Just as Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings were meant to enable the reader to understand different modes of existence from the inside, Carlisle’s biography takes us inside Kierkegaard’s troubled, complicated life, portraying a man who both compels and repels in turn.
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You cannot separate who you are from the culture in which you developed. Society is not a mere collection of atomised individuals. We are more than simply all cut from the same cultural cloth – we’re all part of the same fabric.
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While the narratives we like tell tend to be more like Hollywood movies, reality looks more like the work of a Beckett or a Pinter. The more we tidy the tales we tell, the more they resemble works of fiction rather than truthful histories.
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In Japan, thought and action, philosophy and life, are more intimately connected than most other places. Philosophy is largely an attempt to articulate and develop insights into how to live and who we are that are embedded in practices more than they are rooted in theories. The documentaries Ramen Heads and Jiro Dreams of Sushi show what much of this philosophy means more eloquently than can be straightforwardly said.
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I share the stereotypically British dislike of bragging and affection for self-deprecation. I also think the self-critical impulse is essential[…]
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