r/kierkegaard

I’ve been reading Kierkegaard for a while now, and lately, I’ve found myself falling into a very strange, one-sided dynamic with him. I know he passed away over 170 years ago, but I honestly feel like I have a parasocial relationship with the guy.

In my eyes, he is truly the father of existentialism, and honestly, it feels impossible to disagree with what he says. His insights feel so undeniably true to the human experience. A Naive and Pure Soul: Beyond the sharp critique of society and the philosophical rigor, there is something incredibly naive and deeply genuine about his writing. He speaks directly to the soul, and it feels like a personal conversation with a friend who truly understands the weight of existence.

When reading Fear and Trembling or The Sickness Unto Death, I get this feeling that SK gets my personal struggles more than anyone else in my actual life. It almost feels like an intimate friendship based on shared melancholy and dread.

TI constantly remind myself that I am relating to a highly constructed persona (or rather, multiple personas), yet I still feel like I know the real Søren behind the masks.

Is this just the natural result of his deeply subjective and intimate writing style, or has his ghost successfully haunted my study? Do any of you experience a similar "connection" with him, or is it just me over-identifying with a 19th-century Danish philosopher?

Would love to hear your thoughts or if anyone else treats him like an imaginary best friend

How could Kirkeegaard’s God be understood beyond religion?

I relate quite strongly to his idea of two knights in Fear and Trembling, but feel like idea of God is not well explained - he’s sort of going by the Christian understanding, where God is both cosmic unknown but also has human characteristics, eg. asks for things, gets angry etc.

Given that, can there be a Knight of Faith, who serves a broader understanding of faith? What would he believe in? Virtue? Will? Humanity? Problem is that none of those can ask him to sacrifice Isaac.

Every Leap of Faith I’ve Taken has Ended in Betrayal.

Whenever I’ve taken a “leap of faith” in my life, it has led me straight into a ditch.

I trusted people because I believed sincerity would be met with sincerity. I gave others the benefit of the doubt, convinced myself that honesty, vulnerability & goodwill still meant something and would be reciprocated positively. I ignored hesitation and took the jump anyway believing the outcome would somehow justify the risk.

Instead, I was betrayed.

Not once or twice, but enough times that the pattern feels impossible to ignore. And what makes it worse is not just the betrayal itself, but the aftermath: The emotional exhaustion, the time lost, the resources spent trying to recover and rebuild myself after every fall.

Kierkegaard speaks about the leap of faith as something necessary, a movement beyond rational certainty - Transcendence.

How do you continue to leap after repeated experiences of being burned?

How to resolve the heavy feeling of resentment and skepticism while going forward?

Has your own “leap of faith” ever led somewhere meaningful or has it mostly been suffering dressed up as hope?

I’d genuinely like to hear how others here interpret this idea through their own experiences.

Fuck

From a recollection by his friend and distant cousin, the philosophy professor Hans Brøchner:

In those days [the 1840s], I occasionally saw S.K. on horseback. He had learned to ride in order to get some exercise and to make short outings without having to depend on coachmen and so forth. He did not cut a particularly good figure on a horse. His posture revealed his lack of confidence about being able to do much to control the horse should it take it into its head to rebel. He sat on the horse stiffly and gave the impression that he was constantly recalling the riding master’s instructions. He can hardly have had much freedom to pursue his thoughts and fantasies on horseback. He soon gave up this sport and preferred to take a carriage when he wanted to visit his favorite spots in the forests around Copenhagen. In the years of his most intense literary activity, these excursions were one of the means he employed to keep fresh and to bring on the mood required for production.