Possibility then appears to the self ever greater and greater, more and more things become possible, because nothing becomes actual. At last it is as if everything were possible ---but this is precisely when the abyss has swallowed up the self. Every possibility even would require some time to become actuality. But finally the time which should be available for actuality becomes shorter and shorter, everything becomes more instantaneous. Possibility becomes more and more intense - but only in the sense of possibility, not in the sense of actuality; for in the sense of actuality the meaning of intensity is that at least something of that which is possible becomes actual. At the instant something appears possible, and then a new possibility makes its appearance, at last this phantasmagoria moves so rapidly that it is as if everything were possible - and this is precisely the last moment, when the individual becomes himself a mirage.
-Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, 1843
No comments:
Post a Comment