DE Weekly: Heidegger, Temporality, & Retracing the Past
Below is an archived email originally sent on December 8, 2025.
Heidegger, Temporality, & Retracing the Past
Martin Heidegger, the German phenomenologist who had a huge influence on existentialism, wrote about time and temporality, what he saw as the structure of his Dasein––human existence.
Heidegger lifted the term Dasein from the German word for “existence” and molded it into a concept explaining the human condition; namely, our “Being-in-the-world.”
Dasein does not simply refer to our existence, but encompasses our mode of being (how we exist) and what we are to do within this mode of being.
Temporality is a key term within this structure. It distinguishes time into two categories: ordinary, chronological and linear time, and the three-dimensional time humans experience, broken up into past, present, and future.
For Heidegger, these three dimensions of time are not separate, but interlinked and part of a single “temporal” structure.
Our past (our already-having-been), our present (our moment of being), and our future (our possibility of becoming) are never truly finished nor begun, but all connected simultaneously within the way we exist.
At the forefront of our temporality is our future. Our future is finite; this is because we are beings-towards-death. We are all mortal and all going to die one day, thus the emphasis placed on making something of our future.
The interesting thing is, though, that we are always dragging our past and our present into that future. (This further builds the case for the temporal nature of these three dimensions of time.)
We let our past choices and actions influence the future we desire, and we let our present situation do so perhaps even more. What we would do well to realize, however, is that no matter how within reach the past seems in the present, it’s not truly available to us.
Let me share some personal thoughts I had to illustrate why.
Last week, I went on a walk in my neighborhood. It had been snowing for a few days straight, and the snow had accumulated to cover the sidewalks.
Even wearing boots, when it has snowed for a while and no one has been through to plow the sidewalks, it can be hard to trudge through the snow.
You have to clear your own path, it can be deep, and the pavement underneath that soft white blanket can be icy.
There was a stretch of sidewalk where I saw the tracks left behind from somebody else, the footsteps of somebody who came before me. To make my life easier and try and cover ground a bit quicker, I tried to retrace the steps of that person.
After a few steps, however, I realized I was having trouble retracing the steps. Upon closer inspection of the tracks, I realized the footprints were backward. Whatever direction I was going, this person was going the other way.
It dawned on me that this is an analogy for the temporality of existence. Let’s say those steps were mine. Let’s say I was walking for a while, clearing my own path, and I decided that I wanted to turn around and go back.
Even if those own steps were mine, I would not be able to retrace them. The footsteps would be pointed differently, the stride might be off, and I would not be able to retrace my exact steps.
Even if I turned around and saw exactly where I came from, the exact path I walked to get to where I am at present, and exactly where I thought I needed to go back to, I couldn’t.
For the path would not be the same, and the steps not able to be retraced.
This is where a word which Jean-Paul Sartre used to describe the past comes in handy: calcified.
Our past is calcified, set in stone. We can reminisce on it, yes, but we cannot revisit it. Not really. It helps shape our identity, helps inform the projection of possibilities into the future, but it provides no escape for us.
That brings up another point: our past is always informed by our present.
If I were walking through the snow clearing my own path, what would make me turn around and want to retrace my steps? Perhaps I was looking ahead and thought, “This path looks fraught.” Or, “I don’t like the path I’m on.”
The truth about this situation is a tough one to swallow, but it’s true––you have no choice but to go forward. To keep going. It is better to clear your own path where there is none than to try and retrace the path you have already walked, or worse yet, to try and walk someone else’s path. It can’t be done.
The Irish poet David Whyte said, “How do you know that you’re on your path? Because it disappears.”
Let your past inform your present. Let your present be your “is,” what you are right now. And, let your future be not a source of angst, but a possibility realized.
“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment” –– Viktor E. Frankl
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Brandon J. Seltenrich
P.S.––
I’m certainly not the first person to say this, but go for walks. Preferably alone, preferably with no music or anything in your ears. That’s how you get spontaneous thoughts which delight you and which you want to write about.
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