PART VI: EXPERIENTIAL ASPECTS OF TIME AN EXISTENTIAL APPROACH T O TIME

Erwin W . Straus V A Hospital, Lexington, K y . For all flesh is a s grass, and all t h e glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. T h e Bible, poetry and myth, plays and novels provide ample documentation that man has been familiar with the existential aspects of time since the expulsion from Paradise. This is not surprising, for birth and death, growth and decay are just as conspicuous as day and night or summer and winter. Long before the equinoxes had been discovered, long before the idea to divide the whole of a day in equal parts was conceived, it had been known that there was a time for work and a time for praying, days of labor and days of leisure, propitious and ominous hours, and so forth. One may wonder why so few attempts have been made to map this area in a conceptual survey. There are, however, good reasons: Existential time cannot be detached from the life and history of the individual; the relation present-past-future cannot be reduced to the schema earlier-later; existential time is finite; events situated between beginning and end have a positional value; a year in youth and a year in old age are not commensurable; existential time is not quantifiable. Contemporary philosophy did not discover existential time; it is only the interpretation that is new, especially the one presented in Heideggers Being and Time, with its emphasis on possibility, finiteness (death), and nothingness. B u t the Analysis of Dasein is not a n anthropological study. It is a method of interpretation, used in the service of ontological interests. The ontic - ontological difference must be respected. Care, guilt, the call of conscience, the ecstatic structure of time, even the distinction authenticinauthentic must be understood accordingly. Inauthenticity is a mode of being, of Dasein; it is an ontological, not a psychopathological, term, as it does not signify neurotic behavior. Since the experiential aspects of time are the special theme of this session, I shall approach existential time on a n ontic level. I will start from clinical experience, where morbid behavior isolates and magnifies certain traits, as in an experiment. Bertha L., a patient observed by v. Gebsattel years ago, is a case in point. The report has lost nothing of its actuality, because that young woman was unusually gifted in expressing herself and in describing her chronophobic affliction. In one of the recorded interviews Bertha said: All day long I have a feeling of anxiety related to time. I never stop thinking that time vanishes, passes away. Right now while I a m

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talking with you I think with each word: gone, gone, gone!. . . This starts as soon as I awake and is often related to sounds. When I hear a bird peep, I think: this lasted one second. The dripping of water is intolerable; it drives me wild, because I must think: Now one second is gone-and now another one. This also happens when I hear a clock ticking. I have left my clocks unwound and have hidden them .... I cant ride on a train, because the idea that I must reach the station at a given time is unbearable.. .. When my sister writes that she will come next Sunday a t nine minutes after eight, this sounds very strange t o me. I cannot understand how people are able to make plans, announce their future actions ahead of time and remain, nevertheless, completely calm .... I mean, with my intellect I can follow their conversation but I a m actually perplexed how they talk so simply and quietly without constantly thinking: Now I am talking; that lasts so and so long; then I will do this; and next that; all this will last sixty years; then I will die; others will come; they will live about as long, eat and sleep like me, and after them still others will come, and so on and so on for thousands of years without any meaning.

Bertha spoke as if she were quoting Ecclesiastes: All is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh. (I: 2-4)* Yet there is a remarkable difference between her despair and his resignation. She is drowning in the maelstrom of time, while the Preacher meditates at its banks. Because everything vanishes, his advice is, There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. (2:24) Bertha was not in a position to accept such advice. There were two leading themes in her lament: In agonizing distress she experiences the finiteness of her own existence b u t also the irresistible passing of time. Sometimes she felt as if she had discovered a kinship between the lived and experienced order of her persona1 becoming and some universal traits of world time:

I often think that I am not sick, that I have actually found out something which remains unknown to others, t h a t I have formed this unfortunate world-view which is not shared by others, yet is quite logical; actually I do not understand that one could think otherwise .... This thinking is horrible; it is a kind of killing, connected with the idea of suicide-with everything I am doing the distance
*The word vanity is related t o vanish and both to vain in the sense of empty. The original Hebrew word, literally the breath, or exhaling has a strong temporal connotation; therefore it is meaningful when the verse One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh ends with the words: but the earth abideth forever.

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that separates me from death is shortened-actually I do not fear death; indeed, I visualize it as beautiful, b u t the idea that everything is melting away and that life is constantly shortened horrifies me.. .. When I crochet I do not enjoy seeing the cloth grow; I only realize t h a t together with its growth the span of my life is shortened more and more. This situation is intolerable. Therefore t o rid myself of these ideas I will end my life, although life is precious t o me.

