Meditações - contemporaneidade

Contemporariness is, then, a singular relationship with one’s own time, which adheres to it and, at the same time, keeps a distance from it. More precisely, it is that relationship with time that adheres to it, through a disjunction and an anachronism. Those who are truly contemporary neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adjust themselves to its demands, the contemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his own time so as to perceive not its light but rather its darkness.

Giorgio Agamben