The importance of reflecting on "Time" as related
to the human condition became evident with the passing of my father; the
interruption of death shattered the continuity of my existence. Maurice
Blanchot refers to such events as "disasters," extraordinary moments
that rattle our ontological foundations, moments in which we are forced
to confront and deliberate the essential characteristics that define us
as sentient, ephemeral creatures: finitude, fragility, and mortality.
It is often the case that our encounters with the "disaster" lead
to the production of works that are constructively philosophical, which
is to say, the violent and tumultuous nature of the events are re-produced
imaginatively or artistically.
We might imagine the creative acts of many great thinkers resulting from
their life-altering encounters with the disaster. Plato wrote the death
of Socrates, Kierkegaard wrote the rift with Regine Olsen, and Nietzsche
poetized the highly disruptive vicissitudes of his persistent illness. According
to philosopher Karl Jaspers, creative philosophy not only begins as "wondrous
rapture," it also erupts in the thralls of extreme skepticism and uncertainty.
Through the acute sense of existential abandonment, in moments of profound
suffering and confusion, an "inner upheaval" occurs, which alone
determines its goal and unique creative path.
In presenting my series of photographs, World Time and the Time of the
Clock, it is not my intent to suggest an artistic-intellectual kinship
with the aforementioned philosophers. Rather, the collection serves to illustrate
that in the case of the disaster, we are all summoned, in one way or another,
to give form or expressive "voice" to that which is ineffable.
In striving to re-present the disaster, we endeavor to mediate, repair,
and rejoin, to the best of our natural aptitude, those aspects of life that
personal catastrophe has torn asunder. Creative responses come in a variety
of forms, for example, the poetic act of bringing a work of art into existence
or the philosophical process of deep, reflexive thinking both represent
creative attempts to understand the "disaster."
The "disaster"is of a compound makeup. On the one hand, it is
always relative to the particular individual. On the other hand, there exists
a universal aspect to the phenomenon, namely, its ability to disrupt lives
by pushing our humanity to the limits of an absolute breakdown. However,
as Blanchot is careful to point out, this is not to indicate that the "disaster"
is fatal to those who experience it. "The disaster ruins everything,"
he writes, "all the while leaving everything in tact." Despite
living on the heights of despair, those who undergo the "disaster"
remain alive.
After the initial pause, which follows in the wake of the "disaster,"
engulfed by its rumbling silence, questions concerning human identity and
future potentialities are invoked. The need to create arises, and we attempt
to work out some sort of a solution to the aporia, or "waylessness"
that we experience. For Blanchot, this occurs through the process of authorship,
however, it is possible to imagine the urge to respond creatively as cutting
across the genres of aesthetic expression to include the fine artist, dancer,
composer, and so forth. Although the process of re-presenting the disaster
through art appears cathartic, it is not a surefire remedy for cure, purging
us of our existential affliction. It is impossible to cleanly suture the
wound(s) inflicted by these devastating events, and in effect, leave no
trace of emotional scarring. We cannot, as it is common to say these days,
bring a sense of closure to the drama, and mark a return to normalcy. The
wound always remains open to some degree, and when resolute to this fact
we project ourselves into the future with grievance, anguish, and agony
in tow, and we come to see ourselves in a different light. The disaster
attunes us in such a way that we understand and inhabit the world in a different
way. Because of the disaster, things have undoubtedly changed.
And so it is with the phenomenon of death, when those we love depart the
world and leave us behind to continue on without their lingering, palpable
presence. But, is it really the case that what is gone, or past, is by definition,
irretrievable? Is it possible to imagine a radical conception of time and
life in which the relationship to the Other calls for a radical reassessment
of human existence as defined by science or traditional philosophy? Addressing
this concern, Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger provide revolutionary re-readings
of time, which necessitate the reassessment of what it means to be human,
and beyond, what it means to "be" at all. Their critical contributions
to the history of ideas have inspired my artistic reflections, influencing
my attempt to live and re-present the "disaster." In what follows,
I briefly examine the notion of existential reclamation of the deceased
through the redemption of suffering and loss.
