Anxiety as the Disclosement of Care

         The experience of moods or attunements speaks of Dasein’s being-in-the-world. Although Heidegger had examined various moods such as fear, he focused on the analysis of anxiety. This is to pave the ground for his analysis of Dasein’s being, which he baptizes with the name Sorge [Care]. Heidegger believes that anxiety is the key mood for the total disclosure of human existence. More specifically, anxiety reveals that man’s very being is primarily characterized by what Heidegger calls Care.

In Heideggerian analysis of anxiety, fear was lucidly distinguished from anxiety. Fear has an object, thus fear is always a fear of something. “Fear is directed toward something definite, it focuses on detail” (Safranski, p.152). In other words, fear is marked by specifity, wherein one is afraid of being harmed in some specific respect by something that approaches in some specific way, from some specific sector of its environment. Hence one can readily point to the thing that provokes fear, identify why it fears it, and locate its point of origin. 

Relevance of Care to Philosophical Counseling

           Being-in-the-world becomes meaningful because of care. Care ushers Dasein to the realization of its potentiality-for-Being, which implies that Heideggerian concept of care departs from its normal everyday meaning. Care as Heidegger defines: “being-ahead-of-oneself-in-being-already-in-as-being-alongside”. In care, Dasein is already ahead-of-itself, in the sense of anticipating its possibilities.   

          Most importantly, it is noteworthy that care does not only refer to the kind of action which Dasein initiates. But as Heidegger puts, “care is the term for the being of Dasein pure and simple. It has the formal structure, an entity for which intimately involved in its being-in-the-world; this very being is at issue” (Heidegger, HCT, p.294). Taking from it, it is at this point where care finds its relevance to philosophical counseling. 

"On Reading"

           Perhaps one of the most avoided things in school is reading. I really got trouble on this, especially now that I’m making my thesis. Contemporary literatures make reading interesting, but the thing is, I have to read an obscured text written by thinkers of past centuries. It’s really a ‘pain on the ass’ as said by one of my professors. Imagine, I have to wrestle with a book that was published in 1927. Not only that, I have to understand what the author wants to convey. It is a lot easier if the author wrote according to what an average reader can grasp. Needless to say, he has recondite reflections which most of the time takes hours to grasp. No doubt they call it ‘PHILOSOPHY’- a gigantomachia (battle of giants). I really got my neck hanged when I started reading it. However, despite the difficulties, eyebags and pimples that I got as a result of sleeping late at night, the feeling of accomplishment thrives.

"On Education"

            Jean Jacques Rousseau once said, "Let them learn what they ought to do as men, and not what they ought to forget."[1] In other words, education provides the room for individuals to learn their own duty as men. It provides options, though it is the individual's duty to be on guard for some of these options can be detrimental to himself. It requires then an arduous, scrupulous, meticulous, and critical outlook, if one aims at attaining good life through education. As transformative by nature education plays a crucial role in the development of one's life, family, and society.

            

           Education by its very ground aims at the cultivation of one's interiority. It desires a person's integration. Hence, humanistic psychology’s claim that education must be a confluent education holds water. In brief, confluent education refers to the flowing of intellect, and the body into a single educational experience [2]. The coalesce of mind and body in a single educational experience results in dialectical creativity, wherein it breeds creativity and gives birth to novelty. Every novelty is a manifestation of cultivated interiority which in turn builds identity and character. It is one's identity and character that builds immortality in the sense of being remembered as influencing and affecting other people’s existential dispositions. Most importantly, real learning affects the way people live their lives. This learning is always self-discovered, self-appropriated learning, learning which makes difference to who I am [3].

"Finishing the Race"

The word promenade was derived from the Latin prefix "pro" which means forward and "minere" which means "to drive."

Therefore if we combine these two words, it would mean that promenade means driving forward. However, due to linguistic evolution, it came to the point where it simply means "to take a walk."

Whatever the meaning is, it gives us two perspectives to ponder on.

If we take a walk-  two things that happen. First, we leave our starting point and second, it is inevitable that we lead to a certain direction.