11 July 2013
Discussed Text: Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"
Every life for me is like a puzzle, containing a masterpiece, which is ultimately the self. In our constant struggles to piece our lives together, we form this unique masterpiece of ourselves. We paint a picture of our own struggles and experiences as we journey through the roads of self discovery and purpose.
I can say that I am still in that stage where I am struggling to find my place in this whole. I am getting there but I am not quite so there yet. This is ultimately my puzzle; it is far from complete and there are still missing pieces that are yet to be found. I cannot envision the whole picture as it is still unknown, and I am very much aware of this. Life precisely is also a puzzle in this very way, it is puzzling and it is unknown to me. I cannot see and limit life simply into a small frame of truth as I have to be aware that not all of my certainties are fundamentally true. This is one of the things that philosophy teaches me “To know that we do not know” and to live a life open to different possibilities and opportunities.
I guess this struggle, this striving, and awareness of things is exactly what Heidegger leads us to understand- That what it means to live is to strive and yearn for the sophon, the striving to know and discover our places and the whole scheme of things. Life here again is very much like a puzzle in a sense that we, all individually, have a place in this whole. We are the pieces that make this whole complete as we strive to be in unity with everything and all its existence. As he says “all being is in Being”, what fundamentally unites us all together is this act of mutual existence however this is also where our differences truly lie. Just like puzzle pieces, even though they are all connected to one another and necessary to form that whole, each piece is still fundamentally different and unique in this own way.
Ultimately, I find that this metaphor is able to encapsulate what life really is and as life itself is placed in the center of our own puzzles affixed with an arbitrary frame of experiences, possibilities, and opportunities, what is left now between the center and the edges is what remains to be lived and discovered. Ultimately, as we journey through life, we find these puzzle pieces that form our own masterpiece yet also at the same time we see ourselves as the pieces themselves, who form and are part of an even bigger masterpiece.
