Tunji Olaopa We live in a VUCA world—vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And it takes little reflection for anyone to see how this is immediately so. While the idea of a VUCA world was introduced into the lexicon by reflection on strategy and leadership, the COVID-19 pandemic has added an aggravated dimension to how vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous the world is. Everything that constitutes axioms that define our normality has been upturned and shattered. Each region of the world is then left to come to terms with the uncertainty and to address it in its own way. While wrapping my head again around the idea of VUCA, I could not but be drawn into the philosophical idea of existentialism, and the historical exigencies that brought it into existence. The Second World War contributed in no small measure into shaping the philosophical framework of existentialism. Contrary to the rationalist’s perception of the world as being grounded on the infallibility of reason, the existentialists learnt from historical circumstances to adumbrate a view of reality founded on instability. To borrow Heidegger’s graphic statement, we are “thrown into the world” where our fundamental freedom is curtailed by meaninglessness and uncertainty. Existence—in the throes of frustration, dread, anxiety, sickness, and finally death—therefore defeats our most optimistic human aspirations. COVID-19 could only happen in such a VUCA world the existentialists foresaw.