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Nathaniel Bryant Dr. Alexander Izrailevsky PHIL 1000 11/30/15 Søren Kierkegaard There are thousands of philosophers that have existed on the earth and there are still numerous more that exist today. With every one philosopher there are countless variations of what that one philosopher believed. How can we possibly know where to begin when it comes to understanding what to trust? How could we begin to recognize truth and what is a lie? I chose to begin with selecting to write about a man named, Søren Kierkegaard, a philosopher who I don’t exactly agree with in many respects, but can relate to with my own beliefs being in such a state of unrest. I don’t pretend to know everything there is about philosophy, nor am I aware of every belief that has ever been entertained by a philosopher. I do, however, have a general idea of what I feel is right and where I stand in my beliefs. The direction I want to head in with my principal values has evolved in so many ways and, even though I know that I have much to learn and change before I will be satisfied with my view on life, I am certain that I can learn from those who have gone before me. I love listening to people expressing the simple and spiritual opinions of what they believe and evaluating their ideas with what I think and feel is right. I have gone through much of my life just listening. I listen to my parents. I listen to my teachers. I listen to my siblings, friends, and coworkers. I listen to people in high positions of authority. I listen to janitors, train workers, chefs, and business owners. I even listen to my little nephew when I propose to him a basic, but fundamental question about life such as, “Why do you think we come to this Earth?” I am still in an often frustrating, yet thrilling fluctuation with what I think is true concerning the
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purpose of life. All the views I have inquired after are frail, weak, and unfounded or have a flimsy vagueness of truth about it. I am often confused as to what I should accept as my own belief, because there are so many voices telling me contradictory things that seem to sound good and logical, but are then swept away with another view I can accept even more than the previous. Is there such a thing as absolute truth? Is there one way? Or is there one direction with multiple ways of heading along that one path? Is there one God? Or are there many gods? What are we to Him if he does exist? And if there is no God, what will be my “god” and motivation? Will it be money? Fame? Love? Or should I just give up all together and lay down in the dirt since I will become that anyways? As of yet, I have no idea how to develop a more permanent way of existing. I feel like I accept very general concepts that are required of me in order to be considered a human being. For example, although I struggle with this one myself, I believe in feeling compassion for others. I believe in being honest and kind to one another. I believe in being a simply good and genuine person. And yet, I feel like that is not enough. I have hope that there is something more. I have hope that there is a reason to be a good person and that we are not meant to simply form, biologically speaking, and then die to become the dust of the earth from whence we came. And so, I search. I seek anywhere and from anyone with an insatiable curiosity that I recognize can often times come off as weird or intrusive in the deepness of my interrogative approach. However, it doesn’t matter to me, because I enjoy sifting through the muck of lies as best I can to seek the plain and simple truth in all things, no matter how many niceties or socially accepted formalities I trample in order to get to it. I want to know why we are alive and doing the things we do and I look for clues in the lives of others. I want to have a reason to live and work and love. I need meaning and purpose in my life. I will never give up
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searching for what I hope will bring me the peace of understanding why I exist that I am certain is out there. Amongst all of this confusion that I have within me, I feel like I can find some clarity in the uncannily familiar perspectives that I am learning from my chosen philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, the so-called ‘Danish Existentialist’ or ‘Father of Existentialism’. I originally chose Kierkegaard, because of certain aspects of his personal life that mirrored some of my own experiences and ways of thinking. One aspect of his life in particular caused me to obsess over his attitude, namely, his attitude towards love. For example, the many theories as to why he ended his engagement to Regina Olsen had me deliberating my own approach to marriage. Also, the way he pursued Regina until she finally reciprocated the feelings and he closed himself to her and lost interest seems to be something I can identify with, because to me the idea of love is often greater than the love I might actually develop with a person. Furthermore, his personal attitude towards himself, a rather gloomy one, matches mine in many ways. The more I have read of what his philosophy actually consists of, I began to realize that I am Kierkegaard reincarnate. I do not truly believe in reincarnation, but in so many unfortunate and worrisome ways, I am he and he is I. I chose Kierkegaard, because I do not wish to repeat the mistakes he made with love. I am a romantic at heart, a very hopeless one who falls in love always on my own. Never have I truly experienced love, as it should be, shared. I am always more attracted to a girl than she is to me. I have grown up a Mormon, and that never seemed to agree with me. I took a break to learn how to be a genuine and good person without the rules and guidelines of organized religion. And because of this break, I was lost. I kept intact the core values of a Mormon, mainly, not having sexual relations before marriage, because of fear of consequences. At the same time, I restrict myself from life and living. And so my life philosophy, and
