Either Or, Part I

Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature. He regarded Either/Or as the beginning of his authorship, although he had published two earlier works on Hans Christian Andersen and irony. The pseudonymous volumes of Either/Or are the writings of a young man (I) and of Judge William (II). The ironical young man's papers include a collection of sardonic aphorisms; essays on Mozart, modern drama, and boredom; and "The Seducer's Diary." The seeming miscellany is a reflective presentation of aspects of the "either," the esthetic view of life. Part II is an older friend's "or," the ethical life of integrated, authentic personhood, elaborated in discussions of personal becoming and of marriage. The resolution of the "either/or" is left to the reader, for there is no Part III until the appearance of Stages on Life's Way . The poetic-reflective creations of a master stylist and imaginative impersonator, the two men write in distinctive ways appropriate to their respective positions. Excerpt CHAPTER 1

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ad se ipsum [to himself]

Grandeur, savoir, renommée, Amitié, plaisir et bien, Tout n'est que vent, que fumée: Pour mieux dire, tout n'est rien [Greatness, knowledge, renown, Friendship, pleasure and possessions, All is only wind, only smoke: To say it better, all is nothing].

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. It is with him as with the poor wretches in Phalaris's bronze bull, who were slowly tortured over a slow fire; their screams could not reach the tyrant's ears to terrify him; to him they sounded like sweet music. And people crowd around the poet and say to him, "Sing again soon"—in other words, may new sufferings torture your soul, and may your lips continue to be formed as before, because your screams would only alarm us, but the music is charming. And the reviewers step up and say, "That is right; so it must be according to the rules of esthetics." Now of course a reviewer resembles a poet to a hair, except that he does not have the anguish in his heart, or the music on his lips. Therefore, I would rather be a swineherd out on Amager and be understood by swine than be a poet and be misunderstood by people.

It is common knowledge that the first question in the first and most compendious instruction given to a child is this: What does baby want? The answer is: Da-da. And with such observations life begins, and yet we deny hereditary sin. 9 And yet whom does the child have to thank for his first thrashings, whom else but his parents.

I prefer to talk with children, for one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings; but those who have become that—good Lord!

How unreasonable people are! They never use the freedoms they have but demand those they do not have; they have freedom of thought—they demand freedom of speech.

I don't feel like doing anything. I don't feel like riding—the motion is too powerful; I don't feel like walking—it is too tiring; I don't feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don't feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don't feel like doing that, either. Summa Summarum: I don't feel like doing anything.

There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.

Tested Advice for Authors

One carelessly writes down one's personal observations, has them printed, and in the various proofs one will eventually acquire a number of good ideas. Therefore, take courage, you who have not yet dared to have something printed. Do not despise typographical errors, and to become witty by means of typographical errors may be considered a legitimate way to become witty.

Generally speaking, the imperfection in everything human is that its aspirations are achieved only by way of their opposites. I shall not discuss the variety of formations, which can give a psychologist plenty to do (the melancholy have the best sense of the comic, the most opulent often the best sense of the rustic, the dissolute often the best sense of the moral, the doubter often the best sense of the religious), but merely call to mind that it is through sin that one gains a first glimpse of salvation.

In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant—my depression. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he beckons to me, calls me aside, even though physically I remain on the spot. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.

There is a rambling ofloquacity that in its interminability has the same relation to the result as the incalculable lists of Egyptian kings have to the historical outcome.

Old age fulfills the dreams of youth. One sees this in Swift: in his youth he built an insane asylum; in his old age he himself entered it.

It is cause for alarm to note with what hypochondriac profundity Englishmen of an earlier generation have spotted the ambiguity basic to laughter. Thus Dr. Hartley has observed: dass wenn sich das Lachen zuerst bei Kindem zeiget, so ist es ein entstehendes Weinen, welches durch Schmerz erregt wird, oder ein plötzlich gehemtes und in sehr kurzen Zwischenraiimen wiederholtes Gefühl des Schmerzens [that when laughter first makes its appearance in the child, it is a nascent cry that is excited by pain or a suddenly arrested feeling of pain repeated at very short intervals] (see Flögel, Geschichte der comischen Litteratur, I, p. 50). What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding; what if laughter really were weeping!

There are particular occasions when one may be most painfully moved to see a person standing utterly alone in the world. The other day I saw a poor girl walking utterly alone to church to be confirmed.

Cornelius Nepos tells of a general who was kept confined with a considerable cavalry regiment in a fortress; to keep the horses from being harmed because of too much inactivity, he had them whipped daily—in like manner, 1 live in this age as one besieged, but lest 1 be harmed by sitting still so much, I cry myself tired.

