Sophia is sitting in the kitchen preparing a cup of coffee after work. Today again she talked to her friend Miranda. Usually they just worked and worked together day after day and they seldom talked. But now Miranda has started something she calls her philosophical trio and she has been sharing this experience with Sophia. The idea of a philosophical trio has caught Sophia´s interest and she has asked Miranda to e-mail her the philosophical texts they are reading.
When Sophia was in school she wanted to study philosophy, but things turned out differently. With eager she now reads this week’s text about the concept of death and sacrifice in Martin Foss. Sophia feels that her life is a waste, that she works and works and that she is a bit like a living death. Sharing the reading of Martin Foss´ text with Miranda is reopening a dimension of existence that she had forgotten about. The following words of Foss caught her attention “Death will intensify the living experience of this communion, in which the deceased continues living. “ –“Sacrifice intensifies and enriches life. It is the price paid for our growing future and our growing strength.“
She reads them slowly several times again so they resonate in her: Does my hard work intensify the living experience of the communion in which I continue living? Do I need to sacrifice for others to live more intensively? Does it really enrichen my life if I want to sacrifice myself to give my children a better life?
She remembers Paul, her school companion. With him she used to read some texts of the also German philosopher Karl Marx about the alienation of working for subsisting and forgetting about life. Something should be done to avoid that people become like automatic working machines. Paul used to say that this required people to get organized to fight together for a change. The texts and the discussions they had vaguely came back into her mind. She would not be able to write them down. It was like a calm flood of images and thoughts and ideas streaming through her mind.
If they would gather with others to avoid that she would live the life she is living now there is no guarantee that such a fight will succeed. Maybe her life is not that bad after all? And who knows if the result of a struggle would result in something better than what we have? Does she want to sacrifice her life for an alternative world that she will not survive to see? Why do we do sacrifices for our children anyway? Is it an animal instinct?
But is it possible that she has sacrificed her life unwillingly anyway? For nothing? Is there a way out of this living-for-working-for-surviving situation? Are these small moments of thoughts -such as she is having now while following the readings with her work companion- the only lights that she can look forward to in life?
Sophia does neither agree nor disagree with the text. She is glad that through it a glimpse of life returned into her.