The claims of the general and the particular are not decided or reconciled by vigilance. Through vigilance, though we gain a clearer view of what is missing or absent from the general and the particular. Yet even here there is a tendency to make vigilance into a kind of Easter egg hunt - if absence is not here, then perhaps it is present somewhere else. Absence is not an object, you do not find it by looking harder under the bush or behind the porch. Absence is not remedied by presence, as if absence were a flaw or imperfection of presence.
Vigilance is the proper presencing of a phenomenon within a context of absence.
Vigilance attunes us t o possibilities of presencing not immediately envisioned or encoded by general principles and values. To seek new descriptions of things, to find new and more fruitful ways of talking, to benefit from a tradition, to sharpen criticism, all may require going beyond the concrete particularly of the phenomenon. Yet, even when most quiet and gentle, vigilance is a struggle of the person with him or herself. It is the struggle to use one part of experience against another in order to secure attain level of continuing tension, a preparedness for exception.