Soren Kierkegaard

“Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth – look at the dying man’s struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment.” 1

Soren Kierkegaard wrote this in his journal. SK is known as The Father of Existentialism. Deep, right? Well, yeah, but... He wasn’t questioning whether anything actually exists. Not like your pot-head college freshman roommate. Kierkegaard was writing to try to get us to think deeply about our existence and the make the most of life. You have to know the truest truth about the reality you inhabit in order to live it to the best. That just seems self-evident to me. Dig deep. Wrestle with the hard questions.

In this quote Soren Kierkegaard is challenging our default view of the purpose of our lives. The default view is that our highest goal should be to make ourselves happy. But why do we conclude that? His sentence points out that if our life begins with pain and tears, and it ends with pain and tears, what leads us to believe happiness is the highest pursuit? I got no answer to that. We’re just wrong. Whatever life is supposed to be about (I certainly have thoughts on that, but let’s start out light – this is only the second blog post) it isn’t about bliss.

By the way, I started reading Soren Kierkegaard with his Works of Love.

Here is my favorite quote:


“With respect to love we speak continually about perfection and the perfect person. With respect to love Christianity also speaks continually about perfection and the perfect person. Alas, but we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees.” 2

So, we ought to not wait for those around us to become lovable in order to love them, but to endeavor to be good neighbors first.



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1. Kierkegaard, Soren. Papers and Journals. United Kingdom, Penguin Books Limited, 2015.

2. Hong, Howard V., et al. Kierkegaard's Writings, XVI, Volume 16: Works of Love. United Kingdom, Princeton University Press, 2013.