Status Updates From Fear and Trembling and The ...

“To be ‘self in the way he wants to be it, that would be – even if in another sense just as despairing – everything he desired; but to be forced to be ‘self in a way that he doesn’t want to be, that is his torment – not being able to be rid of himself.”

“The self which, in his despair, he wants to be is a self he is not (indeed, to want to be the self he truly is, is the very opposite of despair); that is, he wants to tear his self away from the power which established it. But despite all his despair, this he is incapable of doing. Despite all his despairing efforts, that power is the stronger, and it compels him to be the self he does not want to be. ”