K.A.A.

| 10 May 2017

A Proper Relation to The Future That Enables Us To See The

Present

Abstract
Many people consider the future they imagine as something that was
already theirs, as if plans were already their reality. But for Levinas, time
is the flowing synthesis of now moments where the future that we
imagine, actually is not: is not something we can already gain or lose.
This suggests that there is a proper relation to the future that many do
not take, but what is that and how do we do that? This paper will be a
response to this question using Time and The Other by Levinas to
propose that the future that we imagine and plan for is like death:
"Refractory to all light, resists simplification to subj-obj relation", the
future is never experienced in the now; it never arrives except as the
present. For how to relate to the future as that, The Nicomachean Ethics
by Aristotle shows us how: by shifting our perspective from seeing
flourishing as a state we achieve, to an activity of living, from a focus on
the ends to a focus on the means, with acts that lie in our own
power.

Many people consider the future that they imagine as something

that was already theirs, as if plans are already their reality. These plans

are those things that people feel they are entitled to. For one, in every

society, there is an expected route for people to take in life that meet

standards and maintain the status quo. This includes many aspects of life,

such as education, employment, marriage, and having a family, that many

people from early on in life see themselves to have had gone through or

achieved by a certain age. Besides these external and often cultural

norms, people also have personal expectations for themselves such as

things they want to receive, and things they want to achieve or

experience, like the various programs people apply and prepare for.
 If people consider themselves entitled to these things, they can

start to handle and treat these ideas as if it was already theirs, making

plans and imagining themselves in the future doing and achieving what

they desire. For many people then, when the prospects for the future

take a turn against their expectations, they feel as if they had lost

something. Some people even think that their future goes from being

positive to being negative, and that whatever they will actually come to

do just balances out the negative created by the future they supposed to

have lost. They treat the future as if it was already in their possession

and present reality, as if they were already entitled to certain things and

could control what comes to them.

But in Time and The Other, Levinas consistently agrees with the

notions of Husserl on time: that it is the flowing synthesis of now

moments1. Heidegger in Time and Being talks about time similarly, as a

sequence of nows where that which is no longer now is the past, the

actual now is the present, and that which is not yet now is the future 2.

The actual now is what is in being, and the past and the future that which

is not in being. It is not appropriate to treat these moments as something

which is in being, as many people attempt in their regret and worry.

The past is no longer now, which means it has happened and

cannot be changed. Ian Baucom in Spectres of the Atlantic says that

what has begun does not end but endures 3, such that the moments we

experience are never lost because it can remain within the person who

1Emmanuel Levinas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

2Martin Heidegger, Time and Being.
3 Ian Baucom, Spectres of the Atlantis
constantly experiences the present. Its evidence can be seen in the actual

living: where a person is, how he does things, who he is with, what he

does, and why he does them. The past is no longer now, it is not in being,

but remains now as it is the life one had lived: Time does not pass but

accumulates, and the person in time is a product of his history. It

provides a persons givens, the things we must accept we cannot change.

When people regret the past they are at least thinking about

something that was once in being: it has actually happened and has a

determinate nature. However, when people worry about the future and so

often try to relate to it as something they can gain or lose in the actual

now, they are attempting at a knowledge of what is not yet now: not in

being, not in the now, and not something that has been lived or

determines ones givens; and attempting to deal with the future in the

same ways they deal with the present.

Since the future is that which is not yet now, then we can say that

in reality, many people act in ways that are very inconsistent with this. In

trying to grasp after and focus on what is not yet now, they try to take on

a relation with the future that is only possible for the actual now, and so

it is not the proper relation that one can take. So, what is this proper

relation?

Levinas talks about death in Time and The Other as unknowable, as

that which is separated from us by an abyss we cannot cross 4. We can use

these notions of Levinas as the lens through which we can see how to

properly relate to the future.

4 Emmanuel Levinas, Time and The Other

 Death is refractory to all light, resists simplification to subject-

object relation (Levinas). Similarly, the future is also refractory and

unyielding to the light we try to shine on the future in our attempts at

comprehension, control, and possession. It resists the simplification that

people so often impose in these attempts, and we can see this in the

reality that time and chance bring about: the unexpected. There is no

direct connection from our imagination of the future to the future itself.

There is no mastery of the future that countless have tried to bring

about. As much as you try decide what you want to be when you grow up,

you have only made a decision of what your goals are. You cant decide

what will happen or who you will become because the future is

unknowable, and the future self is never the self that I know and have

now.

An abyss separates us from death5. Similarly, an abyss separates

the person from future because he is only ever constantly experiencing

what is already now. We encounter and act in the present, not in what is

not yet. Although time is a sequence of nows, we can never make that

traverse because the person is not the one moving through time, time is

what is moving and flowing through and allowing us this experience of

living. The already now is what is presented to us. We can never cross

over from this that is presented to us onto what is not yet: we cannot just

treat the present as something to overcome to reach the future since

there is this abyss separating us from the future: we can never cross it,

we can never live in what is not yet. We cannot attempt to make what is

5 Emmanuel Levinas, Time and The Other

not now into now, and likewise we cannot drag what is into what is not.

There is an abyss that mediates our relationship to what is not already

now because we dont ever experience the future, we only ever

experience and live in the present.

So how can we relate to the future as something that is unyielding

and uncrossable? Here we can look at what Aristotle says about wish

which is comparable to what many imagine to be the future. In

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says that wish is more concerned with

end, and choice with the means: we wish to be healthy, but choose things

that will make us healthy6. To relate to the future as unyielding you must

realize that you cannot choose to have the future state or ends, only wish

for it. We can only choose what is in our power: there is no choice of

impossibilities7, and to relate to the future properly is to accept that we

cannot choose it, but acknowledge that it must affect the choices we

make in the present, the already now is the only moment that presents

possibility of choice. Thinking of the future is not meant to affect changes

in the future, but its only purpose is to influence and help us make the

right choices in the present to enable us to live the way we want to.

Having a proper relation to the future will let us avoid the disparity that

we can sometimes see in people who want to have certain things in the

future but are not doing anything today that resembles the life the want

to have. The proper way to live is to for our choices to be in harmony

with what we desire and what we know to be right. Therefore, seeing the

future as something we cannot ever cross into means that we can only

6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
have in the now what we were desiring for our future. A proper relation

to the future allows us the realization that the future is not what we have,

that it is only ever the present.

To relate to the future mediated by an abyss, is to bring back our

thoughts to the present moment because flourishing is not a state we

achieve, it is an activity and this also only occurs in what is already now.

We are not always just chasing after a future desire, but bringing our

bearings back into what is right in front of us: the choice to act in

accordance with a goal is only possible in what is already now, and the

goal itself is also only possible in what is already now. We will only ever

experience our dreams and aspirations in our now, and we have to see

the future as it is: unknown and ungraspable, to be able to have the

openness required towards the future to be able to act and create and

begin in the present.

To properly relate to the future as something that resists our

attempts at control and knowledge and as something that is separated

from us by an abyss, is to live with a respect towards what is already

now, not taking it for granted knowing that this is all we ever have. The

only thing we can choose is the activity that we do now, and what is

already now is the most important thing already.