Being and Time describes his project in the following way: "our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of "being" and to do so concretely." Heidegger claims that traditional ontology has prejudicially overlooked this question, dismissing it on the basis that being is the most universal and emptiest concept, that is indefinable or obvious. Instead Heidegger proposes to understand being itself, as distinguished from any specific entities (beings). "'Being' is not something like a being." Being, Heidegger claims, is "what determines beings as beings, that in terms of which beings are already understood." Heidegger is seeking
For the Time Being in the contemporary world. Auden wrote the poem to be set to music by Benjamin Britten, but it was far too long for this purpose, and Britten set only two fragments, including one ("Shepherd's Carol") that Auden dropped before the work was published. The poem is dedicated to the memory of Auden's mother, Constance Rosalie Bicknell Auden. For the Time Being "For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio", is a long poem by W. H. Auden, written 1941-42, and first published in 1944. It was one of two long poems included in Auden's book also titled For the Time Being,