From Repetition by Soren Kierkegaard, 1843
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The above quotation is an early example of the existentialist response to Life - the sense that we find ourselves in life, without any understanding of its purpose or meaning - the unanswered question of what Life has to do with Me.
The world seems divided into those (like me) who have experienced this response to Life - at first, usually in adolescence; and those who haven't and don't.
(Those who experience life in this way are what Colin Wilson called Outsiders.)
The basic observation is that Men in ancient and medieval times did not experience life in this way; but that in the modern Romantic era (perhaps beginning in the late 1700s, or perhaps somewhat earlier) more-and-more Men began to experience life this way.
Owen Barfield's idea of the development (or evolution) of human consciousness can explain this change on the basis that Men used to get their understanding of meaning and purpose from outside: their thinking was 'permeable'.
But since the modern era, and in accordance with to divine intentions that Men become more free; Man's consciousness has become (more and more) cut-off from spontaneous external knowledge of 'the human condition'.
Men once lived in a kind of communal 'telepathy' with other men and with gods and spirits; such that a basic understanding of meaning and purpose was spontaneously 'given' - there was disagreement on the exact nature of meaning and purpose...
Men knew 'naturally' that there was a meaning-purpose - and that Life had something directly to do with Me.
Existentialism was then not an issue.
But now, human existence is A Problem.
'Outsiders' recognize that there is a problem: feel it in themselves.
Those who do Not recognize the existential problem nonetheless still suffer from cut-off-ness, and therefore (but implicitly) regard life as meaningless and pointless - as can be seen from modern Man's behaviour.
But the un-conscious suffer without knowing why or how; and while often denying that there is any problem at all...
The 'answer' to the existential problem comes from understanding that ancient Men were correct in regarding life as having purpose and meaning, and being relevant to every individual.
Modern Men have merely become cut-off-from that knowledge of Life - but the knowledge is still true, and is still there, awaiting discovery.
Thus modern Man's job is to become conscious of that which was un-conscious; actively to choose to know that which ancient Men passively had forced-upon-them, by their environment.
