ABSTRACT
Heidegger and other existentialist writers focus on the unique nature of our human existence and the distinctive problem it confronts us with, namely, how to find meaning in our lives. I study this issue in relation to another distinctive human reality: the phenomenon of adulthood and, more specifically, the phenomenon of aging. I begin with a phenomenological reflection on adulthood as a form of experience, focusing especially on the emotional and behavioural dimensions that are implicit in a mature engagement with reality. This leads into a reflection on the process of adult life—the experience of aging—as, among other things, a gradual education into the nature of choice and the nature of time. I distinguish between three different ways of experiencing time: the intimate time of absorption, the indifferent time of the clock and the unique temporality of a ‘time of life.’ I explore in particular the distinctive existential significance of the ‘midlife crisis’ in order to discern what it reveals about the experience of living a life. Specifically, I argue that, through its engagement with nature of time, the midlife crisis has the capacity to reveal our finitude to us in an especially powerful way and by so doing to invite us to embrace our mortality authentically.
