Heidegger's thoughts on Death

Dasein

Death may be scary, but overall, it can be a beautiful thing. We as humans are now programmed to fear death because that’s how we as humans have evolved; we’ve grown and taught ourselves that death is something to be dreaded. We need to unlearn this and teach ourselves not to fear death because it doesn’t have to be as unsettling as we all think.

In the book ‘Being and Time’ written by Martin Heidegger, he writes “Dasein's coming to an end, and which, as such, gives to it its wholeness.” (Heidegger, 1926:284). The term ‘Dasein’ Heidegger uses is the german word for existance, Heidegger is saying existance and life for every individual living thing will always, eventually come to an end, and because of this end, it makes everything living ‘whole’, once we have lived and fulfilled our lives, however long or short, we become whole. When we’ve learnt and expeirenced everything that was meant for us, we become complete, and this even includes death.

“With its death, Dasein has indeed 'fulfilled its course’.” (Martin Heidegger).

Dying makes us whole, it is something every living being must experience to fulfill our lives and make our lives complete. Which can be a beautiful way to look at life and death. To appreciate the time we spend living, and everything weve experienced during our lives, which will be different for each and every one of us. We live our individual lives, and when we leave this earth, we are finally whole, we have done everything we were meant to do, and achieved everything we were meant to achieve.

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