"Our way of being in the world is best understood in terms of possible ways of being. We may share much in common with others, and we would not be who we are independently of our histories. Yet in some sense we seem also able to transcend or go beyond these boundaries. We are both fact and possibility Heidegger would say. Our being is something to be achieved; it is something to be gained or lost. In this sense we appear to be different from other beings in the universe. As beings of potentiality, beings on the way, we are always transcending boundaries, moving into new possibilities of being. We are temporal beings. We exist in the present involved in the heritage of what has been. But we also exist in the future which is coming towards us. Our being is such that in the present we remember the past and anticipate the future. We are becoming as individuals and as entangled in the history of humankind."
Eugene Long
2 comments:
Is there an economic side to this: saving a bit of your paycheck is a way of existing in the future. And are we are existing too much in the present without saving enough?
I'm probably just thinking about the financial issues of the day too much ...
Or... to add to your thought, are we existing too much in our OWN present, and not thinking of the future of the "other"? In other words, if we are really existing with the future in mind, will that not affect how we live now? Would that not change a great deal, financially and otherwise? I'd like to think so... but then, I had a chat with a Christian man today who doesn't see the point in recycling, because his theology is such that he finds no value in trying to save the world from its eventual destruction. Sigh...
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