Procrastination as il y a

by Miguel Jimenez

Levinas’s idea of Il y a is an interesting topic. It’s that state of indeterminacy where there is neither nothing nor something. Levinas tries to illustrate what il y a is through citing different examples of it. I’ll do the same. Using my own, weird example, I think he was trying to describe the fact that when one or an existent is in a state of il y a, the existent is not totally there, or (Being (as Being HIMSELF)), but IS there as being. Think of my illustration as the existent being like a robot on stand-by, but it isn’t totally there because it isn’t being controlled or activated. The robot is able to conquer il y a when one finally turns him on and makes him move. When one isn’t Being, what is he/she?

I’d like to give another example, one that’s closer to home. It’s about il y a being manifested in a student’s procrastination for a project or term paper. Levinas’s idea of Il Y A is present when a student is in the state of procrastinating. A student, let’s call him Miguel, the quintessential crammer, procrastinated on his term paper. Basically, Miguel had 2 weeks to complete a term paper that he was telling himself that he’d start writing day after day after day. He tells himself, “hey, I wrote it already in my head,” but the paper isn’t written, it isn’t manifested in a tangible, paper format. For 13 days, Miguel fights his inner struggles to complete a term paper, for 13 days, Miguel tells himself he’ll do the paper tomorrow, and for 13 days, that paper is still blank.

Procrastination, is that in determinant state where Miguel is in, deciding whether or not to do the paper. Now, the two outcomes for procrastination is one, going back to laziness and playing video games, or watching random videos on YouTube. This can be equated the existent failing to emerge from il y a and not Being, or going “back to the mother’s womb,” back to dependency or the existent’s comfort zone. The second outcome is to actually push down laziness and do the term paper. This is similar to the existent pushing down the il y a and emerging as Being.


As students, I think the reason to why we cram is because we ultimately want time for ourselves and to do absolutely nothing that’s productive. We’re just really lazy. Also, for those hard working ones, we procrastinate because we have other things that we first need to attend to.