Soren Kierkegaard

what was decisive. This, then, was the cause of all that hypochondriacal
nonsense about having positioned myself too loftily in any of my writings,
something that is so alien to my soul....Nowthetwoessays—“Has a
Human Being the Right to Allow Himself to Be Put to Death for the
Truth?” and “On the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle”—will
be published, but anonymously.... If I let this ‘moment’ pass me by, the
point and posture of the entire productivity will be forfeited, and then ev-
erything will be overwhelmed by the second edition ofEither/Or. But I
wanted to play lord and master, governing things myself, justifying myself
to God with hypochondriacal evasions.”
Here, as in the two previous journal entries, Kierkegaard described the
relief he felt in acknowledging the failure of his plans—“Oh, phooey!”—
butwhathehadrejectedtenjournalentriespreviouslyasmelancholichypo-
chondria was now greeted as a requirement by God that he assume his
character. Kierkegaard’s fear that he would himself take on the role of Gov-
ernance was thus well-grounded, for in these journal entries this very Gov-
ernance is a peculiarly flexible entity, which, not without reason, was just
as indecisive as Kierkegaard and was therefore able to justify first one inter-
pretation, then another. But if he was not to forfeit “the point of the pro-
ductivity,”he wouldhaveto repeatH.H.’stextual martyrdomexistentially;
that was the only way the productivity could attain its “virtual and actual
high point.” Onward! Onward! This was the direction, and Kierkegaard
knew it: “Oh, phooey, phooey! that because of fear of the dangers, because
of hypochondria, because of a failure to trust in God, I have wanted to
make myself into something far less than what has been granted me. It is as
if I simply defrauded the truth....Andyetithadseemed to me [that I was
being] so humble. Oh, hypochondria, hypochondria!... The outlook is
dark, and yet I am so much at peace. This, my birthday, will be unforgetta-
ble to me!”
It was the master thinker/martyr’s thirty-sixth birthday! He celebrated
the day by giving himself a good scolding, admitting that he had defrauded
the truth. To symbolize his new posture, he had the twoEssaysbrought
over to Giødwad, who was to deliver them discreetly to the publisher
Gyldendal. Kierkegaard regarded the action as decisive and definitive. Now
all he lacked was the physical opposition of the mob, because such opposi-
tion was of course necessary if there was going to be a martyrdom. And
there really ought to be one, inasmuch as there “is only one consistent
understanding of Christianity,... to become a martyr.”
We must grant that with his own thin-skinned heroism, Kierkegaard had
striven to be consistent ever since his fateful collision withThe Corsair, and
that in 1847 he could sketch hisown, fragile, academic figure into the urban