S ren Kierkegaard 's thought that G-d does not exist, but is real. Existence, or Existenz, represents knowing one is and is changing. Finally, moods, or Stimmungen, are reactions to other beings, further allowing one to define the self. Dasein requires choices and resulting actions to define the self. These choices allow for an almost unlimited combination of the components of being.
Choices occur in relation to a timeline, universal and personal.
These points in time became the topic of Heidegger's Being and Time . Existence and Essence As with Kierkegaard and Sartre, Heidegger believed the existence of a physical body preceded the essence of self. At some point in the development process, a being becomes aware that it exists. Because man in the only known being in which essence and existence do not appear simultaneously, man is a unique creature on this planet. All things man creates have essence, or definition, before they exist.