May 10, 2020 08:10 PM
https://aeon.co/ideas/sooner-or-later-we...ng-help-us
EXCERPT (Warren Ward): . . . When the Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware interviewed scores of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, she asked them their greatest regrets. The most frequent, published in her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (2011), were:
• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard;
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings;
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The relationship between death-awareness and leading a fulfilling life was a central concern of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger [...] Heidegger lamented that too many people wasted their lives running with the ‘herd’ rather than being true to themselves. But Heidegger actually struggled to live up to his own ideals; in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, hoping it would advance his career.
Despite his shortcomings as a man, Heidegger’s ideas would go on to influence a wide range of philosophers, artists, theologians and other thinkers. Heidegger believed that Aristotle’s notion of Being [...] was flawed at a most fundamental level. ... Heidegger argued that, before we start classifying Being, we should first ask the question: ‘Who or what is doing all this questioning?’
[...] While Western medical science, which is based on Aristotelian thinking, sees the human body as a material thing that can be understood by examining it and breaking it down to its constituent parts like any other piece of matter, Heidegger’s ontology puts human experience at the centre of our understanding of the world.
Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with melanoma. [...] For me, this realisation, this acceptance, this awareness that I am going to die is at least as important to my wellbeing as all the advances of medicine, because it reminds me to live my life to the full every day. ... Most Eastern philosophical traditions appreciate the importance of death-awareness for a well-lived life...
[...] As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body ... As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, however, I am also reminded how empty life can be if we have no sense of meaning or purpose. An awareness of our mortality, of our precious finitude, can, paradoxically, move us to seek – and, if necessary, create – the meaning that we so desperately crave. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT (Warren Ward): . . . When the Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware interviewed scores of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, she asked them their greatest regrets. The most frequent, published in her book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying (2011), were:
• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;
• I wish I hadn’t worked so hard;
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings;
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The relationship between death-awareness and leading a fulfilling life was a central concern of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger [...] Heidegger lamented that too many people wasted their lives running with the ‘herd’ rather than being true to themselves. But Heidegger actually struggled to live up to his own ideals; in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, hoping it would advance his career.
Despite his shortcomings as a man, Heidegger’s ideas would go on to influence a wide range of philosophers, artists, theologians and other thinkers. Heidegger believed that Aristotle’s notion of Being [...] was flawed at a most fundamental level. ... Heidegger argued that, before we start classifying Being, we should first ask the question: ‘Who or what is doing all this questioning?’
[...] While Western medical science, which is based on Aristotelian thinking, sees the human body as a material thing that can be understood by examining it and breaking it down to its constituent parts like any other piece of matter, Heidegger’s ontology puts human experience at the centre of our understanding of the world.
Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with melanoma. [...] For me, this realisation, this acceptance, this awareness that I am going to die is at least as important to my wellbeing as all the advances of medicine, because it reminds me to live my life to the full every day. ... Most Eastern philosophical traditions appreciate the importance of death-awareness for a well-lived life...
[...] As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body ... As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, however, I am also reminded how empty life can be if we have no sense of meaning or purpose. An awareness of our mortality, of our precious finitude, can, paradoxically, move us to seek – and, if necessary, create – the meaning that we so desperately crave. (MORE - details)