I'm not one to make a fuss about continental philosophy on /r/philosophy. I enjoy occasional profusely indecipherable and incomprehensible discussions as much as the next guy. Even for someone like me, who reads shit that doesn't really make sense unless you do a certain-philosophical-meditation-to-unpack-ordinary-words, I'm not sure what's going on here myself, and I'd like to stand up for continental philosophy this one time.

The post in question stands as the top /r/philosophy link today: https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/5ny2kh/from_existentialism_to_taoism_the_problem_that/

From Existentialism to Taoism, the problem that made me look elsewhere.

Oh, interesting title. What's this "problem." With the changes in /r/philosophy, I'm expecting a good position or argument that calls my existence into question (possibly?). If existentialism and taoism are the problem itself, what would OP be saying that in reference to?

First and foremost, I still remain a huge fan of Sartre, de Beauvoir, Kierkegaard, and [to an extent] Nietzsche. This isn't an attempt to try and discredit them.

So, OP is not talking about existentialism and taoism as the problem itself. The post is more in line with the former question about the problem calling my existence into question (maybe ?).

My introduction to the Existential world was through Sartre's book Nausea, which I still regard as one of my favourite books to this day. In it there is an exceptionally well-written account of what it's like to become completely disillusioned with your own reality; "I do not think therefore I am moustache". When I read that I was stunned, never before had a writer so eloquently described how I'd felt before.

Given that the "I do not think therefore I am moustache" is a jab at Descartes, given that Sartre read Heidegger's criticism on Husserl, it's cringeworthy to think that this tweet can give us an eloquent "account of what it's like to become completely disillusioned with your own reality." I have my copy somewhere, but here's a google link to the matching phrase if you wanted to read it and hurt your head. The elucidation by the OP doesn't pin down the criticism that is the background behind the joke.

So, I embarked on a comprehensive study of his philosophy.

It's odd to say that it's a comprehensive existentialism reading without mentioning any readings of what Heidegger calls philosophy up to this point. Heidegger doesn't ignore reading Plato, medievals, Descartes, Hume, Husserl, etc..

The first two books I picked up were existentialism and humanism and being and nothingness, and although I wholeheartedly agreed with a lot of the points Sartre made, I couldn't help but feel that what he was describing was, for want of a better word, a cop-out.

You see, from my beginners understanding, I'd first read him describe wonderfully the absurdity of society. How it's all meaningless. And yet, in these two books, he's asking us to understand the absurdity but also be apart of it. "To construct your own meaning within a world that has none" [(can't find this on google)] seems, to me, an elaborate way of saying "just bullshit yourself".

I think the confusion here is because OP read Sartre first before Heidegger. Sartre is applying hermeneutics.

This thought was only strengthened through further reading. I mean, Kierkegaard tells us that to believe in God is absurd but to take "the leap of faith" anyway. Isn't that just the "rational warrant" argument for believing in God?

It isn't. Didn't OP say they read existentialism?

Put off by this, I ventured into the world of Camus' absurdism, in which I stumbled across the same issue. He argues that there is no meaning and thus we should embrace that fact and rebel against it. But wouldn't living in the Dionysian way Camus suggests essentially be accepting the absurd? The only other way of rebellion he condemns; suicide.

I think if OP understood existentialism starting with Kierkegaard and Heidegger a bit more, they would not have said "[Camus] argues that there is no meaning and thus we should embrace that fact.." I mean, I don't know what they're referencing. If taken at face value, just read what is said. My criticism is on the way the sentence is formed.

There -is- no meaning... embrace that -fact-

The above is using a synthetic proposition to talk about phenomenology, and the truth of it is contingent on grouping meaning. This forehaving of "fact" and scientific comportment to looking at phenomena through the lens of philosophy until now misses the entire point of existentialism. That sentence says nothing about the phenomena itself, but unwittingly shows a performative display about how OP favors that which existentialism is a response to.

I ventured into nihilism, a philosophy that at least doesn't sugarcoat reality. It tells us that yes, there is no special reason to why we're here, you just are. And that is it-- no distractions, no illusions, it is just factual.

"Factual." UGHH

The problem here, though, lies in its inherent pessimism. I was already aware of this fact, every Existentialist and Absurdist is, I'm looking for something... more? Something that makes me feel at home in the world around me, if that makes sense. This is when I stumbled across the Tao te Ching. Lao Tzu talks about the feeling described in Nausea but doesn't ask us to ignore it, rebel against it, or accept it. He asks only to watch it. Meditate on it. To just watch the world. This to many philosophers will sound pointless, which I guess it is and that is the point. To just be. The same point of view is shared in the Book of Chung Tzu, the Bhagavad Gita, and the work of G. I. Gurdjieff. Personally, I prefer Taoist philosophy as it doesn't rely too heavily on mysticism.1 But all seem to have brought me to the understanding I've been seeking.

Huh

Anybody else had any similar experiences?

The title should be "From missing the point, my own misunderstandings made me look elsewhere."