heavy, heavy memories

the basic flaw of the age is this teaching which leaves a person's inwardness completely secure. just as novelists and their kind weep buckets over one or another remarkable character (just as the shadows in the underworld sucked the blood of the living to continue living, so novelists et al. are unreal, shadows), in the same way the assistant professors want to swallow an existential thinker in order to obtain blood and life-warmth in paragraphs for a while. this shadow-existence is the secret of the system, knowing about, not being.

this is how i have understood myself. and, as always, i regard as my duty to do what i can understand, convinced of God's support. consequently, i do not provide myself with a couple of lecturers to whom i then teach this difficulty -no, i remain silent and act.

it is strenuous, and it certainly becomes more and more strenuous, but it is endurable when i scrupulously hold to the divine regulation not to be concerned about tomorrow but to thank God every day that he today gives me sufficient power. all exhaustion comes particularly from squandering away time, from thinking about many years, etc. instead of saying: can you not hold out for today? and when the answer is Yes, then one holds out and believes for tomorrow.

moreover, there is still a circumstance which makes all direct communication or talk about my activity as an author uncomfortable. i am aware of how much has been granted to me. but lest i become proud or arrogant about this, i carry about in a concerned consciousness an enormous responsibility, heavy, heavy memories, many, many trials. of all these things i cannot speak. if i were to speak with someone simply about my activity as an author, i would speak only about big things. i cannot speak directly to another person of how before God i feel less than a sparrow, or just as insignificant. in conversation among men we use human standards, and by human standards i have a great superiority. but to speak in this way is extremely painful to me and afterward it grieves my spirit; it is to me as if i deceived God.

therefore i am silent and keep going. if God permits the appearance of a contemporary who independently and with responsibility toward God declares himself at one with me, i thank God for it. but i am not permitted to make my position easier by placing someone in a direct, that is, an untrue relationship to me. i have no responsibility, as if i would keep the truth to myself. my books lie before the eyes of the world; they are publici juris; but i have no right to help anyone with personal prattle to cheaper terms than i myself have been helped-- this would be to deceive him. if anyone wishes to call this self-love, i shall call what he call love effeminacy.

-soren kierkegaard journal and papers