Birthday Psychology: Being, Time and Finitude

Hello friends!

Everything that exists, exists in time. Normally, we think of a mountain as space, but a mountain also has its existence in time. As we cannot see the transformation of the mountain into a valley, for the thousands of years it takes, we fail to observe that the mountain also exists in a time. That’s how Darwin, who was a geologist, was able to estimate that the earth’s time was much longer than 5,000 years. Taking into account the process of erosion of a mountain on the coast of England, Darwin came to the conclusion that land must be hundreds of thousands of years old.

Well, in this text I am going to use some concepts that I learned in phenomenological-existential psychology, although, evidently, a text like this is just a small introduction to what we can think of when reading the Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger.

birthday psychology

Some people say they get sad on commemorative dates like Christmas, New Year’s Eve, birthdays. Others already report feeling really depressed. In principle, we should not talk about cases of depression, because for the differential diagnosis of depression, time is also taken into account. That is, some days would not represent a depressive picture but what we call a depressive episode.

It is very interesting what existential-phenomenological psychology says about the relationship between time and mental illness. But this would already be a topic for a future text.

On the other hand, we know that many people are extremely happy with their birthday. Birthday, which in German is Geburtstag, in liberal translation birth day, just like in English Birthday. Birthday comes from the Latin anniversarius (anni = “year” + vers = “that returns” + arius = “date”), which means “what comes back every year” or “what happens every year”.

What is curious and special about this date is the fact that we are linking time to existence again. In Portuguese we say: “I am 30 years old”, but in other languages ​​people say “I am 30 years old”. In any case, it is an interesting date to think and rethink one’s life, what has been done so far and what we aim to do in the future.

As everything that exists, exists in time, there is a dimension – which can be distressing, challenging or stimulating (depending on the point of view) – that many people seem not to realize, which is the issue of finitude. As everything that exists, exists in time, its existence will have a birth, a development and an end. Give the word finitude.

Heidegger used to say that people live as if they are not going to die. I mean, they hide from themselves that they don’t have all the time in the world. It’s like they live thinking they’re going to live an eternal life. Nothing against religious conceptions of the eternity of the soul, spirit or reincarnation. However, this life we ​​are living will have an end, won’t it?

Being, Time and Finitude

What can be extremely distressing for one, can be extremely exhilarating for another. The reality of finitude should make us think about living an authentic life. A life according to what we really want to do and live, not a life built from what other people want or think is best for us.

The idea behind an authentic life lies in the reflection of choice. Ultimately, we can never blame other people for the choices we make.

For example, a person may choose to marry under social pressure or remain married for the same reason. In this case, he is not making an authentic choice based on his own decision. She will only be taking other people’s wishes and opinions into account.

Just like a person who chooses a profession because their parents insist that it is the best profession to have. In this way, the world ends up losing potential for the true area of ​​activity of that person who chose according to the parents’ desire and the person who chose by pressure from others ends up also living a life of others, a life that does not seem like theirs.

Conclusion

Saying birthday psychology seems strange to me, it sounds strange. And it ends up being just a freedom to say that it could serve as a reflection for everyone on their birthday, that is, to think about their own existence and to think equally about the finitude of that existence.

It’s even funny that we don’t know how much time we have left. Maybe we can still have a long life ahead of us, maybe not. Long gone or not, the fact is we don’t have all the time in the world. If we don’t have all the time in the world, what are we going to choose to live with?

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