“continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”

Posted on August 3, 2007 by David

A little Kierkegaard for a frame of reference:

When a self becomes lost in possibility…it is not merely because of a lack of energy…. What is missing is essentially the power to obey, to submit to the necessity in one’s life, to what may be called one’s limitations. Therefore, the tragedy is not that such a self did not amount to something in the world; no, the tragedy is that he did not become aware of himself, aware that the self he is a very definite something and thus the necessary…. The determinist, the fatalist, is in despair and as one in despair has lost his self, because for him everything has become necessary

Ok, so contrast the Internet with, I don’t know, the tribal shaman our ancestors of a few thousand years ago turned to when in doubt. Or the pre-Galilean Popes. Or our parents when we were five. Why does the sun rise in the East, where have I seen that actor before, what are some good recipes for our abundant crop of basil, and where can I get some good Belgian beer? Our ancestors may never have thought to ask such questions, and were left with little hope if they did. But even ten years ago, we lacked the wherewithal to have such ready access to whatever answers we might crave at any given second–a creative use of terms on google, imdb, or wikipedia, and, bam, instant dharma.

Bigger than the Beatles or Jesus in a very big sense. Why latch on to a seven-day theory that bound a few imaginative shamans, when you can reap the benefit of the collaborative efforts of the greatest thinkers in the history of humanity, just like that? And it’s not just the deep shit, immediate gratification is everywhere–I challenge you to put your iPod on random and find a song that does not have some tag somewhere on youtube.

If this is good or bad for civilization is not in my purview [seed for a thought tree: do they hate us because of their freedom to see our images and vice versa?], beyond some words on the thoughts of a generation to age knowing only this sense of possibility. Words like Complacency. Inertia. Resignation. Despair?

I propose it a joyous occasion rather than a frustration when, despite our best manipulations into the machine, we are left without an answer. It is this whack of emptiness, perhaps, that can awaken and enliven us. Yes, to pursue further, to fill in the blanks, but moreover to acknowledge that this even with our neat tools all our thoughts and theories are just theories, and this banana is bigger than we could ever dream to bite into.

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Comments

2 Responses to ““continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling””

  1. Tito on August 3rd, 2007 2:15 pm

    Of course there’s this:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/3am/2007/08/02/spice-iraq-89520-19556900/

  2. Black Market Kidneys » Claim Jumping on September 14th, 2007 6:14 am

    [...] thanks to the new Jesus, I discovered what you left-coasters already know: Claim Jumper is apparently a restaurant chain [...]