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Bertha was completely unaware t h a t with her remark about crocheting she had been paraphrasing the fable of Balzacs novel La peau de chagrin (The Fatal Skin).* We are inclined t o assume that Berthas world-view is a side-theme subordinated to the main theme: the paralyzing threat of approaching death. However, Bertha reported t h a t the onset of her disturbance was as sudden a s lightning. I t happened when the leg movements of a bicycle rider suddenly caught my attention. Then for the first time I was overwhelmed by the idea up-down, up-down, one second, and still another one. Whatever the order of these two themes may be, Berthas painful fascination by t h e flux of time was not due t o reflection but, as the dominance of sound also indicates, it was akin to direct sensory awareness. T h e nihilating aspect of time that dominates Berthas experience is not a morbid invention.** Her malady is one of prospective blindness, scotoma for growth, for things t o come, and for the unexhausted possibilities. With her negative option, Bertha presents a problem to psychiatry; but the basic alternative requires and allows further elucidation. T h e fates, in Greek mythology, spun single threads. Chotho started spinning, Lachesis continued it until Atropos cut the thread. There is a beginning and an end, but not a beginning and end of time. Time as we conceive it does not begin nor end, but a lifetime does. Since it is extended between two terminal points, whatever happens occurs either early or late in life. Each event has its unique position with its peculiar physiognomy, determined through its relation to birth and death, past and future, fact and possibility. Although beginning and end are counter-poised, the terminus a quo and the terminus ad quem are not symmetrical terms. T h e beginning is an established fact. The end, however, although certain t o come, is unpredictable; death is a not-dated, yet already present possibility: If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. *This novel tells how the possessor of a magic skin that guarantees fulfillment of his wishes is condemned to see it shrink as each of his wishes is fulfilled; each contraction brings him nearer to death. See Allen Hodges introductory note to Cedar Pauls translation. **Theinterpretation of Being and Nothingess is one of the central themes of Heidegggers Being ~ n dTime. SCM Press, London, 1962. See M. Wyschogrods concise presentation.

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For the task of measuring time, the beginning and the end of an event must be considered as symmetrical terms, and thus duration can only be established in retrospect. Therefore measurement reduces time to the order of one after the other and thereby necessarily excludes consideration of the ongoing flux of time with the threefold temporal aspects of the present, the past, and the future.* For example, in clock time, a relation earlier-later can be established between any two points on the dial. Yet this relation migrates, so to speak, with the hands over the dial. While a quarter t o eight is earlier than eight oclock, eight oclock, in turn, is earlier than half past eight. T h e qualifications early and late. to the contrary, are not relative to each other; they refer to the beginning or to the end of a day, of a year, of live, or of existence. Early and late, like young and old, are phases in the development of individual becoming. T h a t eight oclock occurs earlier than eight-fifteen, and eight-fifteen in turn precedes eight-thirty, characterizes the time that flows uniformly, indifferent to all events. But life time, expanding from conception to death, is not homogenous. Placed between the first cry and the last breath, biographical years are not commensurable. Seventy years of age are not equivalent to twice thirty-five calendar years. Through its unique position, every hour in the course of a day, evety day in the course of a week, acquires a specific value of its own. In the chronological practice of everyday life we operate with remarkable inconsistency. We dispense with-or rather we never reach-the concept of a one-dimensional homogeneous temporal continuum. We preserve an almost pre-Copernican attitude giving ample credit to the testimony of the senses. Concerned with the coming, going, and returning of the seasons, aware of the cyclic movements of sun, moon, and stars, heedful of the alternating periods of personal needs and satisfaction, man conceived the temporal units of years, months, and days. He did not hesitate to comprise into the one unit of a day phases as different as day and night, as mutually exclusive
*In measurement of time two chains of events must be coordinated so that the beginning and end of one (e.g., of a biological reaction or of a race) determines the start and stop of the other one (e.g., of a stop watch or of any other chronometric device). Since during the actual procedure of measurement the situation is open to the future, therefore a definite value for t can only be established in retrospect. It is probably more correct to say that the whole distance has been conceptualized and detached from any actuality. Otherwise, beginning and end could not be united into one view and still be distinguished in a relation of earlier or later, and the sequence of seconds following each other, one after the other, one to the exclusion of the other, could not be summed up in one numerical value. To all this still must be added the postulate that the quantity of ten seconds measured today is equal to that measured yesterday or tomorrow. In the act of measuring time man therefore reaches beyond the time measured. The human capacity to conjoin two events as simultaneous yet to leave them separate is required; furthermore, it is necessary to invert the arrow of time and to return from the end to the beginning. Lived and experienced time cannot he reduced to the linear order of physical time. Experienced simultaneity is prior to the problem of simultaneity with which the physicist is concerned.

