the tense of presence

This is the second question from Shelley Marshall’s call for contributions to Proximity:

2. What tense is the present in? How expansive can the present be? (What does the present exclude? Can the present expand and bleed out to encompass the past and the future? Is it possible to experience a present which does not embody the past, and conversely, is it possible to experience the past except through the present? Is it possible to experience a present which is not in some way anticipating the next moment?)

I’ve been trying to address this stuff for Shelley, so thought I’d call on some Henri Bergson to answer it (again, trying very hard to be brief with the responses … to avoid the temptation to ramble on!).

Henri Bergson’s Pure Duration is a form of temporal synthesis, the “horizon of inner life” (Guerlac 2006 p.81) in which quality, feeling and sensation are experienced. It is the “data of consciousness” in which time is  de-spatialised (and as such any notion of time being linear is abandoned).

What does this have to do with the tense of presence?

To be present implies (whether we mean it or not) knowing where one is located. But, at the same time, we tend to refer to the temporal—of being in the now for example—as being a critical aspect of presence.

Bergsonian Duration frees the experience of presence from location or space. It marks the experience as a purely temporal one, but not one that is locked to the current. Rather, Duration exists in flight through the temporal*; it demands (gently) that presence be thought of as consciousness: as flow through memory, temporality, attention and novelty.

Now, here are my really short answers to Shelley’s questions:

The tense of duration.
Very.
Nothing.
Yes.
No & yes (although this answer requires a rethinking of what the ‘present’ is – ie, careful not to conflate ‘current’ with ‘present’).
No (although I think the word “anticipating” is not quite right here).

* It’s so difficult to write without invoking spatial metaphors!: “marks”, “through”. In other words, to write about presence denatures it. Writing is a spatialised act, its primary weapons are metaphors of space. It is nigh impossible not to feel clumsy when writing Duration.

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