#heideggerian

Guilt is the uncomfortable certainty that we are not what we could have been.

We ourselves are the thing-in-itself.

Apophantic (German: apophantisch): An assertion (as opposed to a question, a doubt or a more expressive sense) is apophantic. It is a statement that covers up meaning and just gives us something as present-at-hand. For Instance, "The President is on vacation", and, "Salt is Sodium Chloride" are sentences that, because of their apophantic character, can easily be picked up and repeated in news and gossip by 'The They.' However, the real ready-to-hand meaning and context may be lost.

The present is only ever understandable through the past, with which it forms a living continuity; and the past is always grasped from our own partial viewpoint within the present.