Existential Entropy and the Leakage of Subjectivity

Abstract The contemporary proliferation of burnout, existential fatigue, meaning depletion, and psychological fragility has generated extensive discussions across psychology, sociology, and critical theory. Most existing approaches interpret exhaustion as a pathological consequence of excessive labor, emotional overload, social alienation, or institutional dysfunction. While these explanations capture important dimensions of the phenomenon, they often remain confined to empirical and functional levels of analysis. This article develops the Existential Entropy Theory (EET), a novel ontological framework that conceptualizes exhaustion as an intrinsic consequence of the subject-world relation. The theory proposes that subjectivity is characterized by a continuous process of existential leakage through which meaning, attention, affective investment, cognitive resources, and existential capacities are dispersed into the world. This leakage is not pathological but constitutive of existence itself. The article further introduces the concept of ontological extraction, describing the mechanisms through which social, technological, economic, and symbolic structures absorb and reorganize leaked existential resources. Exhaustion emerges when the cumulative rate of existential leakage and ontological extraction exceeds the regenerative capacities of the subject. By integrating phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, social ontology, and theories of contemporary acceleration, the article develops a multi-level model of existential entropy and argues that exhaustion should be understood not as an accidental failure of adaptation but as a structural possibility embedded within human existence itself. Keywords: Existential Exhaustion; Subjectivity; Ontology; Entropy; Burnout; Philosophical Anthropology; Social Ontology; Late Modernity.