NOEMAYA

That which begins must end. That which is dragged in will be swept away. That which appears will disappear. But in this appearing, to which we cannot assign a specific temporal duration, a meaning is flashed before us, something to which the appearing points. However, the pointing itself (intentionality), the always pointed sweep of time, cannot itself be an appearing-disppearing, for it must be sustained throughout in order for experience to have any meaning at all, to be an the experience of a tree, a house, etc. in spite of the fact that the sensation content of such experiences constantly rise and fall. But this sustaining itself is not temporal in the sense of world-time, for it itself constitutes world-time in its pointing toward a time belonging to the world; it makes the experience of world-time possible.

But in our attempts at clarifying the meaning of time, the meaning of Being, the meaning of this extra-temporal pointing, etc., i.e. structures that don’t themselves appear but make appearing possible, we always come across an impossible ambiguity, one which cannot be bridged, hence the futile philosophical and scientific treatises on these concepts which never landed on a satisfactory ground. 

According to what belongs to the nature of things, concepts such as Being, time, intentionality, which make the experience of the world possible, must operate from across an impassible abyss and stay eternally ambiguous for worldliness to become a possible experience. Being and time will always escape any form of worldly conceptualization; they will forever remain unclear insofar as man is the subject. Or one could say that it belongs to the form of their givenness to give themselves with an insurmountable ambiguity. Like an iceberg where most of its body and its ground are under, these non-appearings must be given with an ambiguous appearance, a tail that transcends worldliness. 

Generally speaking, cognition, or rather recognition, is possible only against the background of a primordial anonymity. If one is to enjoy a projected movie on a cinema screen, one must forego one’s active perception of the screen itself; that perception of the screen must fall into anonymity or else the film would be nothing but a vague movement of sensations without a registered story. This is true of any meaningful experience: the pregiven structures that make meaning possible must themselves dwell in anonymity for the meaning to appear.  

It is possible, however, to make these anonymous structures into a theme, to bring them out of a primordial anonymity, but not it is not possible to do so as man, as human being, for the very self-apperception human-being is itself a constituted appearing. The clarity possible for these structures is a transcendental clarity, through a seeing that itself is no more a worldly experience, no more situated in time and place, not subject to duration or the familiar being-sense that encompasses everything worldly. 

Another elusive thing of all experience is the “I” which is always concealed by the human veil and yet makes itself felt, however with the same elusiveness that belongs to other transcendental structures. The “I” is never given as a thing but presupposed and felt as something always already antecedent to all experiences, not in a worldly temporal way but in such a way that world-time itself is something experienced in its light. It belongs to the essence of the “I” to remain anonymous and elusive throughout all worldly experiences; it gives itself precisely in such a manner insofar as it is identified with the human self-apperception. The “I” says, “catch me if you can,” and yet in all seeking after it, it slips behind the seeking itself. It is not that we can at some point and by sheer effort of concentration elucidate the “I.” It is the very form of its worldly appearance to give itself as elusive.

To attempt to bring to worldly clarity such transcendental structures is akin to catching a river: no matter what one grasps, it is always water and not the flow itself. Hands may feel the flow but they can never catch and isolate it. In the same manner, the mind, i.e. any human cognition, may grasp objects but it is an altogether inadequate instrument in grasping the flux in which objects are constituted, for it itself is an appearance in the life of the flux. 

The aim here was not to introduce more concepts or ideas about reality but rather to point to the anonymous, living stream which the reader himself or herself must find, and find it to their astonishment. There is a certain kind of seeing involved here that is not of the nature of worldly knowledge; it can never be imparted to others by communication. We can at best awaken in the reader an interest to look for it himself or herself, and once they do find it they will know.  It is a knowing that keeps one in an other-worldly astonishment and yet transcendentally alone, for they live in an encounter that is at once the most apparent and yet forever incommunicable to others. The world is dying of thirst while swimming in the most nourishing ocean; they seek satiety not knowing their very restless seeking is what keeps them from being spontaneously and effortlessly satiated. 

Let’s wrap up with a final pointer: it may appear as if we have been, as if stretched between birth and death; but it is not that we have been; rather, having-been is what is appearing.