Stages on Life’s Way

by Søren Kierkegaard

  Although the difference between memory and recollection is great, they are frequently confused. In human life, this confusion lends itself to studying the depth of the individual. 17That is, recollection is ideality, but as such it is strenuous and conscientious in a way completely different from indiscriminate memory. Recollection wants to maintain for a person the eternal continuity in life and assure him that his earthly existence remains uno tenore [uninterrupted], one breath, and expressible in one breath. Therefore it declines to have the tongue be constrained to chatter on and on in order to ape the chattering nature of life’s content. The condition for man’s immortality is that life is uno tenore. Strangely enough, Jacobi is the only one who, as far as I know, has commented on the terror in thinking oneself immortal.18 At times it seemed to him as if the thought of immortality, if he held on to it a little longer in the single moment, would confuse his mind. Is the reason for this that Jacobi had bad nerves? A robust man who has acquired callouses on his hand simply by pounding the pulpit or the lectern every time he proved immortality feels [VI 17] no such terror, and yet he surely knows all about immortality, for in Latin19 to have callouses means to understand something completely. However, as soon as one confuses memory and recollection, the thought is not so terrible—in the first place because one is bold, manly, and robust, and in the second place because one is not thinking the thought at all. No doubt many a man has written memoirs of his life in which there was not a trace of recollection, and yet the recollections were indeed his proceeds for eternity. In recollection, a person draws on the eternal. 20The eternal is sufficiently humane to honor every claim and to regard everyone as solvent. But it is not the fault of the eternal that a person makes a fool of himself—and remembers instead of recollects and as a result forgets instead of recollects, for what is remembered is also forgotten. But in turn, memory makes life free and easy. One cavalierly goes through the most ludicrous metamorphoses; even at an advanced age one still plays blindman’s buff, still plays the lottery of life, and still can become almost anything, although one has been an incredible number of things. Then one dies—and thereupon becomes immortal. And precisely by having lived in such a way, should one not have richly provided oneself with enough to recollect for a whole eternity? Yes, if recollection’s ledger were nothing more than a notebook in which one scribbles anything that comes to mind. But recollection’s bookkeeping is a curious thing. 21 One could assign oneself a few such problems—but not in fellowship. One person talks day in and day out to general assemblies and always about what the times demand, yet not repetitiously in a Cato-like, tedious way,22 but always interestingly and intriguingly he follows the moment and never says the same thing; at parties, too, he imposes himself and doles out his fund of eloquence, at times with full even measure, at times heaped up, and always to applause; at least once a week there is something about him in the newspaper; also at night he bestows his favors, on his wife, that is, by talking even in his sleep about the demands of the times as if he were at a general assembly. Another person is silent before he speaks and goes so far that he does not speak at all; they live the same length of time—and here the question of the result is raised: Who has more to recollect? One person pursues one idea, one single idea, is preoccupied only with it; another is an author in seven branches of scholarship and “is interrupted in [VI 18] this significant work” (it is a journalist who is speaking) “just as he was about to transform veterinary science”; they live the same length of time—and here the question of the result is raised: Who has more to recollect?

  Actually, only the essential can be recollected, for the old man’s recollecting, as stated, is basically of an accidental character; the same holds true of analogies to his recollecting. The essential is conditioned not only by itself but also by its relation to the person concerned. The person who has broken with the idea cannot act essentially, can undertake nothing that is essential; the essential would then be to repent, which is the only new ideality. Despite external indications, anything else he does is unessential. To take a wife is indeed something essential, but anyone who has ever dallied with erotic love [Elskov] may very well strike his brow and his heart and his r— in sheer seriousness and solemnity; it is still frivolity. Even if his marriage involved a whole nation and the bells were rung and the pope married them, it nevertheless is not anything essential to him but essentially is frivolity. The external noise makes no difference, just as the fanfare and presentation of arms do not make the lottery-drawing an essential act for the boy who draws the numbers.23 Acting essentially does not depend essentially on the blowing of trumpets. But what is recollected cannot be forgotten either. What is recollected is not inconsequential to recollecting in the way that what is remembered is inconsequential to remembering. What is recollected can be thrown away, but just like Thor’s hammer,24 it returns, and not only that, like a dove it has a longing for the recollection, yes, like a dove, however often it is sold, that can never belong to anyone else because it always flies home. But no wonder, for it was recollection itself that hatched out what was recollected, and this hatching is hidden and secret, solitary, and thus immune to any profane knowledge—in just the same way the bird will not sit on its egg if some stranger has touched it.

