Just this morning, I read Heidegger's analysis of how we come to understand being-with: "This understanding [of co-existence], like all understanding, is not a knowledge derived from cognition, but a primordially existential kind of being which first makes knowledge and cognition possible. Knowing oneself is grounded in primarially understanding being-with." I understand why he wants "being-with" almost a priori, but Heidegger is perhaps only partly right here; knowing oneself isn't primordial unless parents and other caregivers are. I was born in 1950, so knowing myself probably began with my mother. More heartbreakingly, Heidegger talks about those moments when Da-sein loses itself, something my mother regularly did. I know I'm reading Heidegger through the lenses of grief, but it's oddly as if grief allows me to see things I might not have noticed before.

¶ 6:32 AM