At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I am constantly being misunderstood. I get this impression from others when I receive blank stares, grimacing expressions, and awkward silence in response to one of my usually elaborate rants.
Today was quite typical of that. In a class on existentialism taught by Professor Jowett, I made a number of attempts to illustrate the risk of faith that Kierkegaard describes as emerging from a concern for one's individual salvation/existence that is quite contrary to a system of beliefs and practices normally associated with Christianity. Kierkegaard does not run from the paradox of faith but relies on it as a basic principle that informs one's individual orientation. In my understanding, unlike God who can be understood through reason, Kierkegaard offers a view of God that is infinitely inestimable. Rather than limit everything to the proof, which is not the basis of “faith” and limits God to a finite concept, one must try to come to terms with what is unaccounted for whether one perceives it or not. It is this condition that one is fated to an existence that is irreconcilable and it is from this condition that any existential system is impossible. For Kierkegaard limiting an infinite God to a general concept is simply a "comical" abstraction which does not relate to the individual’s relation to God in his/her existence. But for some reason as I attempted to use Kierkegaard's own justification of his faith, the comments made after mine always followed a refutation of Christianity which was not at all what I was emphasizing.
Despite my best efforts to raise the argument of Kierkegaard's unstructured Christianity, the frequent digressions occurring throughout the discussion seemed to reinforce his emphasis on subjectivity as truth. While all seemed to agree with Kierkegaard's criticism against the potential for conformity inherent in a system of beliefs, most spoke as if they were removed from such bias. As they compared the disparities of thinking in the "Western" and "underdeveloped" world, to demanding critical thinking in academia while speaking in highly technical language with non-analogous examples, the class seemed like an orgiastic assembly of biases demanding to be noticed.
But doesn't this all sounds so characteristic of a philosophy class? The intellectualism with an abundance of references with the minutest of relevance to one's practacle life is what should be expected from a room full of pulsating high-flown philosophic minds?
And yet despite my own reservations, I trudged through the fecal matter that surrounded me - its depth an inconvenience more than an impediment - trying to form some sort of relevance to bear witness to my own existence.. a "life" reflecting on philosophic study. It was at that moment that I abandoned all hope of meeting a teacher or finding an audience. They are all so full of shit in some quantity or another that one always runs the danger of being caught off guard by some stench if strolling within too close a proximity.
Perhaps I am just bitter about being misunderstood, but then again aren't we all? The effort to capture and express to others in concrete terms what is experienced subjectively seems to me to be an absurd project from its inception. And yet it is the only means of communication we have outside ourselves. The impossibility of communication is the existential condition of what has been given and that which is closest to us in the everyday facticity of life. It is not so much that we can't assemble the world into systems of understanding that make it accessible to us and others authentically or inauthentically, it is by virtue of our relation to the world that opens up onto this possibility.
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DIAPSALMATA1 by Kierkegaard
What is a poet? An unhappy man who conceals profound anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so fashioned that when sighs and groans pass over them they sound like beautiful music. His fate resembles that of the unhappy men who were slowly roasted by a gentle fire in the tyrant Phalaris' bull—their shrieks could not reach his ear to terrify him, to him they sounded like sweet music. And people flock about the poet and say to him: do sing again; Which means, would that new sufferings tormented your soul, and: would that your lips stayed fashioned as before, for your cries would only terrify us, but your music is delightful. And the critics join them, saying: well done, thus must it be according to the laws of aesthetics. Why, to be sure, a critic resembles a poet as one pea another, the only difference being that he has no anguish in his heart and no music on his lips. Behold, therefore would I rather be a swineherd on Amager,2 and be understood by the swine than a poet, and misunderstood by men.
In addition to my numerous other acquaintances I have still one more intimate friend—my melancholy. In the midst of pleasure, in the midst of work, he beckons to me, calls me aside, even though I remain present bodily. My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had—no wonder that I return the love!
Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy—to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the nose of such a person of affairs; or if he is spattered with mud from a carriage which drives past him in still greater haste; or the drawbridge opens up before him; or a tile falls down and knocks him dead, then I laugh heartily. And who, indeed, could help laughing? What, I wonder, do these busy folks get done? Are they not to be classed with the woman who in her confusion about the house being on fire carried out the firetongs? What things of greater account, do you suppose, will they rescue from life's great conflagration?
Let others complain that the times are wicked. I complain that they are paltry; for they are without passion. The thoughts of men are thin and frail like lace, and they themselves are feeble like girl lace-makers. The thoughts of their hearts are too puny to be sinful. For a worm it might conceivably be regarded a sin to harbor thoughts such as theirs, not for a man who is formed in the image of God. Their lusts are staid and sluggish, their passions sleepy; they do their duty, these sordid minds, but permit themselves, as did the Jews, to trim the coins just the least little bit, thinking that if our Lord keep tab of them ever so carefully one might yet safely venture to fool him a bit. Fye upon them! It is therefore my soul ever returns to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare. There at least one feels that one is dealing with men and women; there one hates and loves, there one murders one's enemy and curses his issue through all generations—there one sins.
Just as, according to the legend3 Parmeniscus in the Trophonian cave lost his ability to laugh, but recovered it again on the island of Delos at the sight of a shapeless block which was exhibited as the image of the goddess Leto: likewise did it happen to me. When I was very young I forgot in the Trophonian cave how to laugh; but when I grew older and opened my eyes and contemplated the real world, I had to laugh, and have not ceased laughing, ever since. I beheld that the meaning of life was to make a living; its goal, to become Chief Justice; that the delights of love consisted in marrying a woman with ample means; that it was the blessedness of friendship to help one another in financial difficulties; that wisdom was what most people supposed it to be; that it showed enthusiasm to make a speech, and courage, to risk being fined 10 dollars; that it was cordiality to say "may it agree, with you" after a repast; that it showed piety to partake of the communion once a year. saw that and laughed.
A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish. "Do you wish for youth," said Mercury, "or for beauty, or power, or a long life; or do you wish for the most beautiful woman, or any other of the many fine things we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but only one thing!" For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed the gods in this wise: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose one thing—that I may always have the laughs on MY side." Not one god made answer, but all began to laugh. From this I concluded that my wish had been granted and thought that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste: for it would surely have been inappropriate to answer gravely: your wish has been granted.
The tragic figure of Kierkegaard.. such a tormented soul and yet one that so clearly recognizes the face of his torturer in himself. Kierkegaard proclaims in that passage his inner constitution to oppose that which only appears to be. He stares unflinchingly at the image before him. The poet resembles the critic "as one pea another" but differs only in the honesty he shows to admit the anguish of his being – he cannot conceive another's. That closeness to melancholy is a subtle affirmation of the condition of being, the willingness to acknowledge that which has been denied as is the case with sin or unhappiness. In the haste towards happyness, through the substitution of "substance" for “form”, one is ultimately denied the fullness of being and the corporeal passion that is one's ownmost. To act with the foreknowledge of having the "laughs on MY side" is perhaps the only ally one has against a passive or contented existence. For it is not only that which intervenes through the alleviation pain or suffering that is capable of restoring being but that which through will and compassion has the strength to let Being be.
Jordaan
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