Sudden death cannot be awaited because it is indeterminate in date

Evidence

Thus I can not say that the minute which is passing is bringing death closer to me. It is true that death is coming to me if I consider very broadly that my life is limited. But within these very elastic limits (I can die at the age of a hundred or at thirty-seven, tomorrow) I can not know whether this end is coming closer to me or being removed farther from me. This is because there is a considerable difference in quality between death at the limit of old age and sudden death which annihilates us at the prime of life or in youth. To wait for the former is to accept the fact that life is a limited enterprise; it is one way among others of choosing finitude and electing our ends on the foundation of finitude. To wait for the second would be to wait with the idea that my life is an enterprise which is lacking. If only deaths from old age existed (or deaths by explicit condemnation), then I could wait for my death. But the unique quality of death is the fact that it can always before the end surprise those who wait for it at such and such a date. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1251

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes two kinds of death — awaited old-age finitude vs. unawaited sudden death — as part of Sartre’s ontology of death.
• XREF: Relates to Heidegger’s being-toward-death, which Sartre explicitly reworks against here. — connects to: Waiting for an event requires determinate causal processes, which death lacks.; Death cannot be waited for because its causal conditions are indefinite and uncountable.; One’s death can be drawing nearer or receding without any observable change. (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Death cannot be waited for because its causal conditions are indefinite and uncountable. #corroborates (0.95)
• One’s death can be drawing nearer or receding without any observable change. #expands (0.80)
• Suicide cannot escape absurdity because it too awaits a future meaning it denies itself #exemplifies (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1257
• Exponential change-time distributions prevent timing strategies because hazard rate is constant #corroborates (0.72) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3285