Martin Heidegger

I chose to write my blog post on Martin Heidegger because his philosophy rang true with my own beliefs. The simplistic way he explains his philosophy made it easy for me to understand the points he made.

Heidegger's philosophy is primarily to 1. stay true to yourself through "authenticity", and 2. love life - don't let it control you until it's too late to do anything about it. With that being said, I think the most valuable piece of advice from Heidegger's philosophy is that we're called human beings for a reason. We're not called human do-ers because we're supposed to be, not do. We do too much and, knowingly or unknowingly, let ourselves get caught up in society and the unrealistic standards that humans are expected to reach. As we continue to do, we stop being ourselves and start to morph into a whole "themselves" vs "ourselves."

Another point I really like about Heidegger's philosophy is that he reminds us to think about our life. If we want to have a more profound appreciation for life, we should spend more time in a graveyard because one day that's where we'll all end up and it's up to ourselves to decide what we want to be before our time is up. We have to chose what part of the structure we are capable of being in this web of interconnectedness and solidarity because all beings are connected.

Heidegger also reminds us to be free. So often we find ourselves slaves to society and we stop being ourselves. When we give in to what we believe others expect of us, we no longer make our own decisions and therefore are no longer free. Heidegger wants us to understand that we can't live for anyone else, we must live for ourselves and stop trying to impress others because in the end, they really don't care.