Kierkergaard: Ph.D. in Life

What happened at the beginning of Days is repeated in every generation - Soren Kierkergaard

Since completing the Ph.D. and writing the book, I have returned to recreational reading. For fun. While at university, reading was work, processing information and research, pondering its applicability, putting ideas into my own words, and attempting to add new knowledge to my field.

Compared to some of my fellow doctoral students (and probably some of my professors) I actually worked with teenagers for two decades and had a good idea of what was/is valid from the ground up. This is not to discount the value of academia. However, theories must work in the real world to solve real issues and problems. Otherwise, it is just whistling in the wind.

It might surprise you that I think the primary needs in our society are not material. They are spiritual. Faith, Hope, and Love. Anyone who thinks Trump or any other jack-ass know-it-all can deliver the goods is a Cretin. My vote is for Soren. Seriously, what is going on these days is Three Stooges shit.  

The academy's insistence on new findings leads it most of the time to dead ends, at least in the social sciences, where narrowness and specificity is the game. Some of my peers doctoral dissertations were such a thin slice of society that I doubted it had much more durability/lasting value than the stock paper the Ph.D. degree was printed on.

I took on the topic of college preparation for first generation college students and it proved to be daunting. Yet, I dedicated myself for nearly a decade to hone my knowledge and practice. There are few in this society who know more about the topic than me. That is not a hollow boast but a statement of fact. My thinking on taking on this issue was to do the greatest amount of good for the largest amount of young people possible.

God has had to remind me and call me back to my primary calling: To serve the students and parents of my school district and not to ponder great things beyond these boundaries. The Kingdom of Heaven is first deep then broad. 15 minutes of fame evaporates in the sweltering sun of media. Here today, who tomorrow?

As part of my reading regiment, I have returned back to Soren K's Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses . I think I purchased the book nearly 20 years ago and found its writing to be too dense to comprehend. I gave up and it was placed back on the shelf. After I purged most of my books in the Diaspora, what remained were either books I had read and decided were worthy of preservation OR books I needed to read and were placed on  the To-Do. Post-Doc, I get his writing. Maybe my mind is just stripped.

I am about 1/4 of the way through the book. Saturday morning I coffee up and attempt to read a chapter in the book I am continuously amazed by Kierkegaard's truly transcendental reflection on existence. I am also finally knocking out The Hobbit which I had first tried to read back in 9th grade and it weirded me out. Like Dungeons and Dragons and the oddballs who partook.

In the essay yesterday, "Every Good Gift and Every Perfect Gift"   Kierkergaard explored the existential consequences of the Fall. (Exposition on James 1:17-22)

Here are some of the quotes that I transcribed into my Literary Journal:

The pain of want and the dubious happiness of possession. Even good gifts can be warped by an inordinate attachment to the gift and not the giver (God)

He still would not have the power to overcome himself. Despite our best efforts and works to be good and to do good, we are still essentially left alone in our fallen condition without God's grace. We are the problem and just because we can create difficulties does not imply that we can solve such dilemmas.

There is nothing good and pure in the world. True enough. Money, Food, Pleasure, Drink, Knowledge. All are corrupted.

Meekness discovers hidden things. When we have eyes to see the simple truths of Jesus, they are like jewels at our feet that we no longer walk over in pursuit of the forever moving horizon. Stay within the confines of the present and don't look too far ahead or back. Sufficient is the day and the troubles thereof.