  Memory is immediate and is assisted immediately, recollection only reflectively. This is why it is an art to recollect. Rather than remember, I, along with Themistocles, wish only to be able to forget;25 but to recollect and to forget are not opposites. The art of recollecting is not easy, because in the moment of preparation it can become something different, whereas memory merely fluctuates between remembering correctly and remembering incorrectly. For example, what is homesickness? It is something remembered that is recollected. [VI 19] Homesickness is prompted simply by one’s being absent. The art would be to be able to feel homesickness even though one is at home. This takes proficiency in illusion. To go on living in an illusion in which there is continual dawning, never daybreak, or to reflect oneself out of all illusion is not as difficult as to reflect oneself into an illusion, plus being able to let it work on oneself with the full force of illusion even though one is fully aware. To conjure up the past for oneself is not as difficult as to conjure away the present for the sake of recollection. This is the essential art of recollection and is reflection to the second power.

  To bring about a recollection for oneself takes an acquaintance with contrasting moods, situations, and surroundings. An erotic situation in which the salient feature was the cozy remoteness of rural life can at times be best recollected and inwardly recollected in a theater, where the surroundings and the noise evoke the contrast. Yet the direct contrast is not always the happy one. If it were not unbecoming to use a human being as a means, the happy contrast for recollecting an erotic relationship might be to arrange a new love affair merely in order to recollect.

  The contrast can be extremely reflective. The ultimate in the reflective relationship between memory and recollection is to use memory against recollection. For opposite reasons, two people could wish not to see again a place that reminds them of an event. The one has no inkling at all that there is something called recollection but merely fears the memory. Out of sight, out of mind, he thinks; if only he does not see, then he has forgotten. Precisely because the other wants to recollect, he does not want to see. He uses memory only against unpleasant recollections. One who understands recollection but does not understand this indeed has ideality but lacks experience in using consilia evangelica26 adversus casus conscientiae [the evangelical counsels against a matter of conscience]. Indeed, he will probably even regard the advice as a paradox and shy away from enduring the first pain, which, nevertheless, just like the first loss, is always to be preferred.27 When memory is refreshed again and again, it enriches the soul with a mass of details that distract recollection. Thus repentance is a recollection of guilt. From a purely psychological point of view, I really believe that the police aid the criminal in not coming to repent. By contin
ually recounting and repeating his life experiences, the criminal becomes such a memory expert at rattling [VI 20] off his life that the ideality of recollection is driven away. Really to repent, and especially to repent at once, takes enormous ideality; therefore nature also can help a person, and delayed repentance, which in regard to remembering is negligible, is often the hardest and the deepest. The ability to recollect is the condition for all productivity. If a person no longer wishes to be productive, he needs merely to remember the same thing that recollecting he wanted to produce, and production is rendered impossible, or it will become so repulsive to him that the sooner he abandons it the better.

  Strictly speaking, a fellowship of recollection does not exist. A kind of quasi-fellowship is a contrast-form that the one recollecting uses on his own behalf. Sometimes recollection is prompted best by seeming to confide in someone else only in order to conceal behind this confidence a new reflection in which the recollection comes into existence for oneself.28 As far as memory is concerned, people can certainly join together for mutual assistance. In this respect, banquets, birthday celebrations, love tokens, and expensive mementos serve the same purpose as turning a dog-ear in a book in order to remember where one left off reading and by the dog-ear to be sure of having read the whole book through. The wine press of recollection, however, everyone must tread alone. In itself, this is far from being a curse. 29Inasmuch as one is always alone with recollection, every recollection is a secret. Even if several persons are interested in what is the object of recollecting to the one recollecting, he is nevertheless alone with his recollection—the seeming public character is merely illusory.

