A quick recap from the last post. The self is a relation between infinity and finitude, between the spiritual and the physical. So this mixture and synthesis is the primary ontological relation. Next, there is how we relate to this relation. For example, do we even recognize the spiritual aspect of our lives? And do we trust the One who created us as this relation?
And it's here, with how we stand in relation to the relation that is ourselves, where I'd like to continue with Kierkegaard's reflections in The Sickness Unto Death.
This has to do with how possibility and necessity relate to the spiritual and physical aspects of the human person. Possibility is related to what is eternal and spiritual within us, our capacity for freedom. Necessity is related to what is material and physical about us, that which is constrained, constricted, and determined by our material existence. Given this dialectical relation, our self is defined by how we relate to what is possible and necessary within and about ourselves. And as I described in the last post, this relation to the possible and the necessary is often a misrelation. In this post I want to share Kierkegaard's reflections about what happens when we misrelate to the possible.
Because we have eternity planted within us, we experience the self as a potentiality. In the language of Abraham Maslow, we feel within ourselves the call and imperative to "self-actualize." We must become ourselves, in the fullest sense. As Kierkegaard writes, the self "has the task of becoming itself."
The trouble with this task, Kierkegaard continues, is that possibility can "outrun" necessity. That is to say, what is given in the self as necessity, which comes from the material and physical side, is eclipsed by the possibility and potentiality of the self. But when the self becomes "abstract possibility," continues Kierkegaard, "it flounders in possibility until exhausted."
Think of the things we say to children and young adults in graduation speeches. You can be anything you want to be! This, says Kierkegaard, is to treat the self as wholly a possibility without any of the constraints of necessity. And since the self is ignoring the limits of necessity, which are true and integral aspects of human being, the self stands in a misrelation toward itself. And this, says Kierkegaard, is a form of despair, the sickness unto death.
Because we know the "You can be anything you want to be!" message is simply not true. I might want to be an NBA player, a rocket scientist, or in a Broadway musical. But there are necessary aspects of my biological and psychological endowments, to say nothing of environmental factors, that preclude my becoming any of these things, no matter what we might wish or desire. It is simply not true that I can be anything I want to be. Not everything is possible for me.
As Kierkegaard describes, whenever we preach a radical vision of self-actualization, "possibility seems greater and greater to the self." "Eventually," he continues, "everything becomes possible, but this is exactly the point at which the abyss swallows up the self." The wholly possible self, unlimited and unconstrained, Kierkegaard calls "a mirage." The self loses itself in dreams and fantasies of its (unattainable) future.
The reason the self gets lost in fantasies is because, says Kierkegaard, it is missing "the power to obey, to submit to the necessity in one's life, to what may be called one's limitations." By tipping too far into possibility, you lose touch with your finitude. Recall, at the heart of the self is a relation. As spiritual creatures we feel the pull of the eternal, the impetus to become. But that becoming is not wholly unconstrained. Our self-actualization project is bounded. As becoming creatures much is possible for us. So dare to dream. But those dreams must not become fantasies where our self becomes disconnected from its limitations. What then happens, says Kierkegaard, the self "runs away from itself." You're trying to self-actualize, but the actualization is no longer truthfully connected to the self in its necessity. Self-actualization morphs into self-delusion. Such a man, says Kierkegaard, "did not become aware of himself, aware that the self he is is a very definite something and thus the necessary."
Simply put, there is a real self, with real limitations, that you have to squarely face and negotiate with. Because you are human, there is much that is possible for you. And you have the task of fulfilling that possibility and actualizing that potential. But also because you are human, you are finite, limited, and constrained. Much is possible but not everything is possible, and you must "obey" the reality of yourself.
As Kierkegaard concludes, "In possibility everything is possible. For this reason, it is possible to become lost in possibility." And when a man gets lost in possibility he "chases after possibility—and at last cannot find his way back to himself."
