How are all of these related? And what the heck is an auto-eulogy?
First, if you are not already familiar, I want to introduce you to Martin Heidegger. Heidegger was a German philosopher who lived from 1889 till 1976. He is often regarded as one of the most influential 20th century philosophers, but his reputation is tarnished by his ties to the German Nazi party during the 1930s which he later claimed to regret. With that being said, he made some important contributions to philosophy that are completely unattributable to any Nazi sentiment.
One of his most influential works was his book “Sein und Zeit” or translated into English “Being and Time”. This work had a direct influence on existentialism and aimed to revive ontology by exploring the meaning of Being rather than just the analysis of beings. Heidegger examined the idea of authenticity with regards to Being. Authenticity refers to the ability to act and live to your truest self.
According to Heidegger, there is “Das Sein” or the Being, “Das Nichts” or the Nothing, and “Das Gerade” or the Chatter/Gossip. From Heidegger’s perspective, the essence of Being is existence. Existence is our way of living and fundamentally how we spend our time. There are two ways for us to experience existence: authentically, or inauthentically. The problem is, especially in modern time, most of experience existence inauthentically. Why is that?
Being, and it’s essence – existence, are fragile because we are constrained by time. If we had all the time in the world, we probably wouldn’t view life as such a delicate thing. Since we do have a relatively extremely short existence in this world, we view life as very delicate and avoid things or actions that might break us. We also fear and avoid the Nothing because we don’t truly understand it and we know it means the end of Being. This avoidance of the Nothing hurts our ability to fully understand our Being. Since we avoid both thinking and understanding the nature of our Being and the Nothing, we fill our lives with the Chatter. You can think of the Chatter as noise that is not relevant to understanding your true nature. It’s the social inventions and institutions, petty gossip, and trivial matters that consume our daily lives to give us “purpose”. Consuming this Chatter makes us live an inauthentic life. This brings us to our first point: the Graveyard.
During a 1961 lecture, in response to a question about how we might recover authenticity, Heidegger famously remarked, “we should simply aim to spend more time ‘in graveyards’.1 I believe there are two points he was trying to convey with this response. First, it is direct confrontation with the Nothing. We cannot avoid it and are therefore forced to think about it and our Being. This benefits us as we take time to contemplate Being which would lead us to a more authentic life. The more time we spend in graveyards, the more we think about our Being, and the more authentic we become. Second, a graveyard is occupied by many who have succumbed to the Nothing. It makes us reflect not only our own Being, but also forces us to think about others Being. We should begin to appreciate what we all have in common: death. This creates a connection that Chatter tries to, but could never truly accomplish. In the long run, Chatter tends to only divide us, while Being and the Nothing unites us.
Now it’s unrealistic to visit graveyards as often as we might need to, to help in our journey towards a more authentic life. One way, we can experience the same benefit is through mediation. Meditation is the mindfulness of the Nothing which makes us more in tune with our Being and overcomes the distraction of life’s Chatter. A simple form of meditation is to keep your eyes closed and breath in slowly through your nose and exhale slowly out your mouth. If you have trouble focusing, you can simply “look” at the area that would occupy the space between your eyes, directly in front of your nose. It will be pitch black with eyes closed, and you will immerse yourself into the darkness, or the Nothing. Meditating for a period of time, even as little as 4-5 minutes, can help you experience this “gift from the graveyard”. It might even help to believe that every breath in represents the coming into existence, or Being, and every breath out represents the extinguishing of Being, or entering the Nothing. My suggestion is to find the meditating style that suits you best. Meditating is a simple exercise that lets us confront the Nothing, not run from it, and gives us an appreciation for the finality of life. Once you have this Gratitude towards your Being, you might find yourself motivated to pursue those things in life that you’ve always truly wanted to.
Entering the Nothing helps us appreciate the state of our Being, but how do we discover our authentic self? Enter the Auto-Eulogy. The auto-eulogy is the eulogy you would write for yourself if you had the opportunity. What would you truly want said about yourself at your own funeral? This kind of exercise usually allows your deepest and truest desires to surface. It’s those desires that I believe at least start us on the path towards our authentic self. You will learn along the way, and your desires might change, but you will continue to move in the direction of your authenticity. It’s this trajectory in life that allows you to achieve Greatness. It does not matter if it is the greatness that is defined by society as a whole because it is the greatness that you yourself define which is fundamental to authenticity.
One tip that might help you create your auto-eulogy is to believe that the people you admire the most are the ones attending your funeral. This tip sounds counter to the point I made in the last sentence of the previous paragraph. However, from my perspective, Heidegger believed that how one is to live, or be authentic, for the most part, is given to us externally. I like to think of it as how we are unavoidably coupled with our present environment. For instance, someone’s Being that lived during the stone-age would be different from someone’s Being who lives in the modern age. Thus we are thrown into the world of numerous possibilities that are specific to the current, although still dynamic, environment. Then, we must come to understand those possibilities, and we must learn to choose those that we truly want to work through. I think what we choose relies heavily on how the engagement of the possibility and results make us feel. There are projects I work on that make me feel better and more fulfilled than others, thus I should choose to work on those projects more often. So even though your goal of Being is specific to the existence of your own authentic self, your Being will always be influenced by the outside world, so you might as well try to have some input on which influences those are. So my advice is to not fill up your auto-eulogy with accomplishments that you think those you admire most would be proudest of, but with what you would be proudest to show them.
In brief summary, the graveyard (meditation) makes you face-off with the Nothing which helps you be grateful for your Being. It also makes you reflect (auto-eulogy) on what you want written on your gravestone:
‘Here Lies the System Tinkerer, who truly lived an authentic life’
1.https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/the-great-philosophers-martin-heidegger/
System Tinker 