I say of my sorrow what the Englishman says of his house: My sorrow is my castle. Many people look upon having sorrow as one of life's conveniences.

I feel as a chessman must feel when the opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.

Aladdin is so very refreshing because this piece has the audacity of the child, of the genius, in the wildest wishes. Indeed, how many are there in our day who truly dare to wish, dare to desire, dare to address nature neither with a polite child's bitte, bitte [please, please] nor with the raging frenzy of one damned? How many are there who—inspired by what is talked about so much in our age, that man is created in God's image—have the authentic voice of command? Or do we not all stand like Noureddin, bowing and scraping, worrying about asking too much or too little? Or is not every magnificent demanding eventually diminished to morbid reflecting over the I, from insisting to informing, which we are indeed brought up and trained to do.

I am as timorous as a sheva, as weak and muted as a daghesch lene; I feel like a letter printed backward in the line, and yet as uncontrollable as a pasha with three horse tails, as solicitous for myself and my thoughts as a bank for its banknotes, indeed, as reflected into myself as any pronomen reflexivum [reflexive pronoun]. Yes, if it were true of miseries and sorrows as it is true of conscious good deeds—that those who do them lose their reward—then I would be the happiest person, for I take all my cares in advance, and yet they all remain behind.

The tremendous poetical power of folk literature is manifest, among other ways, in its power to desire. In comparison, desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor. Desire in folk literature is fully aware that the neighbor does not possess what it seeks any more than it does itself. And if it is going to desire sinfully, then it is so flagrant that people must be shocked. It is not going to let itself be beaten down by the cold probability calculations of a pedestrian understanding. Don Juan still strides across the stage with his 1,003 ladyloves. Out of reverence for the venerableness of tradition, no one dares to smile. If a poet had dared to do this in our age, he would be laughed to scorn.

What a strange, sad mood came over me on seeing a poor wretch shuffling through the streets in a somewhat worn pale green coat flecked with yellow. I felt sorry for him, but nevertheless what affected me most was that the color of this coat so vividly reminded me of my childhood's first productions in the noble art of painting. This particular color was one of my favorite colors. Is it not sad that these color combinations, which I still think of with so much joy, are nowhere to be found in life; the whole world finds them crude, garish, suitable only for Nürnberg prints. If they are encountered occasionally, the meeting is always unfortunate, as this one is. It is always a feeble-minded person or a derelict—in short, always someone who feels alienated in life and whom the world will not acknowledge. And I, who always painted my heroes with this eternally unforgettable yellow-green tinge to their coats! Does this not happen with all the color combinations of childhood? The gleam that life had at that time gradually becomes too intense, too crude, for our dull eyes.

Alas, fortune's door does not open inward so that one can push it open by rushing at it; but it opens outward, and therefore one can do nothing about it.

I have, I believe, the courage to doubt everything; I have, I believe, the courage to fight against everything; but I do not have the courage to acknowledge anything, the courage to possess, to own, anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic that things do not go in life as in the novel, where opportunity is always so favorable. I complain that in life it is not as in the novel, where one has hardhearted fathers and nisses and trolls to battle, and enchanted princesses to free. What are all such adversaries together compared with the pale, bloodless, tenacious-of-life nocturnal forms with which I battle and to which I myself give life and existence.

How sterile my soul and my mind are, and yet constantly tormented by empty voluptuous and excruciating labor pains! Will the tongue ligament of my spirit never be loosened; will I always jabber? What I need is a voice as piercing as the glance of Lynceus, as terrifying as the groan of the giants, as sustained as a sound of nature, as mocking as an icy gust of wind, as malicious as echo's heartless taunting, extending in range from the deepest bass to the most melting high notes, and modulated from a solemn-silent whisper to the energy of rage. That is what I need in order to breathe, to give voice to what is on my mind, to have the viscera of both anger and sympathy shaken. —But my voice is only hoarse like the scream of a gull or moribund like the blessing on the lips of the mute.

What is going to happen? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider flings itself from a fixed point down into its consequences, it continually sees before it an empty space in which it can find no foothold, however much it stretches. So it is with me; before me is continually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured.

The most beautiful time is the first period of falling in love, when, from every encounter, every glance, one fetches home something new to rejoice over.

My observation of life makes no sense at all. I suppose that an evil spirit has put a pair of glasses on my nose, one lens of which magnifies on an immense scale and the other reduces on the same scale.

The doubter is [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] [one who is whipped]; like a spinning top, he remains on the point for a shorter or longer period depending on the strokes of the whip; he is not able to remain on the point any more than the top is.

