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 Heidegger’s
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 authentic-
inauthentic 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

759
7 60 Annals New Y o r k Academy of Sciences

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 can’t 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 re-
main, 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 genera-
tion 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 some-
thing 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 other-
wise .... 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.”
 Straw: Existential A p p r o a c h t o Time 761

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.
Bertha was completely unaware t h a t with her remark about crocheting
she had been paraphrasing the fable of Balzac’s novel La peau de chagrin
(The Fatal Skin).*
We are inclined t o assume that Bertha’s “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, Bertha’s painful fascination by t h e flux
of time was not due t o reflection but, as the dominance of sound also indi-
cates, it was akin to direct sensory awareness.
T h e nihilating aspect of time that dominates Bertha’s 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 Hodge’s introductory note to Cedar Paul’s
translation.’
**Theinterpretation of Being and Nothingess is one of the central themes of Heidegg-
ger’s Being ~ n dTime. SCM Press, London, 1962. See M. Wyschogrod’s concise
presentation.“
762 Annals New York Academy of Sciences
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
o’clock, eight o’clock, in turn, is earlier than half past eight. T h e qualifica-
tions “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 individ-
ual becoming.
T h a t eight o’clock 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, bio-
graphical 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.
 Straus: Existential Approach t o Time 763
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 Year’s 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 twenty-
four (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 no-
longer-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
764 Annals New Y ork Academy of Sciences
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 irrevoca-
ble 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 “be-
gins,” “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 instru-
mentsat the proper place and time. Since all such productions are enacted
 Straw: Existential Approach to T i m e 765
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 be-
ginning 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, off-
springs 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 begin-
ning 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 ex-
change 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
766 Annals New York Academy of Sciences
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 dis-
covered 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. Ner-
venartz I ( 3 ) : 274-287. Reprinted in Prolegomena einer Medizinischen Anthro-
pologie. 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. Heidegger’s ontology and human existence. Dis. Nerv.
Syst. (SUPPI)22(4): 50-56.