Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Being Amidst Infinite Possibilities


by Tara Alberto

20 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Heidegger," Ethics and Infinity

One of the things Dr. Garcia discussed in class earlier that especially caught my attention was how Heidegger claimed that we are ‘thrown’ into the world, that our Being-in-the-world is a ‘thrownness’. According to Heidegger, human beings were thrown into this world deprived of any other option or any prior knowledge. In a simple and at the same time fascinatingly intricate way, we are here in this world. We exist.

We are thrown into this world in the midst of our possibilities. Heidegger stresses that these possibilities are not merely in front of us, unlike things that we can decide on; they are not things that we have. It is not a question of having, but instead a question of actually being these very real possibilities.

Heidegger saw the human being as a project – a work-in-progress. We are thrown into the world and in Being-in-the-world, there is an experience of transcending – of going beyond. If we were to go beyond to embrace the capabilities within us and explore the multitude of our possibilities, we may be able to make a difference. That said, isn’t that among the few things truly important in life, making a positive difference?

In desiring to make a difference, we must be firm in our pursuit of the fundamental possibilities. Nowadays, people tend to forget the question of being and thus get involved with or fixated in other things like money, sex, or power, forcing them to be stuck on just the secondary possibilities, failing to be authentic. In failing to be authentic, these beings then become inauthentic, and that is where ‘fallenness’ comes in. ‘Fallenness’ is slipping away and the forgetfulness of being in the present society, in one’s fundamental situation. In order to move from inauthenticity back to authenticity, one needs to climb back up to being, feeling the urgency towards authenticity – to really live according to being as being instead of simply being entrenched in inauthenticity.

The ideas of ‘thrownness’ and the many possibilities of our being in this world reminded me of a particular move that I was required to watch for one of my classes during my sophomore year. The movie is aptly entitled “Life in a Day”. Basically, people from all over the world submitted snippets of a day in their life, hence the title.


The movie, which is an uninterrupted compilation of all the submitted video clips ranging from the typical to the extraordinary, somehow led me to realize how all of us are thrown into this world, into a particular setting or situation, none of which are due to our choosing. Seeing glimpses of how such diverse people live in different parts of the earth despite how little they have or how difficult their condition is was truly inspiring. It goes to show how minute our own problems can be, and that a being can truly be, no matter the external factors, because it is only a matter of transcending your current situation. Making a difference is possible no matter who or where one is thrown into this world.We human beings have an innate potential to be so much more than what we are now. That being is not just static being – it’s a becoming – becoming more of what we have to be. That we are a project, a possibility, a work-in-progress – that our fundamental task is to keep on transcending because we have the possibility of doing such.

As Dr. Garcia said, we must give the best of what we can everyday. “Walang awang pagtiyatiyaga” – the ceaseless desire to be, the ceaseless effort to exist. 

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I really like the points made in this blog. Nowadays, it really is very hard for me to be optimistic about the world we live in. There are moments when I have given up on mankind and our potential to be good, to make a difference. i say this because whenever I go to CNN or catch local news, I am always bombarded with incidents of murder, torture, theft, rape, inter-nation wars and other senseless crimes. What happened to the good in mankind? Why is it that the society we live in is so immersed in evil and hatred and not in what is good and beautiful?

    One of the reasons why this is probably so is that, as said in the blog, we have become inauthentic. We pursue wealth, power and prestige, so-called values that will eventually drown us in inauthenticity and hatred. It's like we lave lost hope in what is good and decided to make the world more immersed the opposite. But this cannot happen. We have to climb up and live out our existence by becoming authentic, by opening ourselves to the infinite possibilities of being, those that will make us realize how we can make a difference, a positive difference in the world. And for this to happen, we really need to reflect and discern what we ought to do with our lives. We cannot live our lives nonchalantly and let things spontaneously occur. There must be effort on our part.

    Thomas Manalac
    Ph102-A

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  3. I was quite thrown aback by the lesson on Heidegger. This whole idea that we are "thrown into the world" just made life feel as if we were dumped and had nowhere else to go. I do, however, admire the idea that we are our own possibilities. In Psychology, we learn that what we start out life as an empty mind, John Locke's tabula rasa. However, this thrownness suggests that we already have this idea of what we will become when we want to grow up, and it's just a matter of finding it.

    This journey, turns out to be the project in life. To find what difference we will make. To find our capabilities that is innate. However, people forget this and fall into inauthenticity. They follow what other people say instead of standing out, to exist and to make a status.

    These three fundamental themes: thrownness, project, and fallenness help us to be aware of what it means to be.

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  4. I love that you shared a movie that presents snippets of everyday life. I think a lot of the reason why we forget the question of being and instead chase what we can have is that we are constantly waiting. We put conditions on our possibilities, believing them to be from an external source. I used to think that once certain events would happen in my life, the possibilities would fall into my lap and I would not have to worry about anything anymore. While waiting, I felt a lot of fear, fear of pain and struggle, and especially of the things I could not predict or control.

    In thinking like this, I removed much responsibility from myself, and with that, I also removed the ability to make a difference, to be present and working on myself. In this waiting, we get stuck, and as you worded it - "entrenched in inauthenticity" and then, nothing is ever enough. Fallenness occurs when we allow ourselves to be reduced to our problems, fears, and things that we can't control. Your post highlighted that being is a matter of now, not a matter of waiting, thus the urgency. Instead of never being enough, it becomes - there is always more. When we think of ourselves as projects, as works-in-progress, rather than thinking about what to worry about, the focus shifts to how much we can do with what time we have - Now.

    It is in our everyday lives that we create the possibilities in ourselves by first remembering that we can always be more than our situation. This is not to say that the struggle goes away. I think one has to accept that rather, we can make something out of the struggle, through ourselves. This is why the act of creation is so beautiful, because rather than allowing ourselves to be limited by what happens to us in this world, we find it in ourselves to go transcend and beyond it, to write a poem or compose a song, to give back and make our mark, joyful that we can go to sleep with the knowledge that we did our best and helped those around us in the process. Then, there is not a lot of space left for fear, worry, anxiety, anguish, angst. When we love, we can do our best, we create the possibilities in us. We are not beings waiting for possibilities, but "Being Amidst Infinite Possibilities."

    Jiane Castro
    PH 102 - A

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  5. Actually, at first, the idea that we have all been "thrown" into this world bothered me to no end. I was left thinking, oh. So we were just thrown into this world? It makes me feel that that means my life is just so insignificant then. We were thrown here into this world because there was no other option. Ouch, right? Because no matter how small and insignificant one single life may seem to be in this world, I still would like to believe that no life is completely insignificant. So when he started talking about the possibilities of being, I felt so relieved. Phew. Yeah, our life can indeed be significant, but ONLY IF we choose to make it so.

    Lica Lee
    PH102 A

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  7. I think that the concept of Heidegger's "human being as a project – a work-in-progress", is actually comforting. It tells us that there is always room for us to grow and be better as persons. It allows us to believe that life is really a journey; one which we take in order to reach our potential. It encourages us to transcend, to make a difference, and continue becoming. Being a work-in-progress means we can always be more; and this is something which we have to always remember and put in to action.

    -Russell Virata
    Ph102 C

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