To be present to oneself is to offer oneself the present time, the source of integrity. Submission denies this presence, stealing our vital energy. Little by little, it empties our existence, closing the door on our integrity.
The gift of presence
To be present to ourselves is to offer ourselves the present of present time, that is, the gift to ourselves of our own integrity. Integrity lies in the way we inhabit time, in the light of our capacity for action.
- We are only active in the present. We cannot act in the past, nor act in the future.
- Submission to authority, threat, fear, etc., is the negation of our integrity. In other words, we deny our present time, only to have it snatched away by someone else.
- Submission therefore only takes place through our modality of presence in the present.
Submission and absence of self in time
I propose this way of looking at the phenomenon of submission, which is different from the political or psychological way in which we usually look at the phenomena of domination and submission. In this approach, when we submit, we relinquish our presence in time. We leave our time to the other.
And yet, we can experience extremely strong emotions in these moments, in our experiences of submission. But we absent our integrity within time, and so we can no longer receive its present.
We’re in time, of course, but we’re no longer in integrity with ourselves, we’re no longer “aligned” with ourselves, and so what takes place there is no longer a gift we receive, which builds us up. As we biologically exist in this time, it opens a breach, a leak, and our vital energy pours out of us during the time of submission. Submission can be to many things; it’s not just submission to a malevolent person.
And little by little, time after time of submission, our vital energy is reduced, until it disappears. The habit takes hold, and we no longer even know how to be present in time, or how to offer ourselves the present of the present through our presence. Our integrity has been drained, our existence is no more. The door closes.
