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Full Idea
In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
Gist of Idea
What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing
Source
Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
Book Ref
Aho,Kevin: 'Existentialism: an introduction' [Polity 2014], p.32
A Reaction
I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?
| 22087 | Philosophy fails to articulate the continual becoming of existence [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 5651 | Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| 5650 | Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton] |
| 22095 | There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 22091 | Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 22088 | Faith is like a dancer's leap, going up to God, but also back to earth [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 22090 | For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| 20747 | What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard] |
| 9305 | The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard] |