We also exist across time

 

“Nevertheless, Kierkegaard’s analysis of the human condition can illuminate the problem of the goal-orientated life. The difficulty such a life faces is that it locates the purpose of life in the achievement of the goal, which is necessarily tied to a discrete moment in time. This reflects the aesthetic nature of human life. We are tied to the present and we must expect some of life’s meaning to reflect that. But we also exist across time, and when our life’s goals are fixed so narrowly on moments that are only briefly the present, we fail to do justice to the enduring aspect of human life.”

Present always melts through our fingers and becomes the past

 

“A life which is lived only in the present is inherently unsatisfactory, for the very reason that the moment always eludes us. The present cannot be grasped: it always melts through our fingers and becomes the past.”

‘There’s always next year’

 

“if the meaning of life is tied to goal achievement, then achieving that goal can leave you with ‘emptiness’ – nothing left to provide meaning. The way many people try to get around this is simply to set another goal – ‘there’s always next year’. But this simply avoids confronting the fundamental flaw in seeing life in this way. As the Danish existentialist Søren Kierkegaard said, life ‘must be lived forwards’, in a present that constantly transforms the future into the past. Moments in time cannot be kept hold of, yet achievements are of their essence tied to moments of success, which all too quickly drift into the past.”

I can die happy

 

“When people fulfill a lifetime’s ambition they often jokingly say, ‘I can die happy.’ But this invites the serious reply, ‘Why not?’ After all, if life is about the achievement of a goal, then once that goal is reached, what is there left to do? Once life’s purpose has been fulfilled, it no longer guides our actions, apparently leaving us with nothing to live for.”

Life can only be understood backwards

 

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
SØREN KIERKEGAARD, JOURNALS

The great sea of freedom

Individualist anarchism