On Being and Becoming

What does it mean to truly live your own life—to make meaning where there seems to be none, to shape yourself out of freedom and uncertainty? Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei’s On Being and Becoming: An Existentialist Approach to Life reawakens these questions, showing how the philosophy of existentialism can be more than an abstract theory—it can be a profound guide for living deliberately, creatively, and authentically in a modern world that often feels chaotic or meaningless.

Existentialism, as the author explains, begins not from theory but from the vantage point of individual existence—from you as a thinking, feeling, finite being navigating your one life without a prewritten script. Drawing on thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus, Gosetti-Ferencei invites readers into a philosophical conversation about what it means to exist, to choose, to love, and to create meaning where none is given in advance.

Existence Without Instructions

The book opens by reminding you of the daunting but liberating condition of the human being: existence comes with no manual. You have only one finite life, and its decisions cannot be outsourced or rehearsed in advance. Each of us, Gosetti-Ferencei notes, must make sense of our time on Earth through concrete choices and creative engagement with the world. This is the starting point of existential thinking. It accepts the anxieties that accompany freedom—what Kierkegaard called “the dizziness of freedom”—and invites you to view that anxiety not as paralysis but as the vital atmosphere of human becoming.

Existentialism insists that you are not a fixed being but an ongoing becoming. Your essence is not something predetermined by nature, society, or destiny—it is continually created through the actions and commitments you make. As Nietzsche famously urged, “Become who you are.” Gosetti-Ferencei’s prose turns this paradox into a living challenge: to recognize that you are neither complete nor static, but an open horizon of possibility shaping itself in time.

Freedom, Responsibility, and the Human Condition

For existentialists, freedom is not just the absence of constraint—it is the defining feature of human existence. Sartre provocatively declared that we are “condemned to be free,” meaning that even not choosing is itself a choice, that we cannot escape the responsibility attached to our decisions. Gosetti-Ferencei shows how this freedom both empowers and burdens us. You create values through your commitments; you cannot merely borrow them. Heidegger called this awareness being-toward-death: the recognition that every life is finite, that no one can die your death for you, and therefore, that your time is uniquely yours to fill with meaning.

Yet existentialism is not merely somber reflection on mortality. For thinkers like Camus, the confrontation with life’s absurdity—the mismatch between our hunger for meaning and a universe that remains silent—can spark defiance and joy. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus imagines the hero smiling while pushing his rock uphill forever. Gosetti-Ferencei echoes this spirit of lucid affirmation: even when existence feels inexplicable, you can respond not with despair but with creative revolt.

From Philosophy to Life Practice

What makes Gosetti-Ferencei’s work stand out is its intertwining of rigorous philosophy with living practice. The book moves through four major dimensions—self, others, world, and earth—before turning to existentialism in everyday experiences: work, love, waiting, advice, technology, and creativity. Each theme is rooted in concrete life: the barista scribbling your name on a coffee cup, the scrolling of selfies on a screen, the tension between personal individuality and the crowd. These are not ordinary examples for her—they are philosophical in miniature, moments where questions of authenticity, freedom, and presence come alive.

In the digital age, where people post endless versions of themselves, Gosetti-Ferencei asks: what does it mean to be rather than merely appear? She draws on Sartre’s idea of “bad faith,” the tendency to hide from one’s own freedom by identifying too much with social roles or images. Existentialism asks you to rediscover the dignity of being an I—a conscious subject capable of transcending momentary illusions and connecting deeply with others and the world.

Why This Philosophy Matters Now

In an era marked by uncertainty, polarization, and digital distraction, Gosetti-Ferencei argues that existentialism offers tools not for escape but for more authentic engagement. It teaches you to live with open eyes—to face anxiety rather than suppress it, to care for freedom in yourself and others, and to find creative ways to respond to the absurdity of life without fleeing into distraction or conformity. Existentialism, she suggests, is an ethics of courage and imagination, demanding that each of us shape our life as a work of art, guided by clarity, commitment, and invention.

