Endurance: A Non-Philosophical Proposition

We as humans are able to endure, but what does that mean? What

are the zones of existence that can pressurise a human being? How

can life turn against one, from being something that is joyous and

wonderful to a situation that must be endured? What are the limits

to what a human life can endure?

The concept of endurance points towards the fact that every human

being as an organism has survived until now. Every life is a life not

yet annihilated by illness, violence, accident or a voluntary death.

Every life is a life that has learnt to live with life, that has developed

some kind of rationality and a level of acceptance of more or less

hostile conditions. The basic force of endurance as a conceptual

event is its revelation of one’s powers to exist. Endurance reveals

the force of one’s body, the consequences of one’s decisions and

how one is able to resist being. The concept of endurance designates

resilience against the blast of being.

The sense of endurance, the knowledge of one’s powers to exist,

is therefore also a path towards the struggle against alienation and

subjection. We endure being, with all its alienating powers striking

against us, because we are able to do it and because life is worth it.