FT24008: Dwelling and Retreating

     Heidegger muses about bridge building in his concept of dwelling. Dwelling is not so much at living space that meets the basics needs but almost a stepping point from our creaturely habits to the world around us. One such point Heidegger brings up is where we build bridges and they are placed in special spots for us. They allow us to come and go and return to our places we dwell. Bridges are placed in just the same care as we place our homes and have a similar correspondence to our being as he explains in his writing, "Building Dwelling Thinking."

    All of this happening depends on our intention to dwell in the place. When we are overly occupied with other matters such as our work life we begin to dwell less. Dwelling less means our existence yields itself to being arbitrarily chosen. Reality matches less with our being or represents the fleeing of meaning from ourselves.

    In extreme instances we have no opportunity to dwell. Xenophon writes in his retreating from the Persian army this very thing. As he retreats he finds abandoned cities no longer dwelled in. He's rushing ahead of the army pursuing them. There's only enough time to describe the structures briefly before he has to rush out and keep going. Staying in these places longer would cause their capture and execution. They cannot dwell there and the buildings only serve as a momentary amusement in his escape of his hangman. 

    Dwelling in this case requires us to have the mindset to settle down and not chase after fleeting adventures or escape perils. This severs our connection to reality because we cannot build it ourselves. If we are lost in the woods at night the stars cannot give us much more than a momentary delight because they do not light our path and we can only see points of light in the dark. We can only feel part of them only when we know where are because we need to ask nothing of them.

    Only when we settle ourselves can we be comfortable in being and the world we are in. Otherwise we are waiting for something to appear or hoping what we experience will soon change to something else. Our want for change in our world also corresponds to ourself and we become formless and become creatures that escape ourselves. We only have discrete moments to exist.