Since "modern" philosophy picks up pretty much in the 17th century, I could have read about John Locke (from Lost) or Thomas Hobbes (not the tiger), but I went with Kierkegaard, because my husband has been studying him.
My husband's a huge fan. He likes the way Kierkegaard engaged with Socrates. He is interested in how Kierkegaard wrestled with his faith and with the difficulties of his upbringing. What he recommended I read had the inviting title of Kierkegaard for Beginners and was part of a series called Beginners Documentary Comic Books, so that sounded promising. But they aren't really comic books. At least Donald Palmer's overview of Kierkegaard was not. It had more of the vibe of an Usborne book, with pictures and text jumping all over the page, except that the pictures were just black and white line drawings, and rather snarky and unattractive ones at that.
So maybe it was just the graphics of the book, but as I was reading I couldn't help but be reminded of a student's summary of Sartre's comments on the burden of freedom: "So this guy just was depressed and negative and wanted everyone else to be depressed too." Palmer certainly made it seem as if Kierkegaard's philosophy was an effort to take his own maladaptive attitude towards life and make it normative. He presented him as the originator of the sentiment that if you are not depressed, you are not paying attention. As a (sometimes) depressed person myself, I do tend to feel that way, but at the same time we have to recognize that God made people with sunny dispositions for a reason!
Let's give Kierkegaard some credit, though, for inventing a phrase that I use a lot to describe my gloomier states of mind: "Existential Angst." It turns out I've been misusing that phrase, though. It doesn't mean exactly, "having trouble with the fact that you exist and that everything else exists and how sort of complicated and difficult everything appears at the moment." It is more accurately described as "the dread you feel when you realize that you are capable of doing and free to do absolutely anything, no matter how obviously bad an idea it is."
I have certainly experienced that sensation as well, although not as frequently. Based on how people react when I try to explain what it's like, I can state definitively that this sensation is not a universal experience. Most people, oddly enough to me, do not, when they find themselves standing at heights, consider that they might suddenly fling themselves down. Most people, apparently, have never driven down the road and vividly imagined crossing the yellow line into oncoming traffic. And unlike Kierkegaard, I say there is nothing wrong with those people! He and I should leave them alone and let them stay in their sunny land of unicorns and rainbows!
So I come to the end of my journey through Philosophy and move forward into Religion with a renewed sense of why I need transcendental help. It's been fun, but humans just talking to each other about The Meaning of It All can't help but have limited perspectives...
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