Martin Buber [‘I and Thou’, 1958]=
“The self-willed man does not.. meet. He does not know solidarity of connexion, but only the feverish world outside and his feverish desire to use it. ..and what he terms his destiny is only the equipping and sanctioning of his ability to use. He has.. no destiny, but only a being that is defined by things and instincts, which he fulfils with the feeling of sovereignty..” [p 60]
“Feelings dwell in man; but man dwells in his love.. …love is between I and Thou. Love ranges in its effect through the whole world. In the eyes of him who takes his stand in love, and gazes out of it, men are cut free from their entanglement in bustling activity. Good people and evil, wise and foolish, beautiful and ugly, become successively real to him; ..set free they step forth in their singleness, and confront him as Thou… love is responsibility of an I for a Thou.” [pp 14-15]
“ I know no fullness but each mortal hour’s fullness of claim and responsibility” [pp 295-296, ‘To Deny Our Nothingness’, Maurice Friedman, 1978].
Existential Guilt is the guilt one has taken on oneself in a situation, out of recognising that as a person, I did not answer the call of what summoned me out, in relation to that situation. I have injured the common life, I have betrayed the common jeopardy.