On Existentialism and Self- Righteousness

Recent philosophical quandaries include the validity of skepticism and existentialism and the annoying effects of self-righteousness. Existentialism and nothingness are most likely not the proper terms for what I am trying to discuss, but I'll use them for now.
It seems as though when people begin to speak about their own personal philosophies they acquire this voice, "the voice" as I like to call it. It is patronizing and completely condescending perhaps I am just insecure but I do not understand why we cannot speak freely of controversial subjects with an inquisitive and interested manner as opposed to an authoritative and power hungry one. But that is not so important, so I move on.
Existentialism. After researching Camus and recalling some impressions I got from reading The Stranger I have come to a conclusion: existentialism, or at least my understanding and previous personal applications of it is useless which is not to say that it is not particularly well thought out or intellectual, because it is. I just think that people who boldly wave the fact that they belief in nothing but what they can perceive are letting themselves be led by their fear of being wrong and their cravings for intellectual superiority. I say this not from encounters with other existentialist-type people, though I am pretty sure it would apply, but from myself.
For quite some time I took the approach of stripping everything down to the basic elements. Nothings has any inherent value life is meaningless everything is energy and thus all occurrences (phenomena) can be accounted for since energy has many properties and can take many forms. This is all well and dandy, but it is useless.
I was so afraid of taking some sort of leap of faith and being wrong that I whittled my personal philosophy down to whatever could be perceived: empiricism. When you work off of empiricism no one can argue your belief with fact, and thus can't really prove you wrong, but this is totally ridiculous. Thinking that there is nothing beyond what you as a human can perceive or believe is rampantly ignorant. What is to say that there are not subtle energies that we have no facilities to account for? This is not to say that empiricism can be thrown out the window, I simply think that we cannot possibly dismiss the things that we know we do not know.
And in this beautiful niche is spawned the myriads of religion and philosophy. The fact that we can never know is absolutely wonderful and to have recognized the effects of my insecurity makes me feel good. I like to minimize the effects of my ego and thus the levels of condescension I put out. To quote RadioHead "you can try the best you can, the best you can is good enough" though that there is nothing beyond what we are capable of reasoning is madness. I think agnostics are on the right path by thinking such things
So maybe this is like a multiple-choice question 1. Existence? Where I know the answer is not "A. Christian god" or "B. Nothingness" but there's about 20 million other options to choose from (more options than letters exist, I know). Elimination is not the best way to go but for now it's all I have. So to return to my Buddhist upbringing, I must say that to find the middle path is more difficult than it seems. One of the most wonderful social applications of Buddhism, I think, is the need to verify everything for yourself and also the various unspoken levels of Buddhism that you don't need to justify to anyone but yourself, which is what I'm doing right now I suppose.
I don't know that I am able to commit myself to the mysticism that is involved with
Buddhism, but I suppose that can be partially attributed to some residual intellectual insecurity and also partially attributed that nothing in my life thus far would leave me to believe such. Perhaps that will change with time. one thing I can be certain on, though is the importance and prevalence of energy. The subtle, the gross, the evident, and the currently unperceived, energy is "where it's at" and by that I mean, that's what I'm currently studying
But coming back to self-righteousness... I think people who speak with authority are usually insecure or lying, and by that I mean that they do not deserve the authority they attempt to command. It’s like the people in the sixties. Every interview-ee I've ever heard from the sixties has the same grave authoritarian tone of voice and it drives me up the wall.
I mean I generally agree with what they say but the manner in which they say it causes all their regurgitated philosophy to seem unfounded. Why? Because people who posses authority do not need to try to command it. Take Bob Dylan, for example. One of the most influential poets/conscious human beings of the era and he is saturated with humility. His authority comes from what he says, not what he tries to sound like. It is this desperate attempt for respect that gives people away and kind of makes me feel lied to.