A lot to Wrestle With

                For starters I would like to point out that I am not the biggest fan of Kierkegaard and am more of a fan of Camus. Probably because I feel that Camus tells more of a story which makes it much easier to follow. There were times while reading Kierkegaard that I got lost in his writings. I think that since Camus tells a story it is much easier to relate to and therefore easier to understand.

                Jean Baptiste makes it quite clear that he does not care too much for judges. But through my reading of The Fall I grew to understand why he feels this way. Throughout the story Jean is challenging us to admit our guilt and he is frustrated by those who do not. His attitude towards those who cannot admit what they have done wrong helped me realize why he does not like judges. Judges only judge other but never themselves, so who are they to call somebody guilty. I don’t think a person is guilty until they realize what they have done and feel sorry for it. I mean guilty in the emotion sense and not the legal sense. Jean is able to be a lawyer because he is not passing judgment on others; but instead he is helping other admit their guilt, just like he did to us in The Fall.

                The way Jean gets frustrated when people don’t admit what they have done wrong does seem a bit extreme, but I think we all do it. Most of us have been wronged by somebody once or twice in our lives, and if you are the exception then keep doing what you’re doing. But what I mean is, have you ever been wronged by someone and that person got away with it, leaving you hopeless? Your emotions have been messed with yet your offender is indifferent to what it is they have done to you. Personally I think it is frustrating when this happens and a person should apologize for having done it. It is in cases like this that I get frustrated when people do not admit their guilt.

                I would now like to talk about Kierkegaard writing titled The Rotation Method starting on page 8. Kierkegaard goes into detail about boredom and what it causes us to do. I agree that boredom causes us to advance because personally when I am bored I try to do something with my time. Then when I grow bored of the things I love I move on to something else to fill that void. What was troubling for me to understand was that he made a comment saying that gods could have created worlds just because they were bored. This is troubling to me because I do practice Christianity and I believe in one God, but I never thought about what if God grew bored of us. In other words what if our world is like the equivalent to the middle child of other worlds. What if what we do is seen as insignificant because there is another world that does it better. In reference to what I said before that when I get bored of something I love I move on to a new vice, well what if that is the same case for God. What if God got bored with our world and moved on to another leaving us to fall apart?

                Later Kierkegaard makes a comment about faith, “Faith is the objective uncertainty along with the repulsion of the absurd seized in the passion of inwardness potentiated to the highest degree.” (Page 27)  As a Catholic I feel that a world without God and heaven would be absurd. I have no other evidence telling me that this is true except for my faith. I believe that it is faith that allows us to disregard the absurd.