Reflection X: Death He Wrote

11/17/2019

Death: one of the few things in life that is guaranteed. We all accept death as a reality.

While some of us are afraid of dying, none of us truly grasp the concept of being permanently

erased from this earth. We don’t wake up every morning thinking we are going to die; hell, if we

knew we were going to die in 30 years, some of us wouldn’t even change our current lifestyles.

Why are we so unfazed by this concept? Maybe it is because we have become desensitized to it

over our 20+ years on this earth. Heidegger has a theory. This we don’t truly recognize, or better

yet grasp, what it truly means to be a Da Sein, until someone we love dies.We don't truly reflect

on what it means to die, or even live, until we lose someone close to us. When we weep at

funerals, are we weeping out of sadness, or are we coming to a realization that one day that will

be us; me. Psychologists might argue that mourning over death is a selfish act because we are

only sad that we will never get to benefit from this person’s life anymore. This might be true, but

this answer never truly satisfied me. It is also important to bring up the fact that we mourn

fictional characters the same way we mourn real people. Their death has no impact on our direct

lives, yet we give it meaning.