“You are not a finished being with a fixed essence, but an unfolding act of becoming.” To recognize this, Gosetti-Ferencei writes, is to live existentially—to accept freedom as both burden and possibility, and to embrace life as the creative project it always was.

Through this lens, On Being and Becoming becomes less a summary of existentialist theory than a conversation across centuries—from Socrates’s “examined life” to Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity. It is a call to perceive our ordinary lives—the waiting tables, the half-written emails, the selfies, the moments of loss and love—as opportunities for meaning-making. You emerge from Gosetti-Ferencei’s account not with a system, but with a sharper sense of freedom: that living is not about finding what already exists, but about continually becoming who you most deeply are.

Freedom is the most exhilarating and agonizing feature of human existence. In existentialist thought, you are not a puppet bound to nature, fate, or divine plan—you are a free being who must shape your own life through choices. Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei explains how existentialists frame this as both an opportunity and a moral burden: freedom without instruction means the weight of responsibility falls squarely on us.

The Condition of Radical Choice

Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous statement—“man is condemned to be free”—captures the paradox at the heart of existence: we cannot avoid making choices, even by choosing not to choose. Every decision defines who we are becoming. Even if you feel powerless under social expectations, Sartre insists you are always deciding how to respond. This recognition throws open a field of possibility and also instills what Kierkegaard called angst—the anxiety that comes from facing an open future where no outcome is guaranteed.

For example, in Sartre’s story of the student who seeks advice—should he fight the Nazis or stay with his frail mother?—Gosetti-Ferencei highlights that no ethical rule can dictate the answer. The “right” decision cannot be looked up; it must be invented in freedom. Whatever the student chooses will create his values in that act of choosing. This case transforms ethics into existential practice: values are not inherited from tradition but created in the moment of commitment.

Freedom Within Facticity

Unlike simplistic notions of “limitless freedom,” existentialism recognizes that we’re born into conditions we did not choose—what Heidegger called our “thrownness.” You did not select your era, birthplace, gender, or cultural frame, yet within these given conditions you exercise freedom. Simone de Beauvoir extends this to social identity: a woman, she argues, is “thrown” into a gendered world but can still affirm freedom through deliberate projects and revolt against imposed limitations. Similarly, Frantz Fanon exposes how racial oppression distorts the experience of freedom but does not extinguish it: even under colonialism or segregation, consciousness retains its power to affirm dignity and resistance.

In Gosetti-Ferencei’s reading, this tension between limitation and transcendence defines existence. You are never completely free from context, but you are always more than your situation. The self is a dynamic act of “going-beyond”—the moment you recognize that freedom can begin even where the world tries to define you.

Authenticity and the Courage to Choose

Freedom is meaningless without responsibility. Sartre calls “bad faith” the attempt to escape this courage—to hide behind roles, excuses, or habits. The waiter who acts as if he is only a waiter, or the person who blames society for every constraint, denies their freedom to redefine their situation. Authenticity, by contrast, means owning your choices fully and recognizing their creative power. Kierkegaard dramatized this through Abraham’s “leap of faith”: even when reason failed, his decision was an act of self-definition that aligned him with higher meaning. Beauvoir called this “the ethics of ambiguity,” where freedom involves not only yourself but the liberation of others bound up in your world.

Freedom, in existentialism, is not moral license—it’s a form of authorship. Every action writes your life’s meaning, sentence by sentence, with no eraser but continual revision through new choices.

Ultimately, Gosetti-Ferencei argues, owning your freedom transforms anxiety into creativity. Once you accept that meaning must be made, not found, you can meet uncertainty with invention. The burden becomes a privilege: to act, to create, and to affirm life as your own poetic composition. This is existential freedom—not the freedom from constraint, but the freedom to shape who you are within it.

Who are you if not your name, your memories, your roles? Existentialists suggest that your self is not a fixed essence but a living activity—a relation that continually relates to itself. Gosetti-Ferencei explores this notion through Kierkegaard’s definition of the self as “a relation that relates itself to itself,” Sartre’s idea of consciousness as nothingness, and Nietzsche’s call to artistically shape one’s life.

