And so he is granted permission to appear for the Law, and is led to a gate that leads to it. While the gate appears to be open, there is a gatekeeper preventing him entry and who tells him that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down by the side of the gate.

There he waits for days, weeks, then months, all the while asking and negotiating with the gatekeeper to let him through. And although the gatekeeper continues to suggest that entry continues to be a possibility – but not just yet – eventually years go by and he ends up waiting his entire life, to no avail, never gaining entry.

Then, when he is about to die, he wonders why he was the only person waiting at this gate seeking entry before the Law. The gatekeeper tells him that, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close this gate”.

Kafka has the unique gift of being able to capture a critical insight into the larger human condition and weave it with great literary skill into an allegory that gives it away – but not quite. As a result, we can’t always be sure of what aspect of our lives he is writing about. Countless interpretations have been provided by those who have studied Kafka’s writings over the years, intrigued by his efforts to challenge us beyond the usual boundaries of our thinking about the world and the role we play within it.

What I believe what he wrote about here is, once again, his own acute experience of being in the world without an apparent reason, and feeling compelled to make the assumption that there has to be an aspect of our existence that provides the justification for it.  And while this reason may be staring us directly in the face from the very day that we were  brought into this world, how will we ever gain access to  it?

And so it appears that – while having evolved towards the capacity of being able to consider a reason for being, as in the question “I want to know why I am here, and for what purpose?” – being allowed to confront this question is no guarantee that you will be able to get it answered even if you are willing to dedicate a lifetime to it! At the same time, this is very much an individual question, in the sense that it is meaningful only for those who feel the need to pursue the answer for it.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

If you are catching the flavour of what the Bard has on his mind here, and are intrigued by it, you might well be interested in a train of thought that has often been referred to as “existentialism”.

Now the term “existentialism” is a bit of a catch-all to describe a variety of philosophical views popular during the 19^th and early 20^th century that can be said to have some commonality through the notion that it is the individual who – in the face of a seemingly cold and uncaring universe – must define the meaning of existence for themselves, as no one else can do it for them.

This might or might not involve a reference to a deity of sorts – for which the former was definitely the case for Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – often referred to as the original Existentialist – as well as for later thinkers such as the theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965).

More typically, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), as a devout atheist in 1945 described existentialism as “the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism”.  Not calling himself an atheist but an “unbeliever”, Albert Camus (1913-1960) rejected the existentialist label, but is usually included in the roundup of existentialist authors, as are Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Franz Kafka (1883-1924) who are really in a category all by themselves, and some of my very favourite writers.

The kind of thinking I clearly identify with existentialism is best expressed by Camus’s view that man’s freedom – and the opportunity to give life meaning – lies in the acknowledgement and acceptance of absurdity. If the absurd experience is truly the realization that the universe is fundamentally devoid of absolutes, then we as individuals are truly free.” Truly free to define the meaning of our own individual universe – but do we have courage and will to do this?

I like to think of existentialism as the attempt to re-define yourself in an increasingly absurd world as defined for you by the traditions of science, philosophy and religion; you cannot help but feel alien to it. Others cannot tell you who or what you are, or what your existence should mean to you. Only you can determine what you can be for yourself, as opposed to what others want you to be.

For this you must look at yourself not through the eyes of others, but from yourself, from the inside out – from within the acute reality of your own cognitive and spiritual existence. But this is no easy task – it means assuming responsibility for all your actions as you attempt to recreate yourself from the subjective contents of your stream of consciousness. It will require courage – the courage to re-invent oneself without being plugged into a god, a scientific assumption or the beliefs of society at large for confirmation that you are doing the right thing.

That this process might cause you anguish  and despair was a frequent topic for existentialist writers when they held that “… value of life – living –  is nothing more than the meaning we give it.”  (J.P Sartre).

For a more complete and erudite roundup of the existentialist movement I recommend Walter Kaufmann’s excellent 1956 anthology Existentialism: from Dostoevsky to Sartre.