence which is human and thus
different from that of stones, trees,
animals, cigar store Indians, and
numerous human beings who are
trying their best not to exist or not
to be human.
If
you are really human, if you
really exist as a human being, you
have no need of any explanation
of existence or existentialism. In
the meantime, the best thing to do
is to keep on reading explanations
of existentialism and existence.
Delmore Schwartz
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