Brought before itself and full selfhood does not therefore mean drawn back on itself in an individualistic or egoistic manner. Aside from the fact that “being-with” essentially emphasizes this point, such an interpretation is the crudest misconception of the problem. Dasein must essentially be able to be itself and authentically be itself if it wants to appreciate itself as carried and guided by another, if it is to be capable of opening itself for the Dasein-with of others, if it is to engage itself for others.
Certainly, if one sticks with the traditional concept of the subject and the I, then the relation to self is egoistic. The degree and levels of knowing about it and the forms of this being placed before oneself are quite manifold in this respect.
If, therefore, we say that an understanding of being belongs essentially to Dasein, and that both the being of Dasein and the being of non-Dasein-like beings are understood together at the same time in this understanding of being, then we can now see the following: This understanding of being is not some harmless knowledge of categories or contemplation of ideas. Rather, what is entailed in the understanding of being is precisely the full trenchancy of Dasein’s being placed before itself, and in such a way that this being that is placed before itself as such comports itself toward other beings that it is not.
Dasein is that being that is essentially entrusted with the task of being in whatever way it can be. The being of itself is given in advance and given as a task precisely because an understanding of being belongs to Dasein, which entails that the being of itself is placed before it as how and what it has to be. Being is expressly a given task and possibility for this being, and indeed essentially so; insofar as it exists, it cannot escape this, but must come to terms with it in one way or another in each case. Suicide is only an extreme form in which the essential task of existing given to Dasein can come to be settled.
The understanding of being as an essential moment of Dasein’s transcendence, that is, of the fundamental constitution of this being, has already from the ground up brought into the being of this being that characteristic in relation to which we say: Dasein is at stake, put in play. Let it be well noted: This “for the sake of itself,” itself being an issue, this trenchancy of its struggle, is not some aftereffect arising because Dasein, insofar as it exists, factically appears among other beings. Rather, in the essence of existing, that is, of the being of Dasein, there lies the trenchancy of this “for the sake of itself.”
It is only because Dasein is the kind of being that, in its being, has its very being as an issue that it is exposed to beings, and indeed by the necessity of its essence. For we heard that Dasein is disclosed; beings that it is not are manifest to it; yet now we see: not in the sense of a mere cognizance. Rather, because Dasein has essentially stepped out of itself, it is exposed to beings and to their superior power, not just to the superior power of the forces of nature, for instance, but also to the powers and forces that Dasein shelters within itself as a being.