Physiology of a Heartbreak

"We ourselves are the entities to be analyzed"- Martin Heidegger

While the previous anatomy looked at a cross-sectional analysis of heartbreak, the mere structure and foundation of its phenomena as a manifestation of care in the world from which the heartbreak is derived from is lacking the "skin and blood" that flows through the ruins of the metaphorical heart. The sadness, anger, anxiety that comes from heartbreak conceived as a kind of being-towards-death of Dasein in relation to the heartbreak can be imagined as physiologically. 

The body which perceives heartbreak is a body through which heartbreak is perceived. The will to resist is akin to choosing fight in the fight or flight response as adrenaline pumps throughout the blood. And as this phenomena of heartbreak is encountered, it is initially repressed in a superficial way. Wanting for heartbreak to stop because it's not how things used to be isn't a convincing way of engaging with the world from which this heartbreak has arrived. Similar to an immune response, after the initial shock is dealt with, the way heartbreak lingers becomes more a psychologico-phenomenology rather than an ontologico-phenomenology. The true kind of care and concern that is brought about in this dwelling shift is important because of its acknowledgment as living in the world in an unhomelike way. 

Much like feeling not at home in your house without your family there, the body recognizes an unhomelike-being-in-the-world. The world, rest assured, is always there and dasein will always be a part of it (this contingency is standard in Heideggerian circles but an important point for those not too familiar with the concept). The world is normally engaged through disclosure of specific features in the world. The rest of it fades into the background. But as the anatomy identified in heartbreak's structure, the structure of dasein's world all radically come to the foreground of dasein's regular engagement and disrupts regular functioning. 

All one can think about initially is uncontrolled and enveloping angst but with ignorance. After this "immune-like" response, dasein's care and concern is better understood in context with the world (dasein's world). 

Heartbreak can be thought of as a private moment. It can also be thought of as a mood, a filter that turns ordinary engagement with the world into white noise. Initially it is distracting and paralyzing but then it peaks and returns to the background (ontology to psychology concerns). This brings about a feeling of numbness and many different people will respond in different ways (hence why the shift is to psychology rather than the more universal ontology). One may try to chase the white noise's deafening stimulus but realize he can't hear. Another may try to ignore the hollowness and live an ignorant strawman. Either way, "you will regret both" (Kierkegaard reference).

And so the ambivalent inner conflict of being-in-the-world as heartbreak circulates dasein's supply of concern. Physiologically, this system of heartbreak is stepwise yet flexible and methodical. And with all this complexity, dasein is authentic. While being authentic in a Heideggerian sense is in our judgment a good thing. However, phenomenologically, it does nothing for dasein. Our sense of space and time while going through heartbreak becomes rigid and tends to lean towards ontic perception such as that seen in Cartesian spatiality. While every comparison is compared arbitrarily, dasein sees this activity with much doubt. A rigid analysis of heartbreak as being ___ units to dasein is indeed rigid but also arbitrary. Heideggerian spatiality, however, which focuses on a somewhat more relativistic comparisons, gives dasein time to reflect, dwell and respond to how close/far something is to dasein. But this is exactly what dasein or human existence is all about (this comment probably functions better as a description probably more relevant with the anatomy). 

So heartbreak is through and through one to be lived through and shouldn't be lived with. Although our personality and psychological tendencies respond differently to heartbreak, it nonetheless discloses itself as an account for dasein. The road here matters less than the goal through which one paves their way forward. Signs of heartbreak doing away should come from both a healthy checkup with people who love you and then for them to observe how the anatomy and physiology of heartbreak is in its repairing stage. A broken house-like anatomy and the way in which dasein dwells in the world is not only necessary, but contingent to understand the disclosure of the world.