An Existential Life

“I was speaking before of Heidegger and I said that mortality according to Heidegger is what makes my time mine, such that it cannot be shared with another—nobody can die in my place—and such that it is totally indeterminate. This will lead Heidegger to say that time must be thought from the perspective of the future. My death always remains “still come,” and hence a magnificent paradox—my event is the sole event I will never live. When my death arrives, I won’t be there to live it. Death will therefore never happen to me. It’s both what will never happen to me, and the only thing which can really happen to me. Because, say you catch a flu, or you fall in love with the man or woman you love, then they leave…all this happens. Nothing is ever quite irremediable, so nothing ever happens conclusively, inasmuch as the only things that are conclusive are the irremediable things. Except death. It’s only death which conclusively happens to you. The problem is that it won’t really happen either. So it’s nothing but a phantom. It has never been, and it will never arrive. There are nothing but phantasms.”

-Bernard Stiegler