{"id":114151,"date":"2020-08-12T11:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T16:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=114151"},"modified":"2026-09-12T20:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:00:29","slug":"podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #635: The Existentialist&#8217;s Survival Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Life isn&#8217;t an easy road to navigate. We&#8217;re&nbsp;moody creatures, susceptible to an array of psychological setbacks, emotional ups and downs, fruitless&nbsp;searches for meaning, and&nbsp;trials posed by anxiety, depression, and despair. It&#8217;s the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for, and my guest today says one of the best can be found in the writings of existential philosophers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>His name is Gordon Marino and he&#8217;s a football and boxing coach, a professor of philosophy, and the author of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0062436007\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0062436007&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\"><em>The Existentialist&#8217;s&nbsp;Survival&nbsp;Guide: How to Live Authentically in an Inauthentic&nbsp;Age<\/em><\/a>. Gordon and I begin our conversation with how he personally found&nbsp;existentialism, and how his coaching intersects with his teaching. We then get into what existential philosophy&nbsp;is all about, and the thinkers and authors who are considered&nbsp;to be existentialists. Gordon shares what he thinks is the greatest existential&nbsp;novel, and which of Soren Kierkegaard\u2019s books he most recommends reading. From there we delve into what Kierkegaard has to say about anxiety, how he thought&nbsp;existential&nbsp;angst&nbsp;was the ultimate&nbsp;teacher, the distinction&nbsp;he drew between depression and despair, and why he argues that procrastination&nbsp;is one of our greatest moral dangers. We then unpack the different models of living an authentic life that the existentialists&nbsp;espoused, and what Nietzsche meant with his injunction to &#8220;live dangerously.&#8221; We then get into the existentialists\u2019 take on love, why love is actually hard to accept, and why you should presuppose love in others. We end our conversation with what boxing can teach about existential philosophy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life isn&#8217;t an easy road to navigate. We&#8217;re&nbsp;moody creatures, susceptible to an array of psychological setbacks, emotional ups and downs, fruitless&nbsp;searches for meaning, and&nbsp;trials posed by anxiety, depression, and despair. It&#8217;s the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for, and my guest today says one of the best can be found in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":195045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Is Existential Philosophy? A Starter Guide | Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Life isn&#039;t an easy road to navigate. It&#039;s the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for; one of the best can be found in the existential philosophers.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #635: The Existentialist&#039;s Survival Guide | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Life isn&#039;t an easy road to navigate. It&#039;s the kind of journey one needs a survival guide for; one of the best can be found in the existential philosophers.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-12T16:00:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-13T01:00:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/635.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"AoM Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@artofmanliness\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"AoM Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"AoM Team\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/28ff38880a7c6995e23ac063aaaa81d4\"},\"headline\":\"Podcast #635: The Existentialist&#8217;s Survival Guide\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-12T16:00:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-13T01:00:29+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":290,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/08\\\/635.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Character\",\"Podcast\",\"Self-Improvement\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2020\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.artofmanliness.com\\\/character\\\/self-improvement\\\/podcast-635-the-existentialists-survival-guide\\\/\",\"name\":\"What Is Existential Philosophy? 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