What do I mean by Resolution?

My idea of 'resolution' is a corruption of some words of Heidegger's.  The kind of being that we are, dasein, being-in-the-world, is always already in a world.  It has its features because they fit the world - and given the fact that the world too, has virtually 'always' had our presence, it is fitted to us.  Heidegger expresses this inextricable intimacy most quickly when he says 'we are our world existingly.' (He get's it so short by cramming a lot into world, and existing.)  Heidegger describes dasein as 'a being for which being is an issue.'  We humans don't just exist - we know we exist, and we can make it mean something.  Heidegger suggests that we can be 'resolute' - always taking a stand on our being which fits us to the actually existing world authentically. There is something of consistency in this idea, something of authenticity.  'Resolute' dasein sees the present situation including who it is, the stands it takes, and takes them again in the new situation creatively, courageously.  Best of all is to take a stand that is solid enough to answer your 'who am I?' until death.  This is 'anticipatory resoluteness' and to live in anticipatory resoluteness is something he describes as 'dying.'  You arrive at each day, each hour, freighted with history and obligations and experiences and are faced with circumstances you never asked for and problems you can only nudge, not solve, and to go forward, being who you will be, involves resignation or faith, because it is dying.  This is your life, and its ending one minute at a time.

Resolution in my thinking is like this, only for a simpler brain like mine.  Resolution is a great word, because its picked up a few meanings:

• Sharpness of image, clarity of perception.
• Firmness of purpose.
• Peacemaking, removal of tension, satisfaction.

The world challenges us with:

• confusing, unrecognisable situations, or situations that seem familiar but are hiding depths and dangers.
• difficult, frightening situations.
• problems, gaps between how the world is and who we want to be in it.

At the moment, I am thinking of the human being as predominantly living by recognising and responding automatically, and then consciousness rationalising behavior afterward.  Resolution is your chance to be free.  It is your chance to tinker with your recognition/automaticity patterns. It is your chance to take a stand on your being that will bring the world into focus, you into focus, and help you act in a way that has a future.

Resolution is about consciousness doing what it is responsible for: preventing the human being from getting stuck in confusion, fear and trouble, by articulating ways through.  The resolutions are in the form of declarations: this is that.  But they're thoughts.  Decisions, except decisions often work by lopping off important reality to enable some action, any action - some self, any self. Resolution makes the world, existingly, come to peace.

This is ideal resolution: rarely do we take our positions firmly enough that we don't relapse into older patterns;   even when we take a position, it is seldom right enough to do us for life.