From the Papers of One Still Living
A personal reflection on Kierkegaard, Andersen—and the seriousness of being human
There are some books you read.
And then there are those you carry with you.
For me, Søren Kierkegaard has never been someone I “finished.” He has been a companion. Sometimes demanding, sometimes unsettling—but always present.
I still remember when it began. In 1995, during my graduate (masters degree) studies in social work, my supervisor, Professor and Philosopher John Lundstøl, suggested I read The Sickness Unto Death. At the time, I did not fully understand what I was stepping into. Looking back, I see that it was less an academic recommendation—and more an invitation into a lifelong conversation.
Now, more than 30 years later, I am still in that conversation.
On the shelf behind me stands the complete Søren Kierkegaard’s Writings. Fifty-six volumes. A kind of quiet presence in the room. I sometimes look at them not as books, but as reminders: of questions that cannot be settled once and for all.
Kierkegaard has that effect. He does not give you answers you can underline twice. He places you in front of yourself.
When life becomes serious
I have been reading Kierkegaard’s very first publication: From the Papers of One Still Living (1838). At first glance, it is a literary critique of Hans Christian Andersen. But it does not take long before something else begins to emerge.
Something more existential.
The title itself stopped me.
One still living.
Why formulate it like that?
And then I began to read his life into the text.
Kierkegaard was the youngest of seven siblings. One after another, they died—most before the age of 33. His mother died. His father died. And suddenly, at 25, he found himself almost alone.
Imagine that for a moment.
To grow up surrounded by death in that way. To experience loss not as an exception—but almost as a pattern.
Kierkegaard came to believe that something rested over the family. A kind of shadow. He called it “the great earthquake.”
We do not know exactly what he meant by it. But we can sense its weight.
At one point, he writes about a realization that changed everything: that life could not be taken for granted. That time was not open-ended. That something demanded a response—now.
He believed he would not live beyond 33.
Whether that was true is, in a way, irrelevant.
What matters is how it shaped his way of being in the world.
Living as if time matters
I find myself pausing here.
Because this is not only Kierkegaard’s story.
It touches something recognizable.
We all live, most of the time, as if time is abundant. As if there will always be another opportunity, another conversation, another chance to choose differently.
But sometimes life interrupts that illusion.
Through loss. Through illness. Through encounters that shake something in us.
And then something shifts.
Not necessarily dramatically—but quietly.
Life becomes more serious. Not heavy—but real.
Reading Kierkegaard, I sense that this seriousness came early for him. And it stayed.
It shaped how he thought. How he wrote. How he related to existence itself.
And perhaps that is why his words still reach us.
Andersen—and the fragile genius
Kierkegaard’s book is, formally, a critique of Hans Christian Andersen’s novel Only a Fiddler.
I had not read it before. But through Kierkegaard’s reading, the story becomes vivid: a young man, Christian, gifted—perhaps even a genius—but unable to find his place in the world. He is not recognized. Not protected. Not given the conditions he needs.
And in the end, he breaks.
There is something deeply human in that story.
We have all, in one way or another, seen potential that never unfolded. Lives that did not find their form. People who were perhaps never truly seen.
Andersen seems to suggest that genius is fragile. That it can be shaped—or crushed—by circumstances.
Kierkegaard cannot accept that.
The question beneath the critique
What strikes me is that Kierkegaard is not only criticizing a novel.
He is asking a deeper question:
What sustains a human life?
His answer is demanding.
He says that a work of art—and by implication, a human life—must be grounded in what he calls a life-view.
Not as a theory. Not as a set of ideas.
But as something lived. Something wrestled with. Something that gives coherence from within.
Without this, he argues, both literature and life risk becoming fragmented. Chaotic. Perhaps even unbearably private.
I recognize something here from my own field—from years of working with people in difficult life situations.
We often look for solutions, methods, interventions.
But beneath all that, there is something more fundamental:
Does a person have something to stand in?
A harsh voice—and something softer beneath
Kierkegaard can be hard on Andersen.
At times, almost merciless.
He accuses him of lacking distance. Of being too entangled in his own story. Of allowing the text to become an extension of himself—almost like something torn out of him.
But then, near the end, something changes.
He admits that he felt gratitude.
I find that moment important.
Because it reminds me that even in critique, there can be recognition. Even in disagreement, there can be a form of connection.
Perhaps Kierkegaard saw something of himself in Andersen. Something he resisted—but also understood.
Two ways of understanding a human life
As I read this, I find myself thinking:
This is not only about Andersen and Kierkegaard.
It is about two ways of understanding what it means to be human.
On the one hand:
We are shaped by circumstances. By what meets us—or fails to meet us. By the conditions we are given.
On the other:
There is something within us that cannot be reduced to those conditions. Something that must respond. Choose. Take responsibility.
Kierkegaard expresses it strongly:
Genius is not something the world can simply extinguish. It is something that, under pressure, may burn even more intensely.
This is not an easy position.
But it is a deeply challenging one.
Reading Kierkegaard today
What moves me most in this early text is not only what Kierkegaard writes—but how he writes.
He writes as someone who is involved.
Not as an observer. Not as a detached academic voice.
But as a human being who feels that something is at stake.
And perhaps that is what I carry with me into my own work—whether in writing, teaching, or practice.
That theory and life are not separate.
That thinking is not something we do from a distance.
That understanding something also means being touched by it.
Still living
I return, in the end, to the title.
From the Papers of One Still Living.
There is something almost quiet about it.
Not dramatic. Not declarative.
Just a simple acknowledgment:
I am here.
For now.
And perhaps that is enough.
Or perhaps it is exactly where everything begins.
References
Garff, J. (2000). Søren Aabye Kierkegaard: A biography. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
Kierkegaard, S. (1962). Collected works (Vol. 1). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
Kierkegaard, S. (1997). Søren Kierkegaard’s writings (Vol. 1). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
Kierkegaard, S. (1997). Commentary volume K1. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
Kierkegaard, S. (2011). Søren Kierkegaard’s writings (Vol. 27). Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
Kierkegaard, S. (2011). Commentary volume 27K. Copenhagen: GADS Forlag.
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