
Kierkegaard on Escaping the Cult of Busyness - keiferski
https://iainews.iai.tv/articles/how-kierkegaards-idea-of-idleness-can-help-us-diagnose-21st-century-busyness-auid-1150?
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kerabatsos
Coming from a highly prolific author who rarely kept idle it’s an interesting
observation - though, and as the author of the article points out, it’s likely
a perspective on a theme that he debates himself either/or...and of course it
goes without saying that Kierkegaard was an absolute genius and well worth
reading!

~~~
hliyan
On the topic of idleness, you may also find Russell's _In Praise of Idleness_
interesting (it has been discussed on HN before)

[https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-
idleness/](https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/)

It is where the following famous quote comes from:

"First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the
position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such
matter; second, telling other people to do so."

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hliyan
I've recently started reading _Drucker 's Lost Art of Management_ and have
discovered that Drucker's work has significant Kierkegaardian influences,
amongst other writers:
[https://books.google.lk/books?id=Pm4CHo6IdKIC&lpg=PA35&vq=Ki...](https://books.google.lk/books?id=Pm4CHo6IdKIC&lpg=PA35&vq=Kierkegaard&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q&f=false)

I've always thought of Drucker as the quintessential management guru
disconnected from reality, but reading through this is starting to change my
view about the man and his work...

~~~
sitkack
I love hearing about how people changed their minds.

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50
From Kierkegaard's _Works Of Love_ , pg. 103: "If you want to be well off and
yet easily manage to become something, then forget God, never let yourself
really become aware, never let it become really clear to you that it is he who
has created you from nothing; proceed on the presupposition that a human being
does not have time to waste on keeping in mind the one to whom he infinitely
and unconditionally owes everything... Forget it and be noisy along with the
crowd, laugh or cry, be busy from morning until night, be loved and respected
and esteemed as a friend, as a public official, as a king, as a pallbearer.
Above all be an earnest person by having forgotten the one and only
earnestness, to relate yourself to God, to become nothing."

~~~
franksvalli
This is great, thanks! This is very similar to one of my favorite parts from
Sickness Unto Death:

"Now this form of despair goes virtually unnoticed in the world. Precisely by
losing oneself in this way, a person gains all that is required for a flawless
performance in everyday life, yes, for making a great success out of life. One
is ground as smooth as a pebble. Far from anyone thinking of such a person as
being in despair, he is just what a human being ought to be. He is praised by
others; honored, esteemed, and occupied with all the goals of temporal life.

Yes, what we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may
so express it, pawn themselves to the world. They use their abilities, amass
wealth, carry out enterprises, make prudent calculations, and the like, and
perhaps are mentioned in history, but they are not authentic selves. They are
copies. In a spiritual sense they have no self, no self for whose sake they
could venture everything, no self for God, however self-consumed they are
otherwise."

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yesenadam
Kierkegaard used to make appearances at the theatre, but never staying long,
to make it look like he _wasn 't_ busy. Now that's going a bit far.

I also love _Either /Or_, parts of it, anyway - it's some of the funniest
writing I know. So many classic bits.

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linuxlizard
Kierkegaard might not have had a mortgage, kids vectoring toward absurdly
expensive college, a shaky economy, the knowledge at any moment one could lose
health care. In the modern economy, the sword of economic Damocles hangs above
us all.

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grecy
> _..Absurdly expensive college, a shaky economy, the knowledge at any moment
> one could lose health care._

Hundreds of millions of people living in First World countries don't have
these things hanging over them. I personally feel the things you have
mentioned are a basic human right.

