On the bathroom wall at Shaw Nature Reserve, I saw a sign with these words:
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. . .but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. . . Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be alright.”
Søren Kierkegaard, letter to Jette (1847)
One forgets at times how insightful Kierkegaard was, until reading the above. Or the following:
The essence of pleasure does not lie in the thing enjoyed, but in the accompanying consciousness. If I had a humble spirit in my service, who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world’s costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that pleasure consists not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.
Or my favorite:
People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.
“His earliest published essay, for example, was a polemic against women’s liberation.” (Quote from this site.)
Well, even great thinkers screw up from time to time.
Yours in freedom.
