Peeter Laurits 1962 You Should Not Conceptualize A Moment. 2024

You should not conceptualize a moment as something that flies by, nor study “flying by” merely as the capacity of a moment. If moments could be fully defined by the capacity to fly by, there would be gaps between them. Who does not accept the discourse of the existential moment is someone concentrating on what is already past. To sum it up: the entirety of existences in the entirety of the world are particular moments next to each other. As existential moments, each of them realizes itself as a “me”. The existential moment has the quality of shifting. It shifts from what we call “today” into “tomorrow”, it shifts from “today” into “yesterday”, and from “yesterday” into “today” in turn. It shifts from “today” into “today”, it shifts from “tomorrow” into “tomorrow”. This is because shifting is the quality of the momentary.

You should not conceptualize the phenomenon of shifting as the wind and the rain moving from East to West. Nothing in the entire world is ever without movement, is ever without advancing or receding — it is always in shift. This shift is like “spring”, for instance. Spring can have a multitude of appearances, and we call them “shifting”. But you should think about how they shift without involving any external shifter.

— The Existential moment (Uji)