The Sickness Unto Death :: The forms with regard to consciousness (Part 6)

Consciousness enjoys a dialectical relationship with despair; for as consciousness of despair increases so does the intensity of despair. Consequently despair at its maximum is absolute defiance and at its minimum is a kind of innocence.

1. Despair that is ignorant of having an eternal self

Such ignorence is the kind of self deception the individual is resistant to leave behind. It is the hallmark of one taken by worldy pleasures; the individual does not have the courage to risk being spirit. For such an individual being in error is the least concern. The individual may build a palace with his words but he is content to live in the garden shed out back. To inhabit his ideas is a task he cannot fathom. To point out this contradiction in him is to invite reproach. For in ignorence the individual is safe from his own undoing: awareness. It is only when one passes into the religious that the individual becomes conscious of this contradiction. For such an individual takes himself to be an unaccountable something, and beneath it all lies despair, readily exposed when life begins to shake him.

2. Despair that is conscious of having an eternal self but in despair wants, or does not want, to be itself

Whilst on some level I may be conscious that I am in despair, this does not mean that I am in despair. Do I have clarity of what the self is, and what it is to be in despair? Because whilst consciousness determines intensity there can be great variation in how conscious I am that I am in despair. Like any sickness I may detect symptoms but do I understand it? I may only have a dim grasp on what despair is; intentionally because I do not wish to face this actuality, or in ignorence because I do not understand it.

(A) In despair not wanting to be oneself; The despair in weakness.

I. Despair over the earthly

In such despair there is no conciousness of the self as eternal. It is living into the fragile realities of good and bad fortune. To fail to recognise the cause of this despair and to attribute it to something temporal rather than the loss of the eternal. If help comes it is business as usual and if no help comes, he learns to deceive himself and imitate others. A despairer of this kind doesn't recognise himself. He is instead deluded that change in circumstance is all that is required. He believes that such change comes naturally over time like teeth, a beard and that sort of thing. Such a transformation never leads to the kind of struggle that intensifies despair or else leads to faith.

II. Despair of the eternal or over oneself; the despair over ones weakness

All despair is over the eternal. For even if it seems to be over something earthly; that the individual values the earthly so greatly is precisely to despair of the eternal. The individual takes it a step further, in that he is conscious of this weaknesses, but instead of turning to faith in God he indulges in this despair. He despairs of himself as a father disinherits a son, the self will not acknowledge itself after it has been so weak. Yet this did not rid him of the son, least of all in his thoughts.

(B) The despair of wanting in despair to be oneself – defiance

To want to be oneself there has to be a greater consciousness of despair and the self than before. However, this infinite self is really only the most abstract form of the self, the most abstract possibility of the self. It is not the self. The image it perceives is detached from the power that established it, like viewing oneself through a fairground mirror. The active form wishes to reforge the image of its self as it sees fit, and in accordance with a more palitable image. That the self might becomes its own master. Yet this absolute ruler is a king without a country, he rules over nothing; not his position, his kingdom, or his self. And the passive form? He would rather be himself with all the torments of hell than ask for help. To avoid becoming a pliant nothing in the hands of his saviour. It is especially important to ensure that he has his agony on hand, so that no one can take it from him – for then he would not be able to convince others and himself that he is right. To be himself in his agony, so as to protest with this agony against all existence against the second rate authorship of God.

The Sickness Unto Death :: The forms without regard to consciousness (Part 5)

The person who gets lost in possibility soars with the boldness of despair; but the person for whom all has become necessary strains his back on life, bent down with the weight of despair

Within the introduction we identified that for most humans life is lived towards death. We orientate our lives as though death is the end. For the Christian however the picture is reframed; death is not the end of the self and there is something eternal in man. This realisation that the picture of what we are is incomplete is what it means to become eternally conscious. To realise that who I am is not defined by my temporality alone. The self I have inhabited thus far, is an incomplete picture of what I really am.

The more conscious I am that there is something eternal in man, that death is not the end, the more inclined [Will] I am to live differently. Consciousness plays an important role within Kierkegaards concept of the self. However this self that I am in this conscious moment is not present until it is brought into existence by becoming it. Put differently, who I am is not an abstraction, it is something concrete that I embody in the world. To not embody this self that I am before God; to live inauthentically as though temporality is all there is, is to despair.

