#kierke

1999 was not a good year for me. (2000 was worse.)  however, i just found a stack of old papers from over a decade ago.  one was the final exam for a course in literature and existentialism.  i came to this passage:

The Kierkegaardian paradox of living in a state of constant transition is epitomized in Rilke's last lines in "The Eighth Elegy:"  Who has twisted us around like this, so that/ no matter what we do, we are in the posture/ of someone going away?  Just as, upon/ the farthest hill, which shows him his whole valley/ one last time, he turns, stops, lingers--,/ so we live here, forever taking leave."  The moment posited on the synthesis of the temporal and the eternal is constantly fleeting; the future slips into the present which--in the moment--slips into the past.  Man exists in the slippage of time as spectators, according to Rilke.  The time "fills us.  We arrange it.  It breaks down./ We rearrange it, then break down ourselves."  The last breakdown of Man results in Kierkegaardian anxiety.  When flung into the brightness of nothing, "emerg[ing] into their freedom," Man cannot handle it and breaks down, fearing the future because of his past instead of reaching towards the freedom of the future.  The breakdown is the stasis, and hence, the sin.

see that bolded part?  oh hai, last decade or so.  now i'm thinking, lady! why didn't you listen to yourself!?

these words are mine.  so's all the writing i've done on whole site, but don't go stealing my old paper, because i will hunt you down.