Reality may be interpreted as vertical and horizontal. Vertical reality manifests itself in levels; horizontal reality manifests itself in parts. My vertical reality is experienced in layers (they form my subject). My horizontal reality is expressed in actions (they form my predicate). – These actions can be combined to form the subjectification of predication.
The delineation between subject and predicate is useful, but misleading. I am not a subject who predicates. I am the whole of my subject and predicate. The distinction between subject, action, and object fails to recognize that the act of acting becomes subject, and thus object for another. The difference is more than semantic. The difference is perspective. Most of us labor under this illusion: I am (this person); I do (these things). But it is impossible to separate the “aming” from the “doing” (can there be space without time?).
The unification of subject and predicate, as the essence of “I”, points to the importance of tense. Every infinitesimal expression of the absolute “now” is a distinct instance of identity. What was before is no longer “I”. Moreover, the notion of predication collapses into an interval no longer than the absolute minimal instance of the present. The world sees my existence as a whole; I see it as an ever-renewing opportunity to express. Who “I was” does not have to be who “I am”. And while the tenuous strands of pattern may appear to stretch across my present-tense instances, I am relieved to know that the power of pattern is no more than the strength of its always-breakable strand. My past does not own my present.
