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How To Prepare For Life’s End
Befriending Death and Living An Authentic Existence
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, I found myself contemplating my own death. The pandemic took us all by surprise and wreaked havoc on our lives. In the past year, I wasn’t so afraid of it. Yes, infections rose day by day, but recovery rates are far higher than death tolls. Moreover, I’m relieved my loved ones are obedient in following health and safety protocols.
It wasn’t until this time of this year that I was shaken by its destructive effects. A new strain of the coronavirus has mutated, and it is more contagious and deadly. In addition, the number of cases reported on the daily news ceased to be numbers for me. They weren’t merely numbers anymore. Some of my friends and family contracted the virus.
I didn’t know what to do.
Once we’re born, death is attached to our existence. As we get older, the chances of dying increase and become more apparent. Though aware our time is limited, talking about death still makes us uncomfortable.
“The life which philosopher’s truly desire is death.”
I encountered this saying several times already. But whenever I hear it, I’m still moved by it. It sounds morbid. But when I learned what it meant, I felt a sense of freedom.
Our Finiteness
In his book, Being and Time, Martin Heidegger proposes a very simple idea.
Being is time and time is finite. For human beings, time comes to an end in death. Therefore, if we want to understand what it means to be an authentic human being, then it is essential that we constantly project our lives onto the horizon of our death.
If our being is finite, then an authentic human life can only be found by confronting finitude and trying to make a meaning out of the fact of our death.
With existence comes its own set of concerns. However, the most concerning possibility is the reality of death. With this, we are lead to think about our life.
In the face of death, we confront our inexistence because it entails nothingness. We then understand the limits of our reason because reason cannot comprehend the nature of death.