Kierkegaard proposes that We can deduce the forms of despair by reflecting upon how the self is constituted. He begins with the forms of despair that relate to the self synthesis:

1. Despair under the aspect of finitude/infinitude

(i) Infinitude’s despair is to lack finitude

Fantasy is the faculty by which man represents himself to himself; What he imagines himself to be. My feelings, thoughts and will are an abstraction. A literary description of those real world experiences. In this way imagination is a reflection of what I could be; the possible self that I consider myself to be. As such the risk here is that infinitude leads me away from what I am into the endless possible me's I could become. My feelings become detached and volatile, my thoughts do not lead to self knowledge, and my will subtlely leads me away from myself.

(ii) Finitude’s despair is to lack infinitude

Finitudes despair is narrowness; to percieve onself as the same as all others. To become a clone, a copy, a number indistinguishable from the herd. It is the exchange of selfhood for performance and success. There is no challenge or difficulty with the self because he allows what he is to be worn away in exchange for an easy life. To sacrifice the self to avoid payment in the disagreeable consequences of decisive action.

2. Despair viewed under the aspect of possibility/necessity

(i) Possibility’s despair is to lack necessity

For a self to become itself is must have the freedom of possibility. For the despair of possibility is that I never become what I imagine myself to be. It is the movement that when united with necessity is what I am. For actuality is the unity of possibility and necessity. Possibility is the offer of a treat to a child; the child agrees but will the parents [necessity] consent also?

(ii) Necessity’s despair is to lack possibility

To lack possibility means that in the current moment, humanly speaking nothing is possible. But the christian knows that with God all things are possible, and the escape here is faith. The means of my redemption is not my concern. There is always possibility because with God all things are possible. It impossible to breath necessity alone, it is suffocating.

The Sickness Unto Death :: The Generality of Despair (Part 4)

It is a commonly held assumption that man knows himself best. We ask him and he reports to us when he is in good health or bad health. But as any physician worth his salt knows there can be imagined illness, and there can be imagined health. So it is with the commonly held view of despair. We believe that if we wish to know if someone is in despair or not we need only ask and he will report, we hope, truthfully.

But despair is unlike physical health. It is a sickness not of the body, but of the whole of mans being. As such it may well be the case that I am not conscious of being in despair at all. That I experience no symptoms; that life may afford me great fortune and may very well conceal the dread that is despair. Kierkegaard goes so far as to say to have never to have had despair is precisely to be in despair. For this is the awakening to the reality of being in despair. It is fortuitous to acquire this illness, but the mortality rate is staggering.

As such the common place view of despair is incorrect. Despair is not rare but general. The one who says he is in despair is a dialectical step ahead. For it is contentment with life which precisely is despair. For this self that I am, this synthesis of body [temporal] and soul [eternal], being a self is a issue. To be content with the self that I am is precisely to be unconscious of the issue. Kierkegaard argues that the only life wasted is the one so decieved by lifes pleasures as to never become eternally conscious of himself as spirit. This is the real tragedy in despair; that it can be so concealed in a person that he himself is not aware of it.

The Sickness Unto Death :: Despair is the Sickness (Part 3)

If there was nothing transcendent [eternal] within man despair would not be possible. Man would simple be what he is, like all other animals. But this isn't the case. The reality is for man, broadly speaking, that he is dissatisfied with himself. His being is an issue for him. In despair man seeks to be rid of the self that he is. He is not content to be his self. This could either be because (a) he does not want to be the self he is, or (b) because he is not the self he aspires to be. In both instances he seeks to tear himself away from that which established him. He seeks to find his own way forward. Consequently what he is is not to his liking or what he would like to become is just beyond his grasp.

The tragic reality is that man in despair cannot be rid of his self. The transcendent nails a man to himself. Put plainly because despair is possible there is something transcendent within man, and consequently his being is an issue. Whether he likes it or not he cannot be rid of the self and is in despair. He discovers what it is to be in despair; to will the end of the self whilst powerless to make this a reality. For, unlike the Christian, whilst he wishes for the end of the self he does so without the hope of life beyond. He wishes to be rid of himself, for his self to end. But the Christian knows that death is not the end. It is instead the beginning of life in all its richness and glory.