Inwardness and the Leap Beyond

Kierkegaard argues that authentic selfhood requires “inwardness,” a reflective awareness that connects action to personal conviction. Yet inwardness is not navel-gazing—it demands decision. In Fear and Trembling, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac embodies the paradox of selfhood: faith demands action beyond certainty. This leap into uncertainty, Gosetti-Ferencei notes, parallels the creative acts required in modern life—from changing careers to committing to love without guarantees. You cannot reason your way to meaning; you must enact it.

The Phenomenology of Becoming

Martin Heidegger replaced the static notion of the soul with Dasein—the being who asks about being. For Heidegger, your self exists through your projects in the world, not apart from it. Consciousness is embodied participation, not isolation. Maurice Merleau-Ponty later expanded this to argue that your self “is from the start outside itself and open to the world.” In existential phenomenology, the self is not something you have; it’s something you do—an ongoing performance of existence.

Sartre radicalized this into an ontology of freedom: the self is a “nothingness” because it can never be fully defined—it always surpasses what it has been. When you say, “That’s just who I am,” you risk falling into bad faith, mistaking the past for essence. The existential self is an art of renewal: each moment invites revision of your identity through choice.

Creativity and the Art of Self-Making

To live as a self is to live artistically. Nietzsche’s concept of “giving style to one’s character” inspires Gosetti-Ferencei’s reading of existential selfhood as creative authorship. Rather than discovering an inner core, you compose your life through rhythms of action, reflection, and risk. Even mistakes and failures become brushstrokes in the larger canvas of becoming. This reframes self-transformation not as self-improvement but as artistry—a life that finds meaning through its making.

By grounding psychology, art, and ethics in existential insight, Gosetti-Ferencei restores individuality to philosophy. The self is not a solid possession but a project you keep rewriting. If Kierkegaard said we must “become what we are,” this book shows: the work of being never ends.

If you are free and self-creating, what happens when your freedom meets another’s? Existential thinkers saw this as both the source of our deepest conflicts and our greatest ethical insight. Gosetti-Ferencei dedicates a major section of her book to the existential dimension of Others—how we appear to, depend upon, and are responsible for one another.

Seeing and Being Seen

Sartre dramatized human conflict through the “look.” When someone sees you, you become aware of yourself as an object in their gaze—a moment of potential shame or alienation. The waiter who feels watched performs his identity rather than chooses it. This vision, Gosetti-Ferencei explains, captures the tension between subjectivity and objectification that defines modern social life, from cafés to online feeds. We crave recognition but fear dependence on it.

Beyond Conflict: Marcel and Beauvoir

Against Sartre’s pessimism, Gabriel Marcel proposed presence—a mode of being-with others grounded in availability, fidelity, and love. For Marcel, the other is not a threat but a mystery to be approached with reverence. In creative receptivity, you receive others not as objects but as co-participants in being. Beauvoir extends this idea into feminist ethics: to will your own freedom demands respecting the freedom of others. Authentic relationships, romantic or social, are collaborations between liberties, not competitions of control.

Frantz Fanon politicized this encounter. In Black Skin, White Masks, he shows how racism distorts recognition, reducing the Black self to an object under the oppressive white gaze. His existential answer is not isolation but mutual humanization: to restore the other as a subject capable of freedom. Gosetti-Ferencei reads Fanon alongside Beauvoir as existential humanists who bridge private ethics and public justice.

From Alienation to Solidarity

At a café, at work, or on a social media feed, your sense of self always emerges in relation to others. Existentialism cautions against losing yourself to “the crowd” (Kierkegaard’s phrase) while affirming that meaning deepens through shared existence. Gosetti-Ferencei suggests that in a time of cultural fragmentation, existentialism’s recognition of both individuality and common humanity may be more vital than ever. To recognize the other’s freedom is the first act of genuine community.

