The authenticity argument
It is by taking on my death that I truly become myself.
Supports
Heidegger · Being and Time · 1927
- In everyday busyness, I mostly live as "one" lives: scattered among tasks, rumors and everyone's opinions, I keep postponing the question of what I truly want.
- Death, however, cannot be delegated: no one can die in my place, and no one knows when. It is my ownmost possibility, the one that sets me apart and that nothing surpasses.
- Facing it lucidly, instead of fleeing it, brings me at once back to the essential: this finite time is mine, and it is for me to answer for it, here, now.
Therefore Therefore facing death is not morbid: it is the condition of an existence, chosen rather than undergone.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Deepenings
Fleeing into the "they"
- notes that death is everywhere softened: "one dies," we say, as if it were an anonymous and distant fact, never my own death.
- This flight is reassuring but costly: by hiding my finitude from me, it also robs me of the urgency that could make my life truly mine.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely