"People and events start to act in symbolic ways and you come to notice that there are no coincidences."
I beg to differ. Coincidences will still be there, in any way one chooses to view the world. Even if it is my, our, choice to do something, or even if it all planned out ab initio, whatever position one takes does not rule out coincidence. If all actions are the result of my choice, then it is still a coincidence they they *coincided* with actions the result of someone else's choice, if it was all planned out (by a divine being, by laws of nature, by a life force) then for me as the individual, that is for my consciousness, it is still a coincidence that two actions meet, even if they were planned. I cannot see how coincidence implies freedom, or lack of. Perhaps actions are not arbitrary, but arbitrary or not, actions can coincide in either case. (of course one can use concidence to mean mere arbitrariness, which is the common usage of the word, in which case my argument would be naturally redundant.)
That aside, I find the thoughts very clear and conveying priceless insights. Then again it is not much more than a good summary of Heidegger. Still, I cannot fully accept this, or the latter's position. I have always found something lacking in existential philosophy. I can, and in fact do, agree with its main position, but I cannot accept that money is *merely* symbolic. It is that, and it is that entirely in a Marxist sense, but so long as it stands for something else, like work, it is something more than that.
What I mean to say, or rather where I am heading, is that we can all talk about making one's choices and living the authentic life, but as long as life is arranged in certain ways, then we cannot be fully free. That is our world limits our choices. After all Heidegger himself talked about possibilities available to us.
I can understand and realize, awake and be aware, and this I agree is more authentic. But I cannot live according to my life's impulse if things are left as is. It is not wholly up to me as an individual: there is, to an extent, a certain force exerted by society on its members. And this cannot be shunned away with a mere appeal to authenticity. At the very least it has to be an appeal to mass authenticity, for I cannot be an authentic I if I starve to death, and as it is, I have to be inauthentic (or at the most authentically inauthentic) for a certain number of hourse in order not to starve.
Of course if the authentic life is *simply* the authentic attitude, then I agree that what I have just said is irrelevant. In that case however, authenticity loses its appeal.
Introduction
