What is the difference between existential and philosophical questions?

Philosophical questions ask what is true in general, such as whether death is bad for the person who dies. Existential questions ask how you live with it: how you face your own death, choices and need for meaning.

Are these questions too heavy for family?

Some are. Start with a question about choice or meaning, and ask before moving to mortality. Many people find it easier to answer about the past, such as how their family talked about death, than about their own future.

Existential questions about death, freedom and meaning

Quick starters

Use these questions to spark an easy conversation.

When did you first understand that you would die someday?
Which big choice in your life felt like it was really yours?
Where does the meaning in your life come from right now?
Can anyone truly know what it's like to be you?
Could you be content doing a task you knew you'd repeat forever?

All questions

40 questions. Choose the ones that suit your conversation.

Or tick questions to copy or print them.

Mortality

1.When did you first understand that you would die someday?
2.How did your family talk about death when you were a child?
3.Has someone's death changed how you spend your time?
4.How often do you think about your own death, and what is it like when you do?
5.Do you find it comforting or unsettling that the world will go on without you?
6.Which of your fears about dying are really about the people you'd leave behind?
7.What would you want to have finished, and what are you content to leave unfinished?
8.What do you want your later years to feel like, day to day?

Freedom and choice

9.Which big choice in your life felt like it was really yours?
10.What are you doing mainly because it's expected of you?
11.What choice have you avoided by telling yourself you had no choice?
12.Where do you blame circumstances for something you could still change?
13.When has having too many options made it harder to choose?
14.If nobody would judge you, what would you do differently tomorrow?
15.Who might you be if you had taken a different path at twenty?
16.What responsibility have you taken on that you didn't have to?

Meaning

17.Where does the meaning in your life come from right now?
18.Was there a time your life felt meaningless, and what changed?
19.Do you think meaning is something you find or something you make?
20.What ordinary task feels meaningful to you even though nobody notices it?
21.If your work disappeared tomorrow, what would still give your days a point?
22.What do you hope your life adds up to, if anything?
23.Has your sense of what matters shifted as you've gotten older?
24.What would you keep doing even if it never led anywhere?

Being alone

25.Can anyone truly know what it's like to be you?
26.Is there a part of your experience you think nobody else could fully understand?
27.When did you last feel completely understood?
28.Are being alone and being lonely different for you?
29.What do you do with feelings you can't explain to anyone?
30.Who would you call at three in the morning, and what does that tell you?
31.How much of yourself do you keep private, and why?
32.What helps you feel connected to someone when words don't?

The absurd

33.Have you ever stopped in the middle of a routine and wondered why you do it at all?
34.What part of daily life seems absurd when you step back from it?
35.How do you carry on when something can't be explained or fixed?
36.Do you need the universe to have a purpose for your life to have one?
37.Could you be content doing a task you knew you'd repeat forever?
38.When has laughing been the only sensible response to a situation?
39.How do you react when chance undoes a careful plan?
40.If nothing you do will matter in a million years, does it matter today?

Conversation guide

These 40 existential questions are about your own death, your freedom to choose, where meaning comes from, being alone and the absurd. They ask how you live with these facts, not what the facts are. That makes them personal, so ask before you start.

Where the themes come from

The groups follow ideas from existentialist writers. Jean-Paul Sartre said “existence precedes essence”: we aren’t born with a fixed purpose and define ourselves through what we choose. Albert Camus called the clash between our wish for answers and a world that gives none “the absurd.” He ended The Myth of Sisyphus by saying we must imagine Sisyphus, rolling his rock uphill forever, happy. Question 37 borrows that image.

You don’t need to know any of this to answer. For the abstract versions of these puzzles, such as whether death is bad for the person who dies, see our philosophical questions.

Ask gently

Choose a calm moment with time to spare, such as a long walk or a slow evening. Offer a question rather than springing it on someone, and accept “not tonight.” The mortality group is the hardest for most people. Freedom and choice is usually the easiest place to begin.

When an answer is heavy, don’t hurry to fix it or cheer the person up. Say back what you heard and ask whether they want to keep going. A short answer is still an answer.

If a conversation about death brings up thoughts of ending your life, call or text 988 in the US to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

When the answer becomes a story

Questions about mortality often lead to memories of a parent, a friend or a close call. If you’d like to keep one, ask first and write down the details in the speaker’s words. Our guide to sharing difficult family stories covers permission and privacy, and the legacy letter template helps someone put what matters to them in writing.

Helpful follow-ups

When did you start seeing it that way?
Does that thought feel heavy or freeing?
What do you do with that feeling on an ordinary day?
Has anyone helped you think about it differently?
Do you want to keep going with this, or stop here?

Sources

Sartre’s phrase “existence precedes essence” means that a person first exists and only afterward defines himself through his choices; existentialists stress that we are responsible for those choices without outside justification.

Kevin Aho | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Existentialism”

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus calls the clash between our impulse to ask ultimate questions and the impossibility of answering them “the absurd,” and ends by saying one must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Ronald Aronson | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Albert Camus” (2021-12-13)