Kangas writes, "The ordeal expresses an event that is neither temporal nor eternal. It is not the direct presence of the eternal within time, which would annihilate temporality, but rather an interruption of it" (p. 116). He also says, "Receiving time is the most basic work of the of the living subject" (p. 105, his emphasis).
Does the living subject interrupt temporality in order to receive it? What relation might there be between the event, which could be cosmic, or material in the extreme, and exchange, a social relation? The gap of reciprocation, which is not exactly the gap of return, that is, the lag between the reception and the sending of gifts, stands out as a practical, coexistential temporality. The art of interruption—is it itself an interruption
What role is there for patience to play in the constitution of the event of the ordeal? Must it always remain yet to be determined—or is that already too much of a determination? Is it really so hard to wait and see?
Labels: event, Kangas, Kierkegaard, temporality, waiting, work