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as dawn and dusk. Days are treated like separate units, correctly represented, it seems, by the single sheets of a pad calendar. With the ringing of t h e bells on New Years Eve, the old year ends and the new one begins abruptly. Midnight marks the break, a t which moment some legal contracts expire and others become effective. Yet there are still others continued from one year to the other. On one occasion days, months, and years are considered as continuous, and on other occasions, discontinuous. Officially, midnight marks the beginning of a new day; practically, the old day ends a t nightfall and a new one begins a t daybreak. Sleep interrupts the continuity of temporal experience. Resuming the thread of events in the morning where we laid it down the night before, we discover the stability of the earth and firmament, the ground immutable in the flux of time. T h e cyclic movements permit to establish a point of return, marking end and beginning and thereby enabling the counting of the revolutions. Yet, while the hands of a clock move in a full circle, returning a t the end to the starting point, the present day does not return to its beginning. Therefore the rolling wheel was a well-chosen symbol of the passage of time as it is experienced in everyday life. All these inconsistencies do not signify failure. They express well the situation of man, who, living in time, is able t o reach beyond the moment into both the future and the past and thereby to establish his own position within the wide temporal horizon of the not yet and the no longer. T h e dial of a clock perfectly a t rest presents for simultaneous inspection the twentyfour (12) hours of the day as possibilities. T h e moving hand signifies the actual moment. At the opening of this session, a t 2:OO p.m., fourteen hours of this day had passed and ten more are still to come. When completed, the day belongs to the past. The word today used by every one on innumerable occasions signifies a whole that transcends all immediate experience. With pragmatic naiieteand practical success, we locate the particular hour in the frame of the day, and in a similar way the day within the week, the week within the month, and the month within the year; we calculate hours and treat them as if they were tangible things. The services of labor are paid by hours, and even by half hours, whereby such half is one-half of a not or not-yet or nolonger-existing whole. When we ask and answer the question, What time is it? we descend from the whole of the day t o the hour and further down to the minute (the mi-nute part) and to the second (the second mi-nute part). This descent follows an ascent whereby we ( I ) locate the actual moment of our (my) becoming within the encompassing horizon of world time common to all of us. The question What time is it? is right only for the actual moment of asking-now. Inseparable from the speaker, now signifies this very instant in the display of his personal becoming. With the question What time is it? we order our personal becoming into the all-encompassing order of world time. The answer, I t is two-thirty, means it is two-thirty

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for all of us. Accordingly, all the many particular watches in this room indicate the same time. In signing a n important document we would add the date: 2:30 p.m. on the 19th day of January, 1966. Due to the rotating schema of clock and calendar, time, hour, day and month will reappear in every year. Only the number of the year presents a n exception. T h e era extends open-ended from one single beginning: the foundation of the city, the first Olympiad, the creation of the world, the birth of Christ. So there are two chronological schemata, and corresponding t o them the two orders of the routine tasks and of the irrevocable decisions with quite different meaning in existential time. During our lifetime something can, will, and must happen for the first time. I t may or may not be repeated later on. With beginning and end, the ordinal numbers make their entrance. They lift the individual moments out of their anonymity so t h a t they can be determined within a systematically ordered whole. In a basketball game each quarter has its own characteristic position and position value. The tactics of the players change accordingly from the start to the final whistle. Towards the end leading teams frequently use delaying maneuvers. Paraphrasing Heidegger, one could say they are running forward to the anticipated end; they play as if it were in a downcount backward from the finish, with the intention t o foreclose all open possibilities. During a game the situation remained open to the future. A decision (literally, a cutting through) has not yet been reached. Soon the not yet will be replaced by a no longer. When the game is over, then even the most passionate devotee of the losing team must resign and accept defeat as a fait accompli (a fact = factum = past tense). In retrospect, the fans may be satisfied or disappointed, happy or unhappy, but they can no longer hope nor fear. Moods and emotions have their proper time, their particular position between beginning and end, in prospect or in retrospect within a temporal horizon. Although beginning and end occur in time, beginning and end are not pure temporal terms; they d o not permit a strict mathematical formalization. For beginning and end are co-determined by the subject matter. Something begins, ends, and-as we should add--(lasts or endures between beginning and end. The first step, the first move, the first word, are followed by second and third steps, by second and third moves and words, which in turn establish the position of the first as the first. A succession of coherent parts leads from a beginning to a n end. Only then when such a coherence of parts comes to pass do we actually speak about beginning and end. The beginning therefore occurs in a two-fold contraposition. I t is set against its antecedents and it is in contrast also to the substratum. The opening chord of a symphony stops the noise that filled the concert hall and ushers in a meaningful ordered sequence of tones, just like a surgical operation lasting for hours demands from the first incision to the last suture the correct application of the fitting instrumentsat the proper place and time. Since all such productions are enacted

