A temporal object, like a musical phrase, the taste of a wine, a kiss, the moment to act, these all have a shape in time a sort of face that is briefly turned to us and then turns away, continuously transforming as it sinks into the past. They are memorable because they contain something unexpected, because they can seem to be looking back at us, to fix us in a moment, marking an encounter, an Erlebnis, an adventure in being. The self is touched by these productions of time, but it is not kin to them, it is not a temporal object at all. However, this is what we mistakenly take it as, as if it were itself merely a much longer phrase, running all the way from birth to death, a curriculum vitae, a extended riff that blows itself on the horn of being with a timbre that varies from iron to gold, from paper to glass. You seem to yourself to have a face, an inner countenance, you think this is what the eyes in the objects are looking back at as they pass, but look more closely and see it floating there against the night sky, nothing but a reflection of all the passing fires. Objects are endlessly astonished by your entire absence.