Passivity as a way to the yet-to-be-disclosed-place of a sustainable, respons-i/a-ble environment for man and nature

What happens when we look at a rose? What do we do as we become aware of color and form? Our soul is passive and receptive. We are, to be sure, awake and active, but our attention is not strained; we simply ‘look’ – in so far, that is, as we ‘contemplate’ it and are not already ‘observing it’ (for ‘observing’ implies that we are beginning to count, to measure and to weigh up). (Pieper 1952, p. 26). We find a similar understanding with Nietzsche (1889) who said, that ‘seeing’ is “to accustom the eye to quietness, to patience, to reserve; to postpone judgement, to survey and comprehend each case from all sides” (p. 36). And we find affinities to both in contemporary German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, to whom ”einen unmittelbaren und intensiven Welt-beziehungsweise Sachbezug” is prerequisite to obtain Resonance as a “durchstimmende Angesprochenheit“ (Rosa 2016, cp. V.3). In short: what makes the human being human is, that he is a contemplative being (Heidegger 1959, p. 47).
But in the late-modern society of positivity (Han 2012b), we shun everything that is other, foreign, different, secretive and opaque, as it constitutes a negativity (Han 2012b, p. vii – viii; Han 2019b, p. 32) that causes friction and inertia (Han 2009, 2010, 2012a, 2019a, and 2019b). We have “taken leave of both dialectics and hermeneutics” (Han 2012a, p. 5); of that which gives the spirit its power by “tarrying with it” (Han 2012a, p. 5). In the late-modern society of positivity, hyperactivity has forces out the patient dwelling (Han 2010). Processing has replaced questioning, calculation has taken the place of contemplation, speed and acceleration has ousted presence and attention. Human existence is being increasingly machinated (Heidegger 1936 – 1938; Heidegger 1959).
By applying some of Heidegger’s early work, Mølholm (2019) demonstrates how stress as an existential “call from afar, to afar” (Heidegger 1927, p. 251) is both a reaction to what can be described as ‘a hasty, sidestepping attitude of life’, as well as a ‘warning-call’ that attempts to ‘wake us up’, listen and answer. It is the ‘sound’ reaction to an existential anxiety that calls us, to what Mølholm (2019) names “a-yet-to-be-disclosed-place”. In this paper I will expound on how a passive attitude as an unstrained, receptive, awake and active attention towards human existence and nature allows us to contemplate this yet-to-be-disclosed-place and meander around the phenomena, around that which is unsayable in apophatic wonder (Hansen 2022, 2023; Visse, Hansen and Leget 2020), so as to forward a sustainable, respons-i/a-ble environment for both man and nature.