Eighth Class

During this class session, the first group talked about Heidegger and death. The first question was about if one can understand the totality of one's own life or if that is something that alludes us even if we can see a corpse right in front of us. I believe that we can never truly grasp the totality of our lives and the fact that we will actually meet our end until we are literally dying at that very second. When you are at a funeral you may think of how you will live a total life and die one day but it is only in hypotheticals as you won't have to actually face that until you are much older or you are dying sometime in the nearer future. Understanding the totality of life requires one to totally live their life up to their death in my opinion. The next question that caught my attention was whether or not we comfort ourselves when we comfort others that are nearing death. I think it depends on how we choose to comfort the person in question. If we choose to tell them that everything will be ok and return to the way things were before they were dying then it is really only a comfort to us and something we are telling ourselves to be less afraid of their inevitable absence from our lives - it does nothing to help them not worry about leaving us or feeling guilty about dying. On the other hand, if we choose to comfort them by telling them it is ok to pass on and that they will be missed but should accept that it is their time to go then that is truly comforting them because they can accept death with no reservations rather than feeling the guilt of leaving behind family and those that care about them in this world. I think if I were terminally ill or dying for some other reason with no chance of living to see another day I would feel very guilty about leaving my friends and family behind as well as not getting to do all the things that I always wanted to do like travel and experience life in general. In that situation, I would want said friends and family to let me know that it's ok that I'm going to miss out on those things and that if it were meant to happen that way then it would have but this was the path I was meant to walk. If my friends and family instead gave me false hope that I could live out those dreams it would only serve to make me feel more alone in the knowledge that that was, in fact, false - knowing that I wouldn't make it to do those things. Being honest with death is important and accepting a family member or a friend dying is extremely hard to do, but in their situation nothing would be more comforting than knowing that whatever happens is what was supposed to happen and that things will be alright.

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