  What has been propounded here is for my own personal recollection of thoughts and intellectual preoccupations that have engrossed my soul many times and in many ways. The occasion for jotting them down is that I now feel inclined to redeem for recollection something I once experienced, to record something that has lain completely remembered for some time now and also partially recollected. 30What I have to remember is small in scope, and thus the work of memory is easy; but I have had difficulty getting it out properly for recollection simply because for me it has become something entirely different than for the honorable participants, who probably would smile to see any importance whatsoever attributed to such a trifle—a playful whim, a preposterous idea, as they themselves would call it. Indeed, how meaningless the memory is to me I see in the fact that at times it seems as if I never [VI 21] experienced it at all but invented it myself.

  I know very well that I shall not soon forget that banquet in which I participated without being a participant; but just the same I cannot now decide to release it without having provided myself with a scrupulous written ἀπομνημόνευμα [memoir] of what for me was actually memorabile [worthy of memory].31 32—Recollection’s erotic understanding I have endeavored to encourage, whereas I have done nothing for memory. The situation of recollection is created by contrast, and already for some time now I have been trying to weave my recollection of this experience into the contrast of the surroundings. The splendidly lighted dining room where the banquet was held and the intoxicating flood of reflected light produced a fantastic effect. As far as that goes, recollection desires a contrast that is not fantastic. The exhilarated mood of the participants, the hubbub of the conviviality, the effervescent zest of the champagne are best recollected in a quiet, out-of-the-way forgetfulness. The intellectual exuberance, as it overflowed in the heightened mood of the speakers, is best recollected in peaceful tranquillity. Any attempt to assist recollection directly would only miscarry and punish me with the aftertaste of mimicry. So I have deliberately selected an environment on the basis of contrast. I have sought the solitude of the forest,33 yet not at a time when the forest itself is fantastic. For example, the stillness of night would not have been conducive, because it, too, is in the power of the fantastic. I have sought nature’s peacefulness during the very time when it is itself most placid. I have, therefore, chosen the afternoon light. Insofar as the fantastic is present here, it is only dimly intimated in the soul; on the other hand, there is nothing more gentle and more peaceful and more calming than the waning radiance of the afternoon light. And just as a sick person restored again to life prefers to seek this soothing refreshment, and just as an overstrained person who has suffered much prefers to seek this solace, 34so I, too, for opposite reasons, have sought it precisely in order to achieve the opposite.

  35In Gribs-Skov36 there is a place called the Nook of the Eight Paths;37 only the one who seeks worthily finds it, for no map indicates it. Indeed, the name itself seems to contain a contradiction, for how can the meeting of eight paths create a nook, how can the beaten and frequented be reconciled with [VI 22] the out-of-the-way and the hidden? And, indeed, what the solitary shuns is simply named after a meeting of three paths: triviality38—how trivial, then, must be a meeting of eight paths! And yet it is so: there actually are eight paths, but nevertheless it is very solitary there. Out-of-the-way, hidden, and secret—one is very close to a forest area called the Unlucky Enclosure. Thus the contradiction in the name only makes the place more solitary, just as contradiction always makes for solitariness. The eight paths—heavy traffic is only a possibility, a possibility for thought, because no one travels this path except a tiny insect that hurries across lente festinans [hastening at leisure].39 No one travels it except that fugitive traveler that is constantly looking around, not in order to find someone but in order to avoid everyone, that fugitive that even in its hiding place does not feel the traveler’s longing for a message from someone, that fugitive that only the fatal bullet overtakes, which indeed explains why the deer now became so still but does not explain why it was so restless. No one travels this road except the wind, about which it is not known whence it comes or whither it goes.40 Even he who let himself be deceived by that beguiling beckoning with which the shut-in-ness tries to catch the wayfarer, even he who followed the narrow footpath that lures one into the inclosures of the forest, even he is not as solitary as someone at the eight paths that no one travels. Eight paths and not a traveler! Indeed, it is as if the world were dead and the one survivor were in the awkward situation that there was no one to bury him,41 or as if the whole tribe had gone off on the eight paths and had forgotten someone! —If what the poet says is true: Bene vixit qui bene latuit [He who has hidden his life has lived well],42 43then I have lived well, for my nook was well chosen. It certainly is true that the world and everything therein never look better than when seen from a nook and one must secretly contrive to see it; it is also true that everything heard and to be heard in the world sounds most delectable and enchanting heard from a nook when one must contrive to hear.44 Thus I have frequently visited my sequestered nook. I knew it before, long before; by now I have learned not to need nighttime in order to find stillness, for here it is always still, always beautiful, but it seems most beautiful to me now when the autumn sun is having its midafternoon repast and the sky becomes a languorous blue when creation takes a deep breath after the heat, when the cooling starts and the meadow grass [VI 23] shivers voluptuously as the forest waves, when the sun is thinking of eventide and sinking into the ocean at eventide, when the earth is getting ready for rest and is thinking of giving thanks, when just before taking leave they have an understanding with one another 45in that tender melting together that darkens the forest and makes the meadow greener.

