saying is καθ᾽ἡμέραν ἐγκυρεῖν —the everyday encountering of. ... The exact object of this encounter is not named: rather, it is only expressed by way of the neuter plural ταῦτα. That toward which the human is incessantly turned, ὁ Λόγος, this ‘singularity,’ must therefore be something other than the ‘plurality’ the human encounters daily. The human thereby lingers within two relationships, and does so constantly. However, at one and the same time, that toward which the human is turned in the manner of bearing remains mostly absent from him, and that which the human encounters daily remains foreign to him, so that he does not know how to make use of it, and therefore simply does not. What he encounters daily is nothing for the human, so to speak. How are we to understand this? For, day in and day out, the human relates to things and other humans—that is, he relates toward what is and what he takes for, and refers to, as beings: τὰ ὄντα. Beings: this is clearly what is meant by ταῦτα. But how can Heraclitus then say that what the human [322] encounters daily is foreign and unfamiliar to him? For surely the human knows his way about in the everyday and what is encountered within it. Indeed, the human is so accustomed to the everyday that, for him, it is the ordinary. But, how can what is familiar and ordinary be extraordinary and estranging, such that its extraordinary and estranging elements are overlooked in favor of the ordinary? Moreover, where and in what way is the ordinary still given, when what is encountered daily is strange and out of the ordinary? Beings, things, and human beings of near and distant places: these are beings for the human. Of course, beings that ‘are’ in this way do not approach the human in terms of the ‘is,’ i.e., in terms of being. It is enough that beings show themselves and remain: that is sufficient for the human in order to be able to function and work within beings, in order to move things along and set them up according to his needs. The human in his everyday life need not concern himself with the fact that beings ‘are,’ and that they, as the beings that ‘are,’ are determined by being. However, the human encounters beings every day; but the being of beings remains foreign to him. We say (i.e., we see it and say): the weather is bad; it even suffices simply to say ‘bad weather.’ We are not concerned at all with the ‘is,’ not even when we experience it and see: the weather is good. Good or bad weather—perhaps—but we cannot make use of the ‘is.’ But ‘is’ nevertheless remains one of the names of being.
The being of beings—ὁ Λόγος—which forgathers and keeps safe every being regarding the fact that it is, and that it is in such and such a way, is therefore named in the first half of the saying as that from which humans rend themselves asunder and what remains foreign to them. Because the everyday relation to the Λόγος (i.e., to being) prevails in this particular way, and because being itself is, so to speak, away, the human, as stated in the second half of the saying, is also estranged from beings in their being. Nevertheless, the beginning of the saying states that the human is ceaselessly turned toward the Λόγος μάλιστα διηνεκῶς (i.e., bearing it most of all).
[323] The human constantly relates himself to beings, and thus also to being, but he also constantly forgets the being of beings, to which he remains referred