Death is the loss of someone never to be seen again. It is the sudden absence
of a unique and familiar person. Death is the ultimate moment when all of
our would-be possibilities, dreams, and hopes are abruptly and permanently
closed off. Death changes the world. This fact is beyond dispute. Yet, the
dead are with us, and in fact, many times seem more alive to us than the
living; this too, I would like to suggest, is beyond dispute. I believe
that those with whom we move through "time" and "history"
remain with us despite their physical extinction. This is because of the
solicitous relationships we share with loved ones and friends, this is because
of the way that we are with Time.
Many believe that the legitimate overarching meaning of one's existence
is possible by way of reflective analysis. Privileging our vantage point
in the present moment, we cast our glance back over the expanse of the past,
in order to take a toll, in order to arrive at an objective assessment of
one's deeds and accomplishments. However, such historical reflection never
accurately grasps the authentic meaning of one's existence, if by this we
mean how one lived in relation to mortality, how one chose in the light
of finitude to live with the most extreme possibility of existence, namely,
nonexistence. The flawed idea of life as a coherent, understandable totality
begins from an erroneous conception of time, which finds its corollary within
the following inaccurate presuppositions: Time is linear and quantitative,
death is a singular, extreme point on the "line of time," human
nature is knowable in its universal objectivity, and that which is not sustained
in the "presence" of our mind's eye as "substance,"
true being, or whatever, is therefore not authentic being, judged as either
spurious, deceptive sensate phenomena or non-being, plain and simple.
Time is not linear. The duration, or length, of time cannot be measured
scientifically by way of mathematical symbols, for time has no length. While
intellectual-based modes of knowledge accurately measure the medium of space,
they are powerless to calculate, gauge, and represent the nonspatial medium
of time, with its dynamic flow and flux. The future does not rush toward
us as we stand in the present moment, only to disappear forever into the
irretrievable void of the past. Neither the wall-clock nor wristwatch properly
represents time. According to Heidegger, by treating time as a quantitative
phenomenon, measurable in length, in its extension, we "lose"
our time, our human temporality. The clock attempts to show us "what"
time is, but misses the more substantial ontological matter of "how
Time is," which is to say, the way in which we enact time when living
as temporal, existential beings.
Time is far more complex than the clock would have us believe; we are far
more complex. Perhaps a significant part of what it means to be human is
inextricably bound up with a radical notion of time in which past, present,
and future is united, indivisible, perpetually working in concert within
the moment of our present. This moment of the "present" is more
an event of en-presenting (revelation) than a mere point in time situated
between future and past. It is the moment in which the world, beings, and
entities reveal themselves in the context of meaningful situations, in the
opening of the present, things show themselves in ways that matter. This
moment of vision is possible due to the convergence of past and future;
this suggests that the past circles round to meet us, from out of the future,
and thus is never legitimately gone. The fact that we have a past cannot
be overlooked or skirted, as it represents our being thrown into the world
in a specific and unique manner. However, the past acquires meaning, only
when we authentically project it into the future, which represents our unique,
or ownmost, possibilities (from out of the past) coming to meet us.
To exist authentically, is to envisage a life in praxis, life as
a process of taking over our existence through a process of decision-making,
in the act of legitimizing our thrown-past in the service of making (and
remaking) our future being. We are Time as "care," which is the
ontological structure, or foundation, of the human's being. In essence,
the "care" structure embodies the three moments of "ecstatic
temporality": (1) we are always out ahead-of-ourselves in the projection
of a future, (2) we are always alongside others in the world, and (3) we
are always already in the world as a thrown being, as someone with a past,
a history and heritage. When considering such a model of Temporality, of
which "clock time" is merely derivative, it is crucial to acknowledge
that the past, which comprises our heritage and history, is sewn into the
very fabric of our being. To repeat, the past is continually at work influencing
and shaping the moment of en-presenting through its ever attendant presence.