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ultimately, even my belief in God, is regrettably tied with my desire for love. If I am not meant to have love in this life, I don’t feel as if I can believe in love, because it has never been true for me. In this same way, how can I believe in a God if I have never seen or experienced Him? Because I have not loved, I know not God. Because I know not God, I find myself cynical and depressed about my existence and the purpose of life. I sometimes have glimpses of hope when I meet a girl that might love me. For instance, I recently became infatuated with a girl from my church. We would talk and talk about many things. And then, out of the blue, she explained to me how she did not want to get close to anyone. It is for this same reason that I blame getting a 6 out of 10 on my last exam with you. You wrote, “Very sketchy…I’ve been waiting much more from you.” I take it this means I either act smarter than I am, I am simply not academically minded, or I was in deep infatuation with a girl and could not think of anything else besides her. This was interesting, because one of the things you talked about concerning Thomas Aquinas, the philosopher you asked me to write on for that test, was about logic and love. You said, “Being in love with not the most perfect girl is illogical, but we feel we love her. We do many things that are not logical.” I thought it was ironic how I couldn’t focus on that test, because I had feelings for a girl that didn’t have any particular feature about her that made her stand out. Yet, she stood out to me, or at least enough to reject me and make me unable to concentrate on a test. Nevertheless, love is my philosophy and I do not want to end up like Kierkegaard concerning this, to me, important above all beliefs. I have been rejected by the female species many times. Each time has lessened my resolve that love is true and real. I think, if love is true, I am not meant to experience it, but to watch it occur near and around me, but never in me. As I read more about Kierkegaard, I found that one of the possible theories that he broke off his engagement was that he didn’t see himself as worthy of Regina. I
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had that same experience. I pushed another girl away, because I arrogantly considered us unworthy of each other. Reality soon set in and I understood that it was I alone who was unworthy of her. Delving deeper into the real philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and not just his life experiences, I began to piece together how I could improve upon my childish notions of love and life. Existentialism is a main component of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. It is a term that describes how we are permitted and able to make our own decisions with our will and our will alone. I feel like this is the perfect word and meaning to describe my search. In Søren Aabye Kierkegaard – Journals 1835, the philosopher explains, “…the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.” In many ways, I am not looking for one way in life that meets every single persons expectations and desires that has ever lived, but rather a way that fits my needs and me personally. If there is only one way for everyone, though, I would have to revert back to my Mormon roots, for I truly believe that the plan they present makes the most logical and concrete sense out of every religion that I have ever researched or come in contact with. Kierkegaard believed that there was no specific or detailed plan laid out for us to discover, but that it was a vague life to be lived that we had to make and discover the features of. In his mind, there is no one way for every person as long as the journey was important for that individual in particular. Out of the two types of lives to be lived that Kierkegaard’s philosophy contains, I feel like I would lean more towards the Ethical existence sphere as opposed to the aesthetic, but in reality it is mostly a mixture of both spheres. I seek the things of this world, which will die with me. I have an unfortunate desire to have money. I feel like this desire spawns out of a fear of being poor. I do not want to struggle financially all my life, and yet, I do not have the first idea of
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where to begin building my personal financial empire. The reality is that I am very poor and I haven’t the slightest clue as to what I want to do with my life or what I am even good at and could pursue as a possible career. I want to be in secure and stable profession that will allow me the ability to be financially independent from my parents and secure in such an unstable world. To me right now, having money and being wealthy seems like the most stable aspect of life for me to strive for. I know how foolish that sounds, especially when there are so many wise men and women before me who explain in depth how money cannot bring me happiness, but I disagree. I feel like I would remain a good person with or without money and I do not desire the stress and immense hardship that comes when someone can barely provide for themselves, let alone a family, which is what I truly want in the end. I feel such pressure from the world to figure out what I want to do with my life all ready, but I don’t know what I should do. I am floating in the air, ungrounded in so many ways, however, if I can figure out this one thing, this monetary struggle, and gain some solid stability in that respect, life will be okay and work itself out. I don’t want money so I can be seen as powerful in the eyes of others, al though that would satisfy my vanity, but I want a lot of money so that I can afford to be a force for good in the world, even if that means being able to pay for my son or daughters college so that they may leap frog off of me to change the world. This is where the Ethical sphere comes in to play. I do not ever want to resort to dishonest or illegal means of obtaining money. If I make a living, I want to make it an honest living for myself. Because of this, I am drawn to careers such as law, or business and entrepreneurship, or even becoming an English professor at a University. I have this desire to become someone of worth and to be paid for it. Unfortunately, what I feel my passion is does not lead me to a life of wealth. My more artistic and creative side will most likely leave me destitute and struggling
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between meals for the rest of my life, which I am so very much afraid of. The lack of stability in such a life is my worst fear, and I feel like I am at a crucial point in my life, a crossroads so to speak, in whether or not I go down or up in worldly wealth which will ultimately determine my happiness. My end goal in life is to love and be loved in return. And so, I believe in order to be worthy of love, I must be a good provider. To many this may seem like a skewed view of what is important in life, but to me this is the only way that I can see that makes sense for the practical and real life circumstances that we have been placed in. Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy reflects my own in that I truly feel that everything will be okay if I am financially stable. From there I could have the freedom to be the person I want to be in more influential way. I can’t say that I will be happy on this path, but it is my path that I have chosen and hope to discover. If there is a God and he decides to redirect me, then so be it, but for now, this is what I know of life and hope to obtain in it.
