Life must be lived forwards even though it can only be understood backwards

Evidence

Sartre still believed, however, that one must call the shots as one sees them at the time. If you fence-sit just because you are scared to make an error, then you are definitely making one. As Kierkegaard had said: … It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards. And if one thinks over that proposition it becomes more and more evident that life can never really be understood in time because at no particular moment can I find the necessary resting-place from which to understand it. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 818

Categorization

• DEFINE: Kierkegaard’s foundational existentialist claim about the irreducibly forward character of lived time.
• XREF: Recalls Sartre’s later injunction to ‘choose ourselves’ in the moment — the same commitment to temporal forwardness made central in Being and Nothingness. — connects to: A life that fulfilled its vocation directly would miss it — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 91; Lived life always experiences the present as stretched with past and future — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 803; Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The insight captures the irreconcilable asymmetry between retrospective understanding and prospective living — the hinge on which existentialist temporality turns.
• APHORISMS: A genuine life-wisdom statement: the unavoidable imperative to act in the present despite imperfect understanding.

Broader Connections

• Life alone realizes time by transcending the present in both directions #expands (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 808
• Temporality is the necessary horizon for the for-itself’s transcendence #expands (0.74)
• Lived life always experiences the present as stretched with past and future #expands (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 803