The past serves as the source of our life and future, for in the instant
of willful choice, we redefine the present by making decisions regarding
possibilities that arise as a result of the past, which is at once the historical
ground of our existence.
It is inevitable that we leave the world alone, for no one can take another's
dying from her. However, it is not the case that we enter the world in the
selfsame manner. This because we are thrust into existence as factically
determined beings, as members of a family, as the populace of a community.
As people with a history and heritage, we are called to appropriate the
past into our existence, and through our choices, the history we are born
with becomes our authentic history, or "historicality," as it
merges with our life. What is given by our forebears as heritage is a gift
that continually influences the manner in which we enact our destiny, until
we too must take death upon ourselves, and in turn, pass along our history.
With such a notion of Time and life, we might imagine a way in which the
presence of the deceased continues to exercise an enduring effect on our
lives. The authentic remembrance of the deceased is never a mere recollection.
Rather, authentic remembrance is the "recovery" of a living experience
as represented in the calling forth of their being into a living presence
that powerfully strikes from beyond the grave, beyond the horizon of death,
exerting its monumental force on the history of the living. This process
represents something resembling a modulation toward the resurrection of
human presence, in the sense that the dead live within our deeds as the
continued re-enactment, reevaluation, and re-creation of their history as
it inspires our history in the instant of "en-presenting."
As described, we are beings that project our possibilities into the future
from out of a "thrown" past as history, therefore, we are always
in the process of recovering and repeating some inherited possibility. When
living authentically, we appropriate freely this past, as the source of
the future. From this description, it is possible to imagine that our deeds
are intimately linked to the deeds of our departed ancestors, and their
history is inextricably bound to our history.
If there is secular redemption for the memory of suffering and loss, exists
within the life that calls us to be beholden to the time of the past and
assume a caring and responsible attitude toward the time of the future.
Such an idea of existence would be inconceivable without the importance
of the memory and presence of those who are forever with us in the spirit
of their historical being, in the moment of the time of the present, preserved
within the spirit of our historical being.
My closing remarks focus on what it means to do philosophy, which is first
and foremost a form of thought that cannot be understood outside of its
relationship to time. It is an attuned form of thinking - (colored) by the
world in which we reside with others, influenced by the urgency of the situations
in which we find ourselves. Philosophy is anything but a detached form of
contemplating "essences." Further, it is not something we learn
directly from a text. It cannot be applied practically, with mathematical
precision, in a direct and absolute manner to the problems of existence.
Lastly, it cannot be judged by its usefulness in the same manner that we
judge the success of a scientific method or economic theory. And yet, by
its nature, philosophy is a form of thinking that necessitates all inquiries
concerning human and worldly knowledge and values. Thus, the scope of philosophy's
enquiry is profoundly broad and vast.
The human is a complex being. However, as Heidegger states, "Philosophy
need not be high flown, it is enough if we dwell on what lies close and
immediately in the here and now." Anyone can follow the path of meditation,
thinking in her own manner, within her own limits. I have referred to philosophy
as a creative type of problem-solving, but perhaps a better definition would
refer to philosophy as a form of thinking that is never truly at an end,
never completed, a process of thought that is always on-the-way toward
understanding ways to solve the problems we encounter. We might consider
philosophy a discipline that first seeks a proper understanding of the issues,
which often entails a reformulation of the initial questions that we ask,
which amounts to an enquiry into the questions themselves, in order to clarify
the manner in which to best approach the problems.
While its scope is grand and its issues many and varied, philosophy most
often finds its subject-matter, its place and home-ground, within the immediate
realm of our day-to-day lives. For example, it is possible to think seriously
and philosophically about such things as this patch of earth, this present
time of history, this life with other members of the human race, or, as
was my focus, the time and worldly proximity that we have shared, and continue
to share, with those loved who have passed on.
The End