We are born at a certain moment, which we neither control nor know in advance, and which we cannot even begin to grasp until much later in life. And yet we can, with experience, learn to place ourselves in longer histories, to think in time. We cannot be free until we have a certain sovereignty over ourselves, which requires us to understand that the present moment is not the only one, and that its impulse is not the only thing we have. We live freely in a moment insofar as we can get beyond it and see ourselves in it.
