April 2 - Martin Heidegger & Death

Today we talked about death and Dasein or existence in class. My group was presenting,and

honestly before the presentation I was very foggy headed about the content on which I was presenting. However during our presentation, and through our class discussion I further understood the material much clearer. To begin our presentation we did a skit where I was killed, and my partners analyzed my death through the individual, my perception, and the “they” perception of death. Then we asked the class how they felt they viewed death. I was surprised to find out that ,most people felt as if they accepted death, and that they wouldn't run from it. However much like Thad Botham, my mom died while i was very young so i have seen death, and experienced a loss at a very rather young age. This tragic incident in my life, has forced me to view death from the “they” perception.

Although I would naturally expect me to be accepting of death , seeing my mom pass away when I was five. However I felt as if I was very unlucky and unfortunate, or to have lost my mother so I viewed death in a very pessimistic way . These events naturally caused me to run away from the idea that death would ever occur to me, when in reality it can occur in the blink of an eye. When a few of my fellow classmates opened up and began speaking about their near death experiences and how it  shaped how they view death it really was an eye opener for me. Death really could be right around the corner for me, and I wouldn't be accepting of it. This caused me to kinda have a paradigm shift in my view on death. I feel like I would be accepting of it, I would most definitely attempt to avoid it but if it was a certain thing, I would reflect on my life and hope that it was of satisfaction and then say my final prayer.

Martin Heidegger-March 31

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher. Heidegger’s  main interest was ontology or the study of being. He attempted to access Sein ( or being) with phenomenological analysis of Da-Sein ( or human existence). However I  feel as if Heidegger's redefining of the word “being” only added to the confusion of the topic. Understanding Dasein- or human existence is fairly hard concept for me to come to grips with.

When I was reading the material quite a lot did not make sense to me. Existence or Da-Sein made me wonder about my place here on this planet. Am I a being who is living life waiting until my die in acceptance. Or am I an individual who lives life in the moment because of the fear that I can die any day. Honestly although I am not sure if possible I feel like I am in the middle between the two. I feel as if I live life in the moment to the fullest. However I also perceive myself as someone who does not fear death. Of course naturally I do not want to die, but if in the face of death I would accept it and hope that my life was satisfactory

In class we started talking about individuality, and authenticity of people. To me I feel like people are not 100% of themselves. The reason being, is because everybody learns things from parents, friends, social media. It is only after people have gathered all this information, then decided which parts to believe in, which parts to practice, and then formulate their ideas and opinions based off the knowledge learned. So therefore people are individuals but only to a certain extent. However if a person was to live isolated by themselves and somehow gained knowledge and then formulate their personality, then will they be an authentic individual .