Time and the Ego

Time is psychologically difficult to define. This paper is an attempt to define it through its correlation with the ego. Philosophy anticipated the analyst a long time ago by thinking of time as a function of the mind. It seems indeed to be a creation and manifestation of the mind contributing to those vital symbols by which the ego maintains its role as an organ of orientation, coherence, and relatedness.

It is an important cultural achievement of man to have brought time from a subjective experience to the objective test in projection. It has become that measuring astronomical tool indispensable to our rational orientation. With justifiable pride time has been celebrated in precious clocks which often take the shape of shrines.

When we think of our ego we feel we know it well. We like to presume a clear, rational mind and are notoriously attracted to everything structural without and within. The reason for such assurance seems to be that we perceive in our minds an aggregate of all functions which provide us with orientation, that is, an integrated awareness of our inner selves and the outer world. It is evident that the ego depends largely on vigilant outward orientation as a means of coping with the greater difficulties of inner perspective. Though there may be chaos inside, there will be definition, comprehension, and clarity outside. Whenever possible, inner sensations are channeled and focused outward and thereby conceived in the state of awareness. However, we have learned through the study of the phenomena of repression that the state of ego awareness is only deceptively clear—the notion of clarity being the ego's own creation—and should objectively rather be regarded as vague and dim and more in the nature of an illusion, a modification of variable compromises (shades) or a composite more or less, but never entirely, rational. For our purpose then, we shall try