Work under Eigenzeit: On the Structure of Eigenzeit-Based Binding and Its Incompatibility with Functional Work Regimes

The present contribution develops the concept of eigenzeit-based binding as a fundamental condition of work capacity. Its point of departure is the author’s observation of his own work capacity as a neurodivergent person, through which it becomes visible that certain forms of world-relation can only operate under conditions of self-organized, coherent temporal structures. In such cases, perception, action, and world-relation are not separate from one another, but arise synchronously in eigenzeit-bound processes of world-building.On the basis of the analytically framed individual case of the author, it is shown that under conditions of external control, fragmented work organization, and externally imposed causality, systematic breakdowns of function occur. These do not manifest merely as overload or adaptation problems, but as a loss of the capacity to act itself. In particular, it is argued that institutional constructions of the German welfare state, such as the Bedarfsgemeinschaft, establish an external nexus of effect and causality that delegitimizes and blocks eigenzeit-bound forms of work.This reveals a fundamental rupture in the architecture of work, resulting from the incompatibility of different forms of world-relation within modern work regimes, even if this dynamic in its pronounced form does not apply to all neurodivergent constellations.The contribution thus shifts the dominant perspective from individual deficits to a structural analysis of work regimes. It shows that work capacity cannot be generally presupposed, but is bound to specific conditions of coherence. From this follows the necessity to conceive of work not as functional execution, but as an eigenzeit-bound form of world-building.The contribution thereby formulates an approach within the theory of work that makes visible the structural limits of externally determined forms of work as well as their systematic negative effects.