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it means inviting a being to plan instead of living. In this sense, the “prevalence of thefuture” is always a sign of nihilism. 61Marcel addresses his preferences to the past rather than to the future. In this preferencethere are, obviously, no Romantic tones, but there is a consideration of the past as thewhole of the existential experiences which constitute the being who, here and now, I am.The profound memory of the past also allows a grasp, through the confrontation with mypresent, of my “being on the move.” Therefore, such dynamics constitute the starting pointof second degree reflection. 62Nevertheless, according to Marcel, neither the future nor the past are the truly authenticexistential dimension. The past, in fact, can always be “immobilized” and “frozen,” andthe more we immobilize the past, the more the future appears as a past ante litteram, apast for anticipation. The past can be grasped in its profoundness only by linking it to thepresent, to that I, who, thanks to that past, is ‘I am’ hic et nunc. The present is, therefore,the most authentic temporal dimension: “There is not and there cannot be other origin oftime if not the present.” 63 Only the present owns, in fact, that feature of concreteness whichallows me to plan myself authentically, whereas the past and the future have to be consideredsimply as a support and a reinforcement of it. Of course, also the present must notbe “frozen,” but rather lived like “time on the move.” Only by planning a sense thatbegins from the present can we avoid the risk of nihilism.Such a process, in its ambiguity, constantly happens in the personal intimacy of everyone.The memories (i.e., everything I have been) represent the object which my present Iinterprets, while addressing them to my future I. It is the “being on the move” of thepresent which allows second degree reflection; and it is always a time lag which allowsfor a reflection, a reflection which can be considered a process of interpretation.At this point, it is important to note the relevance of Josiah Royce’s thought inMarcel’s development of this dynamic. An interpretation is real, according to Royce, onlyif the interpreters, i.e., the communicating subjects, constitute a real and concrete community,that is, only if the object does not remain extraneous, but is participated in by theinterpreters. And it is important that this happen, especially if the interpretative processoccurs in the intimacy of my I, because if the I who I am hic et nunc remains unconnectedwith everything which I have been and which leads me to be what I am, if itdoes not really participate in that heritage of memories, then my future I will also beexcluded from it, outlining a process of total alienation. 64Marcel makes use of Royce’s theory of interpretation, but transfers it into a pureexistentialist context. By using another notion introduced by Royce, 65 he emphasizes thatwhat is demanded, in the exercise of second degree reflection and in the interpretiveprocess, is an act of loyalty to this concreteness. The penalty for a lack of loyalty to concretenessis the relapse into first degree reflection: the concept will “get cold” and willbecome again an “empty container,” without any concrete relationship with reality. To be“witness of concreteness” means precisely to recognize the second degree reflection andthe fallibility of any concept which it shows, and to accept it consciously. 66The freedom of accepting or refusing second degree reflection presents two inseparableaspects. An ontological aspect: as it is a relationship with Being, my existence is a part61See Gabriel Marcel, Homo Viator (Paris: Aubier, éd. Montaigne, 1945). The “prevalence of future”is one of Marcel’s criticisms of Heidegger.62Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 1: 194-195.63Marcel, Journal, September 15, 1915.64See Josiah Royce, The World and the Individual (New York: MacMillan, 1900).65See Josiah Royce, Philosophy of Loyalty (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999).66See Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 1: 170.66