CLFM paper #3

Dear Kandy,
I just got your email about the NBC TV show Heroes. I actually do watch it quite frequently and love it! However, I understand your trouble with being able to understand it. One thing that I have come to notice about the show is that it tends to portray an existentialist worldview. You'll see what I mean if I first define the whole existentialist worldview.
The existentialists believe that they have to make their own purpose in life because there isn't one without their own choice. They wish to fulfill their utmost purpose in life and get away from the meaningless life that some live. So as I'm sure you can just tell by understanding that, you can begin to see how Heroes can be existentialistic.
So just incase you're still not quite understanding what I mean by saying that Heroes is existentialistic, here are a few examples to hopefully help you understand better. Let's start with Claire. Claire in all of her scenarios trys to fit in and be liked, but also, she is striving with all of who she is to figure out what her purpose in life is. Throughout the whole first season she finds out how she can use her "talent" to be able to help others, which she has made her purpose. Peter, like Claire, is striving to have a purpose in life. He wants to figure out the meaning of life, but in the end has to make up his own mind as to what his own purpose is going to be. In the end, he finds that as much as he as helped others around him, he is going to hurt them, so he has to be shuttled off into space. Just incase you're still not getting it, one last example. Dr. Suresh has made his decision that he will find purpose in his life in helping those who have "the virus." Being that his blood is the only cure for the virus, he decided that it is his mission and his purpose to help those who can be cured, a long with connecting the people who have "talents" and how they came to have them. Even though you only really need three examples, a fourth is in order. Hiro, last but not least, has made it his purpose in life to, "save the cheerleader, save the world." He accomplished the first part of his purpose and has now set out to do the latter. He knows his purpose and he knows he is striving to be a hero.
So in all of those different examples, the existentialistic world view shows in the fact that they are all choosing their own purpose and going for it to try to reach their full potential in order to get away from the meaninglessness of life. That makes the source of truth the one's own personal choice. Whatever the person is going through at the time is real and it is their choice that drives life. A human's purpose in life is what they make it out to be. They go through life and decide what their life's purpose is going to be. There is no absolute right or wrong, except what the person decides and what the community of people have come to decide. Obviously, if it is something you can go to jail for, it is wrong, but as for right or wrong purpose, no, because it is up to the individual to choose their own purpose.
As like most everything else in life, there are positives and negatives to existentialism. A few positives include things such as the fact that it promotes achieving one's potential, choosing to strive in all circumstances toward your purpose, and knowing that you have a purpose in life. On the other hand, however, the negatives include things like: the fact that there is no higher power such as God, there is consequences should one choose terribly wrong their purpose (like Sylar in Heroes), or the idea that since everyone chooses their own purpose, not everyone's will flow together so the world may end up in utter chaos.
So after all of that, i hope you might understand Heroes at least a little bit better than you did before. Good luck!

Love,
Alicia