The Miserable One Is Always Absent From Himself
S. Kierkegaard
The problem of misery is among the fundamental questions of existence
in Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy. The philosopher’s search as
a whole and especially the particular problem are deeply biographically
conditioned. But the essential tendency of his philosophy rejects
the attempts of external examination as senseless, and therefore
the objectivistic methods are of no effect for analyzing a philosophy
of paradoxicality. On that account I would ignore the facts of
his life, marked with a feeling of misery. The spirit of his
thought is the subjective experience of truth, freed from the
limitations of rational systematization. I do choose this way
– no matter where it leads.
Misery is the unchangeable companion of human existence. It starts
with the guilt that is initially invested in the soul. The strife
for overcoming misery is directed outwards as an escape (conscious
or unconscious) from one’s ‘I’ as an attempt of self-realization
out of one’s Self – into the world. To be absent from one’s Self
– this means exactly to look for happiness in the external reality.
The attitude to search for happiness in and through the things
of reality in their physical immediacy as an object of aesthetical
adoration, as means of sensual pleasure, and even for intellectual
satisfaction – this is vanity. The effort to get out of the Self,
to get free from the ‘I’, which is doomed to misery, leads to
sinking into the abyss of reality, even when the things of the
world have ceased to be a goal that one wishes to achieve or
an object of examination. Man is helpless in this effort to get
out of his Self and the march outwards opens the soul’s gates
for the multiplicity of the world, which pervades the soul.
And because of its terrifying absurdity, the things of the world
turn to all-consuming emptiness: one comes from the infinite
misery of the ‘I’ alone in his Self to the much more infinite
misery (paradoxically !) of the ‘I’ in the world. The last stage
in this attempt of drifting away from one’s Self is a longing
after some other reality, for a mystical mergence within the
‘supernatural’. But wherever I go, misery is with me. I am not
able to escape and to be happy – misery, as well as happiness,
is all in my Self. Miserable is one who has not reached his own
Self. Reaching the Self in my own Self, realization of what is
not realizable through the same – here is the absurd, which is
worthy to be lived. This is the happiness for the man, who is
not able to be happy; this is the existential truth.
If misery is man’s pristine encumbrance with a feeling of guilt,
I should ask: what are the roots of this guilt ? The feeling
of sinfulness – which belongs to me and to everything I touch,
may be fear of one’s own Self. And I shall not try to view my
sinfulness as a part of some collective feeling of guilt of all
humankind. And even if such universal sinfulness exists (something
that seems to be very probable), this, - to look at others as
individuals or as a whole, in order to find the guilt there –
gives me no answer.
It is a great terror to see in the other, in mankind in general,
this abyss of the ‘I’, which cannot be filled in with anything.
The ‘I’, which errs and doubts, which blindly takes pains to
incarnate his spiritual essence in materiality, because of being
miserable in his doom to his Self. The solitude of man alone
in himself, alone among others, among in the Universe, is inseparable
from the feeling of guilt. The solitude and guilt are being transformed
into the inevitable misery, and this represents a kind of alienation
that apparently cannot be fully examined. This is alienation
from one’s own Self and from the world, it is omnipotent both
‘inside’ and ‘outside’. And yet, my feeling (because I am the
Man) of alienation on account of my sinfulness is guilt towards
someone or something unachievable by mind, unknownable. If I
have studied, known, experienced all that is practically accessible
or at least intelligible, then the only answers to the meaning
that I am invested with, are still ‘nothing’, ‘nowhere’, ‘never’,
‘no way’, ‘no one’. But they cannot satisfy the spirit which
constantly ask questions, nor to fill up the emptiness of meaning,
such as it has to be. And I want to live in this meaning – I,
being happiness and truth, want to be in my existence what I
feel within my Self.
The result of all this, of the unconquerable absence – of meaning,
and of me myself, is despair. This result, however, is the necessary
turning point in the evolution of my misery. The ultimate despair
is the ultimate step in my way. It represents both ‘fatal predestination’
and existential choice, - predetermination, since the misery
is, inseparably and ‘from eternity’, connected with my soul;
choice, since in my despair the spirit is stretching near to
breaking soul’s links to the material world, in which it has
not reached self-realization.
After all attempts of self-discovery, which is an equivalent
to happiness, have failed, my despair leads me away, to faith.
Faith is above reason, which critically examines, which unceasingly
doubts everything, doubts itself and doubts the very act of doubting.
Faith is non-reason and only through it I can be present in myself,
because it is an unconditional acceptance, an extreme concentration
of the ‘I’. For in faith I do not try to look into myself from
‘outside’, but just see the invisible meaning, having no need
to observe things in order to search for it there. Faith, as
a full and unconditional acceptance of Him (not ‘something’,
because my meaning is personal and personalistic), who is beyond
reach, and yet, unconceivably close, is the only ‘presence in
myself’. Now I do not search for happiness ‘outside’ (or anywhere),
and yet I am paradoxically assured that I am in it, despite I
am miserable in my nature.
Happiness is resignation to one’s Self, but my spirit is irreconcilable,
and in its rage it always heads out of the Self. Even if I am
present in myself by faith, I am beyond my Self, again. In the
absurdity of his existence man, in all his efforts ‘to be’, is
absent from himself, and goes far away, wherever he searches
for his Self.
Therefore, happiness is impossible and ‘the miserable one’ is
not just a category. The miserable one is me, the human. In order
to be in myself, that is, to be happy, I have to accept the absurd
of my existence and to live in this absurd as if it was both
happiness and truth. But I have to accept it, namely, my existence
that is in actuality, without separating it from itself in meaningless
examinations, that would separate me from my Self.
The absence means not being in my Self. And existence has to
be the very opposite of it. Since I am not present in my Self,
then I am not. And yet, I am, and this is the absurd misery and
happiness of existence. Existence is its own problem and solution.
Konstantin Petrov
2003
