Denmark: Finding Kierkegaard in Copenhagen

When I was in my twenties I thought I might be, or become, an American Kierkegaard. (Check out the archival photo of me and my buddies on Gettysburg College's commencement day 1971.) I read all of the Danish philosopher’s works that had been translated into English and, on the way to earning a Ph.D. in Religion and Culture, I once wrote an illustrated, thesis-length essay about Kierkegaard’s own Master’s thesis, in a Kierkegaardian style.

I admired the way Soren Kierkegaard (SK) combined religious thought and creative writing, and how he used pseudonyms to explore certain types of lifestyles and to distinguish particular intellectual points of view. Always, his audience was “that solitary individual.” Everything SK wrote was designed to turn people inward, to challenge them to think for themselves, and to help them become nothing less than the individuals they determined to be.

So I was delighted, when Jan and I got to Copenhagen, to learn that its municipal museum has put up an exhibition devoted to Kierkegaard: “Works of Life, Works of Love,” after the title of one of Kierkegaard’s collections of “edifying discourses.” The central piece in this exhibition is the diamond ring that SK had given his fiancée, Regine Olsen. After he terminated their engagement, and the ring was returned, Kierkegaard had the five diamonds fashioned into a cross, which he wore himself, "even unto death."

Soren Kierkegaard decided that he could not—or should not—marry. In part he feared that he would die before he turned 34 (as his mother and five of his siblings did). In part he felt that he was so homely, and melancholic, as to not deserve another’s love. But in larger part, SK determined that the intellectual project he envisioned would require so much effort, and such singularity of focus, that he could not make room in his life for anything, or anyone, else. Kierkegaard’s “authorship” thus became the cross for which, and on which, this remarkable individual suffered and died (at age 42, not 32)—for love, of a very particular (though, perhaps, a very peculiar) sort.

As I stood beside Kierkegaard’s writing desk, and looked at some of his cups and saucers (none of which matched, according to his preference for the individual in contradistinction to any collection or system), I appreciated again what Kierkegaard lived, worked, and died for. But visiting this museum exhibition with Jan made me keenly aware that in the conduct of my own life I made quite a different choice, or series of choices, than Kierkegaard did in his.

Had I been (or become) an American Kierkegaard, I would no doubt have produced, by now, a much larger output of creative and intellectual work than I can presently show for myself: one full-length play with music, 60 or 70 songs and other musical compositions, a hundred or so recorded saxophone performances, a handful rather than an armload of academic monographs (most unpublished), and one hefty dissertation (with limited audience appeal).

Had I devoted myself to an “authorship,” as SK did, what would I have today, in addition that body of work? No life’s partner. No children. No friends. Probably no saxophones. No former students. No money. No thanks.

The “existential” choices I made led to a different path—a shared path—not the path Kierkegaard walked alone. Nevertheless, the way I chose to live has demanded its own “purity of heart” and has yielded its own harvest of wisdom, fulfillment and “joyous suffering”—although, I admit, not too much solitariness and very little genius. My chosen path has led to ample and sometimes abundant love, occasional sacrifices, but no celebrity—and certainly no cross, either to bear or to wear!

Each day Jan and I were in Copenhagen I walked the city’s streets, as Kierkegaard himself did for two or three hours on most days of his life. It was touching to be walking alone in thought, seeing some of what my former intellectual hero must have seen, in much the same way as he must have seen it. But after a week of walking and reflecting in Copenhagen, I confess that the work of love, in my life, took me down a road somewhat more traveled. And that has made all the difference.

Who needed another “American Kierkegaard” anyway? Henry Thoreau had already played that role, and rather well indeed!

P.S. If you would like to read a little more about Kierkegaard, you could do worse than to start with a short essay by the late British writer and television commentator, Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990): 
http://www.plough.com/en/articles/2010/january/the-oddest-prophet-søren-kierkegaard