  46 O friendly spirit, you who inhabit these places, thank you for always protecting my stillness, thank you for those hours spent in recollection’s pursuits, thank you for that hiding place I call my own! Then stillness grows as the shadows grow, as silence grows: a conjuring formula! Indeed, what is as intoxicating as stillness! For no matter how quickly the drunkard raises the glass to his lips, his intoxication does not increase as quickly as the intoxication created by stillness, which increases with every second! And what is the intoxicating content of the glass but a drop compared with the infinite sea of silence from w
hich I drink!47 And what is all the seething of the wine but a fleeting illusion compared with the spontaneous bubbling of silence, which seethes more and more vigorously! But then, too, what vanishes as quickly as this reveling—once there is speaking! And what is as nauseating as the condition of being suddenly cut off from it—even worse than the drunkard’s awakening, when one in silence is bereft of speech, shy at the sound of words, stammering like someone who is tongue-tied, weak as a surprised woman, too weak at the moment to be able to beguile with words! Thank you, then, you friendly spirit, for holding surprise and interruption at bay, for the intruder’s apology is of little help.

  How often I have thought about this! In the human swarm, one does not become guilty if one is innocent, but solitary stillness is holy, and thus everything that disturbs it becomes guilty, and the chaste association of silence, if violated, tolerates no excuse nor is helped by it any more than modesty by explanations. How painful it was when it happened to me—to stand there with the nagging pain in the soul, ashamed of my offense: to have disturbed someone in his solitude! In vain will repentance seek to fathom it: this guilt is inexpressible, just like silence. Only someone who sought solitude unworthily can benefit from surprise, as if a pair of lovers did not even there have the power to shape a situation. If this is the case, then one can serve Eros and the lovers by making an appearance, even if to the lovers one’s service remains a mystery, just as the guilt does—they cling closer together out of irritation with the intruder, to whom they are nevertheless indebted for their so doing. But if they are two lovers who worthily seek solitude, how oppressive it is then to take them by [VI 24] surprise, how one could curse oneself as every animal was cursed when it approached Sinai!48 Who does not feel this way, who, when he sees but as yet is unseen, could not wish to be like a bird that flutters voluptuously above the heads of the lovers, a bird whose cry is prophetic of erotic love, a bird, seductive to look at, that darts among the bushes; who could not wish to be like the solitude of nature that tempts Eros, like the echo that confirms that one is in an out-of-the-way place, like the far-off sounds that guarantee that the others are going away and leaving the lovers behind! And this last wish is no doubt the best, for when one hears the others going away, one becomes solitary. The most solitary of situations is Zerlina’s in Don Giovanni;49 she is not alone, no, she becomes alone; we hear the disappearing of the Chorus, and solitude becomes audible in the distant fading away of this sound, and solitude comes into existence. You eight paths, you only led everyone away from me and brought back to me just my own thoughts.