Contemplation suggests to our culture a withdrawal from action. The "timefulness" of our active lives seems to stand in stark contrast to the "timelessness" of any contemplative moments in those lives. Indeed, those who would defend the worth or superiority of the contemplative often reinforce the sense of its contrast with the active. This typically occurs in two ways.
On a "Greek" version, action is understood to be related to contemplation only as it were by way of succession, as something that occurs either before or after but in any case never coincident with contemplation. And action at the same time is something that becomes devalued: the warrant for its engagement is seen to be a function of, and thereby a necessary concession to, our "immanence" in time.
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