All in the name of true love
They come in the night and they take that which is most precious.
Is it any wonder we have a need to imagine monsters? Is it any wonder there is a need for God, however one wishes to imagine God to be?
Is it any wonder that our faiths are strongest in the light of day and at their most fragile in the dark of the night?
However mighty we imagine our God, still they come in the night and take what is most precious.
And sometimes, they come in the day. There is no good time to be alive.
Martin Heidegger titled his magnus opus Sein und Zeit because, for him, life is being-in-the-world. Being and time go to constitute what it is to be human. Being, in fact, is time, for we are temporal creatures, bounded by the moment in time that is our birth and the moment that is our death. In that short time that is our life we are of the world - the world itself is part of our constitution. As the song says, "We are the World".
Because we are here for so short a time, it behooves us to make the most of our life. We must resist the temptations of those voices which would call us away from ourselves - hours spent surfing the internet, vegetating in front of the TV (except for watching the X Files, of course), gossiping round the water-cooler. We must listen to the voice of our conscience which draws us back to ourself, that we might put ourself to something constructive, useful and life-affirming.
The only good time to be alive, then, is always now. For once we pass over the horizon into death, there is no time or place to make amends for the life wasted.
For Heidegger, there is no 'better place', no walk-ins to save us from time and the world. There is only the tragedy of a life cut short. A life that was prevented, out of one person's self interest, from being all that it might have been.
Whatever the intention of 'Sein und Zeit' and 'Closure', they present no happy ending which somehow makes the death of a child acceptable or understandable. Amber Lynn Lapierre and Samantha Mulder deserved their time in the sun as much as any other human being. To have life curtailed, whether out of the selfish acts of men or walk-ins, is not something that can be made good.
That it happens is a result of lives lived inauthentically, lives that would hope to find an escape from their own realisation of temporality. We look for and find many ways to divert our attention away from our own finite time in this world. By far the most popular choice is to impose ourselves upon others, as if the doing unto others will somehow prevent it being done unto us. Heidegger makes it clear that all that is achieved is a listening to noise.
Those who suffer from tinnitus, as I do in my left ear, know that the noise is nothing but an annoying distraction that can only be ignored when focused on something else.
Heidegger tells us that we need listen only to our conscience, which pulls us back from the noise of the world to the silence of our self. In that silence, we must find within us what it is best for us to accomplish in the time we are being-in-the-world. Only in so doing will we live authentic lives. Those who live authentically do not come in the night to take what is most precious. They have no need to impose themselves upon others, for no one can give them what they cannot find within themselves.
The serial killer of 'Sein und Zeit', is aptly named. We inauthentics can only express love when somehow imposing ourselves upon others. As much as we delude ourselves, persuade ourselves that this is the person with whom I am in love, if we were to examine our conscience we'd find that the relationship is one of mutual destruction and all in the name of Truelove.
Is it any wonder we have a need to imagine monsters? Is it any wonder there is a need for God, however one wishes to imagine God to be?
Is it any wonder that our faiths are strongest in the light of day and at their most fragile in the dark of the night?
However mighty we imagine our God, still they come in the night and take what is most precious.
And sometimes, they come in the day. There is no good time to be alive.
Martin Heidegger titled his magnus opus Sein und Zeit because, for him, life is being-in-the-world. Being and time go to constitute what it is to be human. Being, in fact, is time, for we are temporal creatures, bounded by the moment in time that is our birth and the moment that is our death. In that short time that is our life we are of the world - the world itself is part of our constitution. As the song says, "We are the World".
Because we are here for so short a time, it behooves us to make the most of our life. We must resist the temptations of those voices which would call us away from ourselves - hours spent surfing the internet, vegetating in front of the TV (except for watching the X Files, of course), gossiping round the water-cooler. We must listen to the voice of our conscience which draws us back to ourself, that we might put ourself to something constructive, useful and life-affirming.
The only good time to be alive, then, is always now. For once we pass over the horizon into death, there is no time or place to make amends for the life wasted.
For Heidegger, there is no 'better place', no walk-ins to save us from time and the world. There is only the tragedy of a life cut short. A life that was prevented, out of one person's self interest, from being all that it might have been.
Whatever the intention of 'Sein und Zeit' and 'Closure', they present no happy ending which somehow makes the death of a child acceptable or understandable. Amber Lynn Lapierre and Samantha Mulder deserved their time in the sun as much as any other human being. To have life curtailed, whether out of the selfish acts of men or walk-ins, is not something that can be made good.
That it happens is a result of lives lived inauthentically, lives that would hope to find an escape from their own realisation of temporality. We look for and find many ways to divert our attention away from our own finite time in this world. By far the most popular choice is to impose ourselves upon others, as if the doing unto others will somehow prevent it being done unto us. Heidegger makes it clear that all that is achieved is a listening to noise.
Those who suffer from tinnitus, as I do in my left ear, know that the noise is nothing but an annoying distraction that can only be ignored when focused on something else.
Heidegger tells us that we need listen only to our conscience, which pulls us back from the noise of the world to the silence of our self. In that silence, we must find within us what it is best for us to accomplish in the time we are being-in-the-world. Only in so doing will we live authentic lives. Those who live authentically do not come in the night to take what is most precious. They have no need to impose themselves upon others, for no one can give them what they cannot find within themselves.
The serial killer of 'Sein und Zeit', is aptly named. We inauthentics can only express love when somehow imposing ourselves upon others. As much as we delude ourselves, persuade ourselves that this is the person with whom I am in love, if we were to examine our conscience we'd find that the relationship is one of mutual destruction and all in the name of Truelove.
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