James Leonard Park (born in 1941) is an American author and existentialist philosopher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Career His major work, entitled Our Existential Predicament: Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, and Death, attempts to outline the existential malaise felt by many human beings. It also poses that though the malaise is all-pervasive for those who recognise it, one can be released from it by working to achieve an authentic existence, and by completely abandoning all defense mechanisms against it. He calls the state of being released from the predicament "existential freedom." Existential freedom, he maintains, is a "gift," though from what or whom he does not specifically say in the book. Park has authored eleven other books dealing with topics ranging from achieving authentic existence, to human sexuality, to commentary and analysis of religious texts such as the Biblical Book of Romans. He is highly active in the Unitarian/Universalist church, and he also teaches at the University of Minnesota. He leads an active community on Yahoo Groups entitled "Existential Freedom".
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