The Last Waltz: Finitude, Loneliness and Exiting from Life
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Diego De Leo
Abstract
Death anxiety and loneliness are major problems for older people. Life expectancy has increased impressively over the last century, but the culture of current societies seems to have great difficulty relating to the limits of finite life. Terror Management Theory teaches us that we tend to imagine that we can reserve the problem of the end of life for others, that is, for those who are “really old”. Individuals naturally tend to avoid fears and potentially threatening situations, such as fear of age-related diseases, fear of loneliness in old age and fear of death, situations that stimulate avoidance reactions. When avoidance is not possible, loneliness may become a fierce enemy of the older person. In this case, individuals may find themselves feeling the lack of close attachments, physical touch and intimacy, as well as the deterioration of their health. Depression becomes not only a possible but a frequent evolution, capable of exacerbating the sense of separation from the world and of nourishing self-suppressive ideas. In fact, suicide in old age continues to represent a painfully present eventuality at all latitudes.
Abstract
Death anxiety and loneliness are major problems for older people. Life expectancy has increased impressively over the last century, but the culture of current societies seems to have great difficulty relating to the limits of finite life. Terror Management Theory teaches us that we tend to imagine that we can reserve the problem of the end of life for others, that is, for those who are “really old”. Individuals naturally tend to avoid fears and potentially threatening situations, such as fear of age-related diseases, fear of loneliness in old age and fear of death, situations that stimulate avoidance reactions. When avoidance is not possible, loneliness may become a fierce enemy of the older person. In this case, individuals may find themselves feeling the lack of close attachments, physical touch and intimacy, as well as the deterioration of their health. Depression becomes not only a possible but a frequent evolution, capable of exacerbating the sense of separation from the world and of nourishing self-suppressive ideas. In fact, suicide in old age continues to represent a painfully present eventuality at all latitudes.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Abbreviations IX
- Introduction 1
-
First Part: What about Eternity?
- The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite According to Emanuele Severino 11
- Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 23
- The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 35
- Note on the Dialogue between Severino and Vitiello 49
- Time, Eternity, Freedom in Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Ricoeur 55
-
Second Part: The Eternity Concealed in the Cosmos and the Secrets of Consciousness
- The Basic Ideas of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology 69
- How Studying Black Hole Theory May Help Us to Quantize Gravity 85
- Uncertainty Principle and Gravity 99
- The Big Bang’s New Clothes and Eternity 111
- For a Science of Consciousness 127
- Freedom and Artificial Intelligence 137
- Brain, Mind, the Arrow of Time and Consciousness 149
-
Third Part: Eternity, Time and Faith
- The Eighth Day. Biblical Time as Openness of Chronological Time 163
- Time, Revelation or Negation of the Eternal? The Modern Metaphor of the “Death of God” 173
- Cosmology and Cosmologhia: A Much Needed Distinction 181
- God and the Big Bang: Past and Modern Debates between Science and Theology 189
- “Qu’est-ce qu’un homme, dans l’infini?”. Eternity and Infinity in Blaise Pascal and in the 17th-Century Geometrizing Ontologies 201
- Eternity and Otherness from the Perspective of Dialogic Thinking. Inspirations and Contaminations in and from Romano Guardini, Franz Rosenzweig, and Nishida Kitarō 213
-
Fourth Part: Existential Corollaries
- Eternity, Instant, Duration. Tangere aeternum 225
- Finitude and Project: For Which Space? And for What Time? 235
- The Last Waltz: Finitude, Loneliness and Exiting from Life 249
- Beyond the Limits of Mental Illness: Dignity and Dignity Therapy in Person- Centered Psychiatry 257
- Beyond Alienation: Severino’s Removal of Pathological Contradiction 271
- Names 285
- Concepts 289
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Abbreviations IX
- Introduction 1
-
First Part: What about Eternity?
- The Eternity of Every Being and the “Trace” of the Infinite in the Finite According to Emanuele Severino 11
- Emanuele Severino. Sózein tà Phainómena 23
- The Absolute Appearing of Eternity as the Original Meaning of Time 35
- Note on the Dialogue between Severino and Vitiello 49
- Time, Eternity, Freedom in Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Ricoeur 55
-
Second Part: The Eternity Concealed in the Cosmos and the Secrets of Consciousness
- The Basic Ideas of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology 69
- How Studying Black Hole Theory May Help Us to Quantize Gravity 85
- Uncertainty Principle and Gravity 99
- The Big Bang’s New Clothes and Eternity 111
- For a Science of Consciousness 127
- Freedom and Artificial Intelligence 137
- Brain, Mind, the Arrow of Time and Consciousness 149
-
Third Part: Eternity, Time and Faith
- The Eighth Day. Biblical Time as Openness of Chronological Time 163
- Time, Revelation or Negation of the Eternal? The Modern Metaphor of the “Death of God” 173
- Cosmology and Cosmologhia: A Much Needed Distinction 181
- God and the Big Bang: Past and Modern Debates between Science and Theology 189
- “Qu’est-ce qu’un homme, dans l’infini?”. Eternity and Infinity in Blaise Pascal and in the 17th-Century Geometrizing Ontologies 201
- Eternity and Otherness from the Perspective of Dialogic Thinking. Inspirations and Contaminations in and from Romano Guardini, Franz Rosenzweig, and Nishida Kitarō 213
-
Fourth Part: Existential Corollaries
- Eternity, Instant, Duration. Tangere aeternum 225
- Finitude and Project: For Which Space? And for What Time? 235
- The Last Waltz: Finitude, Loneliness and Exiting from Life 249
- Beyond the Limits of Mental Illness: Dignity and Dignity Therapy in Person- Centered Psychiatry 257
- Beyond Alienation: Severino’s Removal of Pathological Contradiction 271
- Names 285
- Concepts 289
