One’s death can be drawing nearer or receding without any observable change.
Evidence
Perhaps while I am peacefully writing in this room, the state of the universe is such that my death has approached considerably closer; but perhaps, on the contrary, it has just been considerably removed. For example, if I am waiting for a a mobilization order, I can consider that my death is imminent—i.e., that the chances of an imminent death are considerably increased; but it can happen that at the same moment an international conference is being held in secret and that it has discovered a way of prolonging the peace. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1250
Categorization
- XREF: The indeterminacy of my death’s causal conditions prefigures Sartre’s theme of the for-itself’s radical contingency and the non-systematizability of facticity — relevant backdrop for Beauvoir. — connects to: Waiting for an event requires determinate causal processes, which death lacks.; Sudden death cannot be awaited because it is indeterminate in date — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1251; Death cannot be waited for because its causal conditions are indefinite and uncountable. (+2 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Waiting for an event requires determinate causal processes, which death lacks.; Sudden death cannot be awaited because it is indeterminate in date — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1251; Death cannot be waited for because its causal conditions are indefinite and uncountable. (+2 more)