The most ludicrous of all ludicrous things, it seems to me, is to be busy in the world, to be a man who is brisk at his meals and brisk at his work. Therefore, when I see a fly settle on the nose of one of those men of business in a decisive moment, or if he is splashed by a carriage that passes him in even greater haste, or Knippelsbro tilts up, or a roof tile falls and kills him, I laugh from the bottom of my heart. And who could keep from laughing? What, after all, do these busy bustlers achieve? Are they not just like that woman who, in a flurry because the house was on fire, rescued the fire tongs? What more, after all, do they salvage from life's huge conflagration?

On the whole, I lack the patience to live. I cannot see the grass grow, and if I cannot do that, I do not care to look at it at all. My views are the superficial observations of a "fahrender Scholastiker [traveling scholastic]" who dashes through life in the greatest haste. It is said that our Lord satisfies the stomach before the eyes. That is not what I find: my eyes are surfeited and bored with everything, and yet I hunger.

Ask me what you wish; just do not ask me for reasons. A young girl is excused for not being able to state reasons; she lives in feelings, it is said. It is different with me. Ordinarily I have so many and most often such mutually contradictory reasons that for this reason it is impossible for me to state reasons. It also seems to me that with cause and effect the relation does not hold together properly. Sometimes enormous and gewaltige [powerful] causes produce a very klein [small] and insignificant little effect, sometimes none at all; sometimes a nimble little cause produces a colossal effect.

And now the innocent pleasures of life. It must be granted to them that they have only one flaw—that they are so innocent. Moreover, they are to be enjoyed in moderation. When my physician prescribes a diet for me, there is some reason in that; I abstain from certain specified foods for a certain specified time. But to be dietetic in keeping the diet—that is really asking too much.

Life for me has become a bitter drink, and yet it must be taken in drops, slowly, counting.

No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.

Time passes, life is a stream, etc., so people say. That is not what I find: time stands still, and so do I. All the plans I project fly straight back at me; when I want to spit, I spit in my own face.

When I get up in the morning, I go right back to bed again. I feel best in the evening the moment I put out the light and pull the feather-bed over my head. I sit up once more, look around the room with indescribable satisfaction, and then good night, down under the feather-bed.

What am I good for? For nothing or for anything whatever. It is a rare ability; I wonder if it will be appreciated in life? God knows whether places are found by girls looking for a job as a general servant or, for want of that, as anything whatever.

One ought to be a riddle not only to others but also to oneself. I examine myself; when I am tired of that, I smoke a cigar for diversion and think: God knows what our Lord actually intended with me or what he wants to make of me.

No woman in maternity confinement can have stranger and more impatient wishes than I have. Sometimes these wishes involve the most insignificant things, sometimes the most sublime, but they all have to an equally high degree the momentary passion of the soul. At this moment I wish for a bowl of buckwheat cereal. I recall from my school days that we always had buckwheat cereal on Wednesdays. I recall how smooth and white the cereal was served, how the butter smiled at me, how warm the cereal looked, how hungry I was, how impatient to get permission to begin. Such a bowl of buckwheat cereal! I would give more than my birthright for it.

Virgilius[sic] the sorcerer had himself hacked to pieces and put in a caldron to be cooked for eight days in order by this process to be rejuvenated. He arranged for someone to watch so that no interloper would peer into the caldron. But the watchman could not resist the temptation; it was too soon, and Virgilius, as an infant, disappeared with a scream. I dare say that I also peered too soon into the caldron, into the caldron of life and the historical process, and most likely will never manage to become more than a child.

"Never lose courage! When troubles pile up most appallingly about you, you will see a helping hand in the clouds"—so said His Reverence Jesper Morten at vespers recently. Well, I am accustomed to walking a great deal under the open sky, but I have never noticed such a thing. A few days ago while on a walking tour, I became aware of such a phenomenon. It was really not a hand, but more like an arm, that reached out of the cloud. I fell into contemplation, and the thought came to me: If only Jesper Morten were here so he could decide whether this was the phenomenon he referred to. As I stood there lost in these thoughts, a passerby addressed me and said as he pointed up to the clouds, "Do you see that funnel-shaped cloud? One seldom sees such a thing in these parts. Sometimes it carries whole houses along with it." Good heavens, I thought, is that a funnel-shaped cloud—and took to my heels as fast as I could. What would His Reverence Jesper Morten have done, I wonder, in my place?
(Continues...) Excerpted from EITHER/OR PART I by Søren Kierkegaard. Copyright © 1987 by Howard V Hong. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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