Being-towards-death
I recently had to write a paper about one of Heidegger’s concepts- whichever I would like. I chose to occupy myself with being-towards-death. Simon Critchley says (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/13/heidegger-being-time?intcmp=239) that the basic concept behind the most famous of Heidegger’s works, Being and Time, is simply that
Being is time. Time is limited and so are our lives.
With death, Being reaches its end. Death throws us out of our relationship with the world as we know it.
Nobody can die my own death, nor can I have any death experience besides my own. Death is somewhat my own, it’s mine and mine only. Death is exactly what limits my future possibility,
it’s the possibility of the impossibility, as Heidegger used to say. We are always towards-death and maybe this is what makes the world go round, maybe that’s what gives us any motive to live whatsoever.
In the everydayness we tend to forget all these things, we tend to get lost inside other people and how they live their lives, we tend to live inauthentically. Death gives us an opportunity to jump out of this crazy roller coaster and turn to ourselves and finally ask: is this how I want to live my life? Is this what I want to make of it? So, some kind of freedom is being born. The freedom of choosing a life -my life- and apparently the responsibility that goes along with it.
Death is actually a process of which everything but the last part, belongs to life. I am towards-death and that brings me face to face with my finitude, but with my life too.
We don’t usually talk about death in our everyday lives for some reason. It’s like this bad thing that won’t happen, unless you talk about it. It’s like a common secret, everyone remembers about it but no one particularly wants to bring it to the table. It’s a normal defense mechanism, we have a lot of them us human beings, but with this one I’d advise you to be a bit more careful. Don’t close the door at it, don’t make it an “it”! It’s your life we’re talking about, and we live dyingly - it’s a fact. Maybe by coming to terms with it you’ll live more... fully. With more awareness. Or maybe you’re gonna get depressive, or maybe even both (as happened in my case :) ) Defense mechanisms may be soothing, but they also seriously limit our possibilities.
Meanwhile, no matter how hard we try there is always a specific number of possibilities we can fulfill in life. As long as I live I choose and I cannot choose everything. If, however, I don’t choose, maybe others will do it for me!
Anyway, we should look at death, not for too long though, not anyone can stare directly at either death or the sun, as La Rochefoucauld said once. How easy is it though to accept that we live dyingly? How easy is it to go with the flow of things and their ephemeral nature? How could we manage pain but living passionately at the same time?
Well, to be honest I have no idea. I find myself in great terror in terms of death. I’m just trying to live more fully, more “personally”, being closer to myself and my personal values that is, finding myself always here, but also always in relation to this unbearable towards-death, which actually is embodied in me, whether I like it or not.
