Dying to move on

(Or, wise advice from the atheistic existentialists)

“I was an insipid blossoming constantly on the point of being nipped in the bud. In other words, I was condemned; the sentence could be applied at any moment. Nevertheless, I rejected it with all my might. Not what my existence was dear to me; on the contrary, because I wasn’t keen on it: the more absurd the life, the less bearable the death.”

–Jean-Paul Sartre, Words

Two nights ago, I dreamt of being in a car accident. I’m driving, and then this other vehicle slams into my left side, crumpling the door and shattering the window. Of course you don’t feel pain in dreams, so the shock of the pain that did not come probably woke me. It was another weekday morning, and I had to go school. Above right: With my friend and mentor Leni, who walked me through my dissertation.

Coincidentally that day, we discussed Martin Heidegger in my Philosophy of the Person class, in particular his ideas about the human being (“Dasein”) as a being-towards-death. The anxiety we feel whenever we confront our end forces us to fulfill our potentials, to truly become authentic, to individualize ourselves. Given the billions of other people in the world, I am replaceable in virtually everything I do. But only I can die my death.

So I had my students list down the top ten things they wanted to be able to do or accomplish before they die, whenever that is. Some items in their lists turned out to be very similar to mine: Travel to other countries, write a book, become fluent in a foreign language other than from English, have children. Perhaps these are the usual aspirations of people below 30 (or even 40?). I realized once again how a contemplation of death galvanizes us into action. There are so many things I want to be able to do before my life becomes a complete picture… before my concerns and obstacles and moderate achievements fit themselves into a little tale of finitude. “I’ll tell you a secret,” Achilles says to Briseis, in the movie Troy (2004). “Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

Later that day, after teaching three classes and going through my final dissertation defense (which I’ll tell you about in a while), I got into my car and prepared to drive home. I thought about the dream I had that morning, about the strange red light that permeated the interior of the car, as though I were driving through some kind of sin city. I worried it might be an omen, perhaps even a literal one about an actual accident. I thought of how weird it was that we had discussed Heidegger and death in class. Was it to be my last day on earth? Above right: With Leni and Raj, my friends and teachers in graduate school, after my defense.

It was not. I survived the drive home, in fact survived long enough to say goodbye to my relatives, who had to go back to the US and Canada this morning. I survived long enough to be able to sit here and write, after an unexplained lull of more than a month. Now that I finally have the time to update this blog, I wonder if I have it in me to explain the terrible, interminable weeks I’ve gone through: the dissertation that I thought I’d never finish, the visiting relatives I’d had to chauffeur to myriad places, my harried, end-of-term lectures, my sudden obsession about death.

In spite of it all, I’m still here. I guess I survived.


Above: Somewhere in Greenbelt during our last dinner out with my cousins, uncles, and aunt.

Left: With my sister and cousins. Yet in a way, a part of me has died, as different parts of us are dying, just as we have started to die the moment we had been born. One aspect of my life has recently ended: four years of graduate school, or twelve trimesters of evening classes and essay exams and term papers and class reports and—the crowning glory of it all—a 215-page dissertation on the self-other relation in Sartre and Beauvoir. I successfully presented it to my professors yesterday, this monster of a paper that had taken over my life for the past six months. I’m so glad it’s finally slain. For a moment there, I thought it was me who would perish, bleeding and broken, unconscious face mashed into the keyboard (okay, that was an exaggeration). Now all that’s left to do is to attend the graduation rites this June, when I will be conferred that slightly objectifying, if otherwise thoroughly satisfying, Ph.D. in philosophy.

Wohoo!

Left: The noseless ones. Oh no! A part of me is excited of course, about the career opportunities that go with the degree. Then there’s the considerable increase in one’s salary, as the University duly rewards its own scholars. But mostly, I’m just relieved and glad to finally be able to move on. I was telling Leni, I always find myself where I’ve never planned to go, trekking narrow, pebbly paths, skirting treacherous ravines. Yet no matter how carefully I navigate my way, responsibilities insidiously, gleefully accumulate on my back. So much so that I’ve neglected to do what I’ve always wanted, getting sidetracked by philosophy. (Several years ago while I was looking for freelance writing work, I was offered a part-time job teaching Gender Studies, under the Philosophy Department at De La Salle. Somewhere along the way I was advised to go to graduate school, both to get promoted and to take advantage of a scholarship from the University. Four years later, here I am, about to be calcified into a role that really, I never consciously chose. Only me would get a Ph.D. by accident.)

Now that this little adventure is over and done with—even though I know that in another sense, it has only just begun—I can at least devote my time to something else. As to what’s next for me, and whether I can truly break out of academic philosophy (from time to time anyway), all this remains to be seen. I’m all revved up. Which makes this the worst possible time to die.

Above: At Enchanted Kingdom, during the week that I was (supposedly anyway) cramming for my dissertation.

In his only autobiography, Sartre wrote that “the more absurd the life, the less bearable the death.” At first this might sound contradictory; wouldn’t the meaninglessness or absurdity of existence make you want to waste it, just have it all end? But if existence precedes essence, then for as long as you’re alive, no fixed nature or set of final characteristics can encapsulate you. All this changes when you die. When you die, you are simply the sum of your entire life. If you spend most of it doing things that are meaningless (a relative term), and you die on a particular day doing something typically meaningless, then death petrifies you as someone who has lived his or her life meaninglessly. Who would want that? If only through little accomplishments—and sometimes when you’re lucky, big ones—you want to conquer the absurdity of your life before death catches up. Like Sisyphus conquered his rock!

So. On to the other things in my top ten list.

Below: I think I may have perfected the Weary Smile this term.