Life is always designed. It is always a present appearance that changes in time.
In general, we perceive as alive those phenomena to which we grant a relationship to space and time – if not entirely transparent, then always in itself ordered. Ortega y Gasset once said: «Life means the same as the present.» There is no life that is not permanently actively present. In the lifeless world, there is only past and imminent time. These time properties merge into each other in the inorganic with infinitely small distance, i.e., through nothingness. But by living and perceiving living things, we know the present and permanently experience the present.
Wolfgang Schad, Säugetier und Mensch. Band 1, S. 11, Stuttgart 2012.
Translation Monika Werner
Image Sofia Lismont
