Blimey!!

Who'd be a Grandad - you're supposed to have all the answers.  No too bad when the grandkids are small and you don't have to deal with anything more difficult than "why do flowers die?", but then they grow up and you are faced - as I was the other day - with questions like "what is existentialism?".  That one threw me!  So here, for what it's worth, is my very amateur back-of-a-fag-packet answer.  Every movement, whether in art, music, literature or philosophy, tends to be a reaction, even a revolt, against what has gone before.  "Traditional" philosophies have been based on the concept that there is some meaning to life (42 anyone?), that there is some purpose to it all, and we should be seeking to live our lives in such a way as to give effect to that meaning or purpose.  Existentialism says that's rubbish - there is no meaning to life, life simply is.  Don't waste your time looking for something that isn't there, just get on and deal with it.  Life is what you make it - life is for living.  That's existentialism.