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on a higher level of orderliness, superior to the humdrum of any accidental noises or the arbitrary fumbling of tools, they are constantly threatened by possible deficiencies and failures. A correct performance requires optimal conditions. The proper succession alone succeeds. Although the temporal structure of such human accomplishments tallies in many aspects with the development of things which have a natural beginning and end, the agreement is by no means complete. First, in human productions a preconceived plan is realized through human activities directed by the plan. Living organisms, however, are self-sustaining systems. Second, in the case of human productions the beginning coincides, as a rule, with a transition from a lower to a n intended higher order of activities. However, in the lives of organisms the beginning is both the continuation of the chain of generations and a break of that continuation. We are all descendants, offsprings from a long line of ancestors t h a t reaches back into remotest antiquity. Yet it is through emancipation from the continuum of generations t h a t we in the drama of birth finally gain our status as independent individuals. Third, a surgical procedure is completed when the first incision has been closed by the last suture. In a symphony the last chord corresponding to the opening bar ends and thereby completes the work which exists as a n integrated whole. With the last stitch the dressmaker completes her work, but with the last breath life does not reach completion; it comes to an end. In the lives of plants, animals, and men, beginning and end are not symmetrical. T h e beginning has its antecedents, while the end is final. The beginning is not absolute, not a creatio ex nihilo, but death on the biological level is a dissolution into nothing; the rest is silence, even if one leaves behind family, property, and fame. At the crib of a healthy baby death seems far off. Yet a t some later day the newborn also will succumb and pass away, just like Everyman. Death, the factual end of life, is its final and radical negation. But the negative is present in every actual moment; it is a shadow cast by life itself. All living creatures are in a peculiar relation to their environment in the widest sense. They codetermine it, they depend on it, and, nevertheless, they oppose it. They maintain themselves against their environment in their exchange with it. In this relation the circumstances may be propitious or disadvantageous. A night frost late in spring may kill the cherry blossoms, there may be too much rain or too little, or it may come too early or too late, timely or ill-timed. During all the years of growth, maturity, and decline the organism absorbs material from the environment, but it also must transform it, make it its own. Self-preservation is never a preservation of the status quo. An organism will remain alive only so long as it is capable of joining issue with an environment in a continuous process of assimilation and dissimilation. T o persist, to endure, means to maintain itself against the permanent threat of decay. I t means to keep entropy low throughout the whole life. Yet the forces threatening destruction cannot be missed. They are the antagonists-and as

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such the necessary co-actors in the drama of life. With Burke, we could say: Our antagonists are our helpers. Sensitized through personal experience, the chronophobic patient discovered the ambiguity inherent to lived time where it depends on the individual whether a situation will be interpreted as growth and fulfillment or as consumption and decline.

References
1. VON GEBSATTEL, E. 1928. Zeitbezogenes Zwangsdenken in der Melancholie. Nervenartz I ( 3 ) : 274-287. Reprinted in Prolegomena einer Medizinischen Anthropologie. Springer-Verlag,Berlin-Goettingen-Heidelberg. 1954. 2. HODGE, A. 1949. Introduction to Balzac, H. : La Peau de chagrin (The Fatal Skin). C. Paul, Transl. Novel Library, London. 3. WYSCHOGROD, M. 1961. Heideggers ontology and human existence. Dis. Nerv. Syst. (SUPPI)22(4): 50-56.