Death

[Joe Varo]

On Tue, 30 Jul 1996, David Nevin Friedman wrote:

> Ok.  Maybe I'm a little dense, but how the hell does one recognize death 
> in the first place, much less recognize it as a result of marriage or 
> femaleness?????!!!!!!

Well, I would say that I first came to recognize death, or at least get 
my first intimations of the "meaning" of death during my first reading of 
Heidegger's _Being_&_Time_, back in college.  It gave me this intense 
sense of "nothingness".  I would imagine that I've always had this 
feeling that when you're dead, well, you're dead, i.e. worm-food, but 
seeing it thematized in H. really made it hit home.

As for the idea of marriage bringing on the recognition of mortality in 
males, I never really thought of it in that way but, from personal 
experience, I'd have to agree.  Upon getting married I truly began to 
"settle down", became less daring, less prone to do stupid shit, 
etc...and possibly more boring.

I think that with marriage comes the recognition that you're now 
responsible for the happiness of someone other than just yourself, you 
begin to think about how the other person will fare upon your demise, and 
thus the recognition of mortality.

Joe