Existentialism teaches that you cannot become yourself except through others—but never by being them.

This relational dimension turns existentialism from philosophy to ethics. In every encounter lies a demand: how will your freedom coexist with another’s? Gosetti-Ferencei’s answer: through empathy, presence, and creative love.

Existentialism may sound abstract, but much of it comes alive through love and creativity, the two areas where existence feels most intense. In Gosetti-Ferencei’s reading, these are not escapes from philosophy—they are its essence in practice. Love and creation are how the self becomes real, affirming life despite its uncertainty.

Love as Freedom, Not Possession

From Kierkegaard’s anguished faith to Beauvoir’s modern realism, existentialist love rejects both idealized romance and cold detachment. Sartre famously saw love as a struggle between freedoms, each wanting to be cherished without being consumed. Beauvoir reimagined it as mutual recognition—a partnership in which two freedoms affirm one another. “Authentic love,” she wrote, “is founded on the mutual recognition of two liberties.”

Marcel turned this into a metaphysics of fidelity: to love is to be present and available, not to own another. Rilke’s letters describe lovers as “two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other.” Gosetti-Ferencei finds in these visions a counterpoint to our culture of possession—the reminder that love, like freedom, can be creative work. You do not find the perfect other; you co-create a shared reality through attention and respect.

Creativity as Existential Necessity

Existentialism holds that life itself can be treated as art. Nietzsche praised the courage to “give style to one’s character.” For Camus, artistic rebellion was humanity’s most dignified response to absurdity. Even in a world without guarantees, we can create meaning as artists of living. Gosetti-Ferencei interprets this not metaphorically but practically: you build a life’s coherence as an artist builds form. What you shape through imagination, responsibility, and perseverance becomes your testament of being.

Living Creatively Day to Day

In modern life, this artistry might manifest in ordinary acts—how you listen, forgive, or persist. Even waiting tables or facing failure becomes an aesthetic discipline when done reflectively. As Camus put it, “to create today is to create dangerously.” Every choice is a brushstroke in a canvas that will never be finished. Gosetti-Ferencei reminds readers that this is the true liberation existentialism offers: the power to act without certainty, to craft meaning without needing approval.

To love freely and to create deliberately—these are existential acts of defiance against nihilism. They confirm, again and again, that life is not a problem to solve but a work of art to live.

“Carpe diem” acquires new depth under existentialism. Gosetti-Ferencei shows that seizing the day does not mean chasing pleasure—it means embracing presence with awareness, courage, and renewal. The present, for existentialists, is where your freedom, past, and possible futures converge.

Eternal Return and Authentic Repetition

Nietzsche’s “eternal return” invites you to live each moment as if you would relive it infinitely. Would you still act the same way if this hour repeated forever? This thought experiment sharpens presence into responsibility. Kierkegaard proposed a similar challenge: “repetition” as the act of affirming life anew each time, not through novelty but through faithful renewal—choosing again what truly matters.

Time, Finitude, and Presence

For Heidegger, authentic living arises when you confront time not as clockwork but as existence. Only by acknowledging death as an ever-present possibility do you awaken to the fact that this moment is uniquely yours. Beauvoir and Sartre both insisted that continuity—the link between past choices and present actions—does not diminish freedom but grounds it. Gina Gosetti-Ferencei beautifully condenses these ideas: “You gather yourself in the present by affirming what you have chosen and what you can still choose.”

Gabriel Marcel reframes presence as generosity: being fully with another, or with the world, without distraction. He calls this “creative fidelity”—the active renewal of devotion to people and projects. Presence, then, is not only a private mindfulness practice; it is relational, ethical, outward-facing.

Existential presence means living as if each day were simultaneously fragile and infinite, treating every encounter as an occasion for becoming.

For Gosetti-Ferencei, learning to live in presence transforms existential anxiety into reverence. To seize the day is not to possess it, but to participate in it—awake to its beauty, its demands, and its vanishing promise.