What does man's intuition towards death?
By: Axl Mie E. Campomanes
Man or the being-in-the-world has
always been curious and ignorant of what is
death really meant to be and how should we
live our life, curiosity and ignorance leads man
to give different notions about death, some
came up with an idea to end their life because
of this curiosity although human has freedom to
do everything they want but not to the point
they need to end everything because of this
notion and no one of us saw human, who died
and came back alive from death and tell us his
experiences about death we can only
experience it through seeing and hearing other
people die. Death does not mean the after-life,
it is a man whose being towards end. Death is
the transition of the being-in-the-world to no
longer being, a thing or a corpse. No one could
experience death of others but the man himself.
This reading explains what does death really
mean to a man and how should they act before
their wholeness came.
Man lacks totality or wholeness, he will
only arrive to this when he died. Man gets older
as time passes and will come to his wholeness
which is death. From the book of Martin
Heidegger he argues that man, may or may not
come to his totality or wholeness, it depends on
him how he act before he experience death by
himself. Because death is our uttermost
possibility and something that we cannot
outstripped, as long as we have thrown into this
world which he called the being in the world we
already have this possibility to die. The word,
thrown, there doesn't mean to cause someone
or something to move forcefully, it describes our
existence into the world. From his book which is
interpreted by Manuel B. Dy, Jr. man has two
aspects of recognizing death and those are; the
inauthentic man and authentic man, to have a
better understanding about this notion let me
introduce you to the topics which will be
explained to the next paragraph.
The Inauthentic Man, or what I call it
'the man who doesn't anticipate that anytime
he will come to an end'. This characteristic was
influenced by the people around you or by the
people in your surroundings. The people in your
surroundings are the 'impersonal they'
according to Martin Heidegger. The 'impersonal
they' defines death as a mishap, they talk about
death as a case of death or an event for a man
that constantly happening, therefore, they are
hiding the true meaning of this possibility of
man. But the fact remains that the being-in-the-
world is the being-towards-end. Inauthentic
man believe that facing death is a sign of
cowardice and therefore they tend to cover up
their uttermost possibility and continue fleeing
in the face of death.
Example, a child who is crying from his
sleep, dreaming about his parents died from an
accident then the mother notice her child
crying, she wakes him up and ask why is he
crying, the child then told his mother about his
dream, the mother, while comforting her child
she said not to worry because death will come
too soon then he went back to sleep thinking
and believing that his parents will not yet come
to that stage of their life. In the example, the
child is the man we refer as our subject and the
mother is our impersonal they whose been
dictating you about death that you should not
worry about it because death will not come this
instance but soon enough. By that action the
child will think that death will come too soon
and he will take that notion until he will grows
up. Impersonal they said "one will die" but the
"one" is not certain and we don't know who it
would be, because no one will claim that he
will.
Man must accept or anticipate that his
being-in-the-world is the being-towards-end.
Anticipating death is not actualizing it or
attempting suicide or cutting off all the
relationship you had with others or giving new
explanations about death, it is understanding
death as the being-towards-end that you should
face your uttermost possibility, that anytime
death might happen to you. Anticipating and
accepting death is what we call the authentic
being towards death. In this notion the man
losses himself to the impersonal they and has
freedom to be himself as he guards himself
from falling into the inexplicable impersonal
they. Man realizes that his uttermost possibility
is death, thus, man comes to his awareness of
his potentiality in fulfilling himself. Death does
not belong to everybody but it only belongs to
you, therefore authenticity individualizes man.
Using the previous example, if the
mother explains to her child the true meaning
of death the child might realize that he should
make use of his time to be with his parents
before it is too late rather than regretting and so
that the child will be ready to accept the fact
whenever it will come, though it might cause
fear to a child it is better to mold their
understanding of death in such a young age
rather than discovering it later.
What does man really think about
death? Some will say freedom to all the
concerns, an event of leaving your love ones
behind or an emotional event for a man.
According to Karl Rahner death is an act of man
in regards to his acceptance or refusal to be his
authentic self, that death is a kind of finality for
a man. So for me, man has this human freedom
to choose whether to accept death as his
uttermost possibility or to be alienated by the
impersonal they. Whatever decision he will
choose, good or bad, for him it is the right way
to live and enjoy life.
If death is our destiny, why are we dying
to live? Since human lives in the world we need
to do something in order for us to survive in this
chaotic world and it depends on a man how he
will live his life since we have our so called
human freedom, which gives us the freedom to
think and do whatever we want in our life. Let
me go back to the third branch of philosophy
which is the Ethics, it has a lot of schools of
thought, one of it is the cosequentialism, it
matters in the consequence after the action. If
your intention towards your life is good then the
consequences also differs to your actions as well
as for your good intentions in life.
Furthermore, the totality or wholeness
of man only comes to its end in his possibility
and that possibility is to die. Death for man is
always impending, it means it will really come
to a man, it is the uttermost not yet of man or it
is the very last stage to a human's cycle and
something that we cannot outstripped. Because
death is not for everyone, it is always ours.
According to the video I have seen before from
Corey Anton he elaborated what he have
learned from Heidegger's book entitled 'Being
and Time', in the video he emphasizes the
phrase that Heidegger once said that no one
else could die for me and I can't postpone my
decision because I will die one day and no can
experience my own death but me, myself but I
can experience the death of others through
seeing and hearing others die.
In conclusion to that, the difference
between inauthenticity and authenticity is that
inauthentic man knows that there is death but it
will come to soon to himself so that he will think
that he has many time to comply with his
responsibilities while the authentic man accepts
the fact that death will come anytime and so he
will do everything to comply with his
responsibilities and think that no time should be
wasted. The similarity of the inauthentic man
and authentic man is they both believe death
will come to a man. We should not be afraid to
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accept or anticipate that death is really ours
because it is a natural nature of man and it is
our destiny, but not to the point that we will
end our life just because you accept death is
ours. We need to understand the notion of
death. For me if you are an inauthentic man
then your totality or wholeness suddenly
happens to you and you did not meet your goals
in life so you are full of regrets for not
complying your responsibilities when you are
still alive this is my understanding of
Heidegger's explanation about an inauthentic
man. For the authentic man who doesn't waste
his time in committing his goals thinking that
death will probably come unexpectedly, when
he come into his totality he will have no regrets
because he live his life to the fullest that he is
contented of the achievements he got.
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