Skip to main content

EXISTENTIALISM AND CRISIS OF SELF: MUSING ON HEDEIGGER'S BEING AND TIME


"Being and time determine each other reciprocally, but in such a manner that neither can the former - Being - be addressed as something temporal nor can the latter - time - be addressed as a being", writes Martin Heidegger. Here 'Being' denotes the ultimate truth, either the supreme reality or nothingness. Every being perceives self in past-present-future trilogy, while the past creates a picture of self through cultural influences, present organises the self as per changing moods and anxiety, and the future projects the self ahead of its reality. In that way the biggest illusion a self suffers with, is its authenticity to project itself before reaching to its nothingness. To make it simple, the biggest crisis for Heidegger is that beings are leading towards inauthentic life. Most of the beings don't care about the reality of nothingness. Or at least they want to flee away from self to alleviate the anxiety of death. They don't to think that the death is real. Most of the people assume that one who dies is other. This is the authentic reason the way people want to be young all the time. We are busy for nothing. We don't want to know why are we here? Why are all these sufferings? Why do we die? We instead think about weather, the beauty competition, cricket, movie masala. We want to forget about the self, about nothingness, about the existence or death. This forgetfulness and anxiety to free from self has created a crisis of duplicity. Are we really living the way we are in true self? Or self itself is a false bubble who will disappear for nothing? Can't we project us better before reaching a point of saturations? Can't we live in meaningful ways before the ultimate Being takes its place? Can't we really ask some questions of vital importance than roaming around the city of fasle gods? Heidegger is challenging us with his Dasein. His self is not under-seige, instead he is creating a meaning of his self before nothingness will swallow his being into Being.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Meeting Justice Rohinton Nariman in a Sunday Morning

Aristotle once wrote in his Nicomachean Ethics that there are four significant virtues for human beings, namely Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage. There are a few judges who have courage and sense of justice, both. Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rohinton Nariman has been truly an exemplar judge and erudite historian, theologian and philologist, a great scholar of music as well as a courageous and meticulous jurist of our country. He did his Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1980-81 and taught by one of the finest jurists of the last century, Roberto Unger. He became Senior Advocate in 1993 in the age of 37 and also served as Solicitor General of India in 2011 before he was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court of India in 2014. He delivered many landmark judgments, including Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. There are a few people with whom time moves too fast, but to count that experience takes ages. Justice Rohinton Nariman is one of those great jurists with whom a meet...

Feminine Mystery

        Portrait Courtesy: Shraddha One day when 'I' die  All would born as free life The long struggle to be Would turn out to be a mirage  Whose mystery is long known But forgotten Every concern or engagement Is an escape to forget  The first germ of life; its completeness Shackles are nowhere  But imagined as real One day that image would disappear And a blank sheet would represent The Being and Nothingness My mother my light  Has merged into the shadow To witness the geist  Glittering in every particle  All around ether  One day when I laugh On the seriousness of playfulness And let the things flow  Without any expectation or resistance The day would be a new dawn To the spirit of wholeness And unity of phenomenon Fragmented in an age of reason And anarchus egoism of individuals  One day the expression of collective Would loose its relevance  When man would realise The silent spirit  And its feminine mys...

पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का

पढ़ता हूँ हर एक दिन एक ही पन्ना, हर दिन हज़ार ये मालूम पड़ते हैं। जबसे होश संभाला है एक ही पन्ना सवांरते आया हूँ, लोग इसे ज़िन्दगी कहते हैं। इसपे लिखे हर एक लब्ज़ जो मेरे मालूम पड़ते हैं, ना जाने कितने जुबां पे चढ़े होंगे। आज हम भी कुछ पल के लिए ही सही इसके सारथी हैं, जाने से पहले कुछ रंग मेरा भी इसपे चढ़ जाए, बस इसीलिए एक ही पन्ना बार बार पलटता रहता हूँ। हर कोई अनजाने किताब की तलाश में बाहर निकलता है, जिसका हर एक पन्ना वो ख़ुद है। जब ख़ुद के रंग को समझ ही ना पाया, तो भला इंद्रधनुषी किताब के क्या मायने हैं? अस्तित्व में ना जाने कितने पन्ने बिखरे पड़े हैं, बस एक से ही अवगत हो जाऊँ, उसके हर एक शब्द को चुनता जाऊँ, कुछ पल के लिये सही, पिरोता जाऊँ एक माला ज़िन्दगी का।