The Problem With Time

I recently came across an article on Revue Esprit titled "L'arrogance du présent" by Michaël Fœssel. The author essentially argues that, as the title suggests, the arrogance we display in suggesting that something contemporary MUST be historical, dilutes the importance of the rigorous analytical methods required to understand the past and therefore appropriately inform the current moment. A particularly interesting phrase he uses is "le culte contemporain pour la nouveauté en soi," which perhaps we could translate as "our age's worship of novelty, as such" though I would prefer something more literal and which recalls the Hartog connection central to the article, perhaps the "presentist cult of novelty."

For myself, the en soi, here also recalls Sartre, which, I think is applicable as a mental construct with respect to the novelty of the present as self-contained, outside the historical continuum. Surely my reading is an over-worked extension into Fœssel's purpose in the essay, but it warrants a pause in the context of what follows below. In the Sartrean sense, we can become active movers in our world, creating meaning where perhaps there is none (or perhaps where there is too much meaning to decide which to choose). Sartre would propose we can become being-for-itself, l'être-pour-soi. Conversely, we can live the life of driftwood, inert, gently or perhaps forcefully carried through life, not actively moving within it. We live as being-in-itself, as l'être-en-soi.

These are realizations post my reading of the article. What brought me to write this, however, came from a phrase Fœssel uses, namely the "santo subito." The author uses it pejoratively, and rightly so in the context of his argument, namely we seem to believe every moment is so important, it warrants the term "historical." This leads us, indeed, to intellectual and socio-political snares. The term interests me for a separate reason, however.

The problem with time is that the more we perceive it to be important, the faster we think the clock is ticking. "We had such a great time, it felt like time flew by." Relative to you, it did fly by. It did not, necessarily, do the same for everyone else.

I encourage the reader to ponder a life dwelt in social media, treading water in a sea of algorithms. We have been living in a new stage of information consumption, a deluge, built upon a symbiosis between Self and Algorithm. What happens in this age of information? If I chance upon an exciting Instagram reel, I MUST send it to my friends. They WILL find it interesting or entertaining. It IS important. Meanwhile, political views and beliefs, because we are the ones who hold them, MUST be correct, and it is incumbent UPON me to make this known to others. Social media becomes the vehicle for projecting our importance upon a lived, shared landscape of constant humor and drama. Everything we do is important and, therefore, worthy of self or group celebration. The clock quickens its pace. Everything becomes history.

Regrettably, there is a price which must be exacted for running a faster kilometer. The tollbooth, however, demands recompense. We pay for it by losing our sense of history, proportionality, and our humanity. We pay for it because we confuse celebration with sanctification. Our belief and demarcation of importance does not alone connote the sacred. The sacred captures an ethereal transcendence, which is what contrasts it so sharply against the world of matter and urgency. The sacred is rare. Absent patience, reflection, and unfortunately, often tribulation, it is unobtainable. The fact that the contemporaneous is so easily and rapidly deemed important and, therefore celebrated, does not signify the sanctity of the Present. Rather, it does the opposite.

We will live, for however long we do, in a series of the Present. The Present is Time's gift to us. It will be the only substantia upon which we can truly rest. Stripped down to nothing, we are simply matter destined to find an afterlife in the birth of something new. But the Present, a Moment, we live in so long as we breathe. It belongs to you. It also belongs to everyone who has been and whomever will be. It will be the only stage upon which we can act, and yet it has no owner. The price we pay for rejecting this gift is to live the life of driftwood.

The days have become full with importance at the expense of sacrality. Perhaps recall a few lines spoken by Macbeth:

"Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits: / The flighty purpose never is o'ertook / Unless the deed go with it." (Act IV, Scene 1)

Time has not moved fast enough; the would-be king needs to move faster. Contrast this with Macbeth, finally recognizing his folly in his "tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…" soliloquy (Act V, Scene 5). Time has slowed. It creeps. But it is too late. It was time to pay Time its due.

Perhaps the problem with Time, however, is not really with Time, but with ourselves. It may be incumbent upon us, not necessarily to celebrate ourselves, but to light a candle, now and again, and sanctify Time.

For further reading:
Michaël Fœssel, "L'arrogance du présent," Revue Esprit
Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism