According to the conception of Ereignis in Heidegger's middle period, human being or Da-sein is not simply "carried along" by the "flow" of Being, but must take part in the punctuated eventfulness of the conflictual strife of Being itself. Being is not simply "phainesthai, the temporal shining-forth of beings," if that were mistaken to mean that Being is merely a flow of surface appearances; for the strife of Being essentially involves the "negativity" of concealment and withdrawal -- which also indicates its depth dimension. To be sure, in Contributions Heidegger is in the process of turning away from the language of forcefully bringing to a stand the violent onslaught of Being (a language one finds most pronounced in the 1935 Introduction to Metaphysics), and turning toward his later conception of the proper comportment of human being as that of Gelassenheit to the Seinlassen of Being itself. But it is crucial to bear in mind that, to the end, Heidegger stresses that human beings must participate or engage in (Sicheinlassen) the appropriating event of Being, and not simply "go with the flow" in the